A Study On The Application Of Peer Feedback In Senior English-writing Class

As an output activity, writing entails students'comprehensive abilities to use English. In the process of teaching, the author finds that students have great difficulty in English writing concerning the lack of genre knowledge and adequate writing strategies, poor grasp of basic language knowledge, the negative influence from the native language writing etc. In fact, English-writing is one of the most difficult aspects either for students or for teachers.Feedback, as a critical contribution to the evolution of a piece of writing, is often ignored by teachers. In this paper, the author introduces peer feedback and group assessment instructed by the teacher and aims to test the effectiveness of peer feedback in senior English-writing class. Two parallel classes of senior grade three students(29 students in each class)are involved in the research, which has lasted one semester.The findings of the research have demonstrated that most students have positive attitude toward peer feedback, but it is not suitable for every student, especially those low-proficiency students to follow this model. Therefore peer feedback should be more effective if it is integrated with the teacher's feedback.Most of the students have also agreed that peer feedback does help them to revise and improve their writing to some extent, especially in content and structure. In addition, it has provided students with an authentic audience. Such a feedback can also help to cultivate students'writing strategies. But in grammatical correction, students are eager to receive suggestions from the teacher. Thus peer feedback can't totally take the place of teacher's feedback.The author has also found that peer feedback has aroused students'interest in writing, helping students in self-evaluation and developing writing skills and strategies. It has also developed their abilities to cooperate with others.This paper has also discovered that the evaluation mode of writing should be conducted with the following principles:the teaching process should be student centered, but at the same time teacher guided; the assessment should be both formative and dynamic; and writing feedback should be full of cooperation and appreciation. To sum up, these findings have profound implications for the senior English writing class. Peer feedback should be regarded as a necessary and complementary source of feedback in the teaching of writing. In addition, teachers should be flexible when implementing peer feedback in different classes in order to help the students as much as possible.