An Empirical Study On Peer Review In The Teaching Of English Writing In Junior Middle Schools

Peer review is an important part of the Process Approach. The Process Approach promotes multiple-draft writing, encourages students to think independently, to collect, organize and internalize materials by themselves. Feedback is always throughout the writing process, and it includes not only the teacher feedback, but also the peer feedback, that is, peer review or peer response.The essence of peer review is that students exchange their writings, to review each other’s writing under a certain guidance, and discuss any problems to modify the compositions. It is believed that peer review tends to improve the writing and teaching activities.In China, the traditional teaching of English writing advocates the Product Approach, which focuses on the writing product. Teachers regard the student’s first draft as the final draft, they just review the composition with vague and general feedback such as "excellent","good" or "OK". Many teachers prefer to score the writing instead of elaborating on the reason why it is good or why it is puzzling. Sometimes the teacher will fail to hand back the writing in time, and when the students read their compositions again, they may have forgotten what they had written before. These problems have a serious impact on the teaching effectiveness of the English writing, we need a better way to improve the teaching of English writing, and peer review is a good choice.Peer review has been widely used in the teaching of writing in English-speaking countries. However, this teaching method has not been popularized in EFL teaching in China. What’s more, the existing researches of peer review in China mainly focus on higher education study groups or senior high school students, but pay little attention to junior high school students.The purpose of this research is to implement peer review in the English writing teaching for ninth-grade students in junior high school, to explore the validity of peer review, to find out whether it can improve the students’writing and what is the students’ attitude towards it, and to find solutions to solve the problems encountered during the implementation process.The experiment was carried out in two parallel classes in the ninth grade. The experimental class adopted peer review teaching method, while the control class was taught in accordance with the traditional writing teaching mode. During the three-month experiment, the researcher carried out pre-test and post-test, two questionnaires were also adopted before and after the experiment. We analyzed the pre-test and post-test data with SPSS statistical software, and the results show that compared with the control class, the experimental class obtained a higher average score in English writing. And the results of the post-questionnaire show that peer review is generally recognized and welcomed by students, it plays a positive role in promoting students’interest and enthusiasm for English writing.In a word, the results of this research show that peer review has feasibility and effectiveness for ninth-grade students in junior high schools. Peer review helps to reduce students’anxiety in English writing, and improve their ability of writing appreciation. In addition, it promotes better understanding between students and improves their sense of cooperation, and broadens students’thinking as well.However, the study also finds that the teacher feedback still occupies a position of authority in the eyes of junior high school students. Because of their limited English language acquisition, students always make errors in the process of peer review teacher’s advice and guidance are necessary throughout the whole process. Peer review is a useful supplement to teacher feedback.