Doing Peer Learning And Peer Assessment In Oral English Classroom At Tertiary Level

With the development of globalization, information, and knowledge economy, great changes have taken place in the objectives of personnel training in our country, which transformed from transmission of knowledge and skills to quality education marked by cultivating students’creativity and problem-solving ability. Such development and transformation has brought up a challenge and also provided potential condition and room for us to do peer learning and peer assessment in English teaching and learning at tertiary level in China.Influenced and guided by social constructivism, peer learning and peer assessment has been studied and practiced abroad for many years and scholars in some foreign countries have created well-developed teaching notions and operational procedures. In recent years, scholars in China are also making efforts to implement it in different subjects at different levels. However, rare studies have been carried out in teaching non-English majors in oral English instruction.Based on the research from home and abroad, we can find that despite the different research background, participants, and teaching situation, foreign and domestic scholars have come to the similar conclusion that compared with traditional lectures peer learning and peer assessment is beneficial for training students’self-confidence, initiative, and learning competence. Therefore, in order to prove those research results and further explore the feasibility and effectiveness of this teaching model in China, the author used116non-English majors in a college of Liaoning Province as subjects and carried out experiment in oral English teaching for16weeks. By using interview and questionnaire, the author gathered and analyzed information to test hypothesis. From the feedback obtained from interview and questionnaire, the author arrived at these benefits:all the students in the experiment enjoyed oral English course more than before; they like peer assessment best because they find it fresh and rewarding; peer learning and peer assessment is useful to increase their abilities of cooperation, organization and coordination and contribute to their lifelong learning.It is hoped that this teaching method can be used in other subjects and let more students gain benefits from it. This thesis has brought about some implications and suggestions to English teaching in China:teachers should upgrade their beliefs and trust each individual student’s potentiality and capability in learning, attaching importance to their initiative and self-confidence; English teaching should be learner-centered, emphasizing two subjects of both the teacher and students; what matters when using peer learning and peer assessment is the way of how to divide students into study groups so that each member can perform into their full play; as an inseparable part in the learning process, peer learning followed by peer assessment is an effective approach to prove and improve student learning.