A Study Of The Influences Of Teachers’ Feedback And Peers’ Feedback On English Writing Ability Of Middle School Students

As many L2scholars and L2teachers noted, writing skill is moredifficult to grasp than the other three language skills (listening, speaking,reading) but it is a necessary one. At present, English writing teaching isstill a weak part and it attracts many researchers and teachers to find waysof improving writing teaching.This research was going to explore three things: the changing ofstudents’ attitudes towards teacher feedback and peer feedback during thisexperiment；the influences of teachers’ feedback and peers’ feedback onEnglish writing；the differences between these two feedbacks whileinfluencing students’ writing.In order to get answers, the researcher did comparative experimentin two parallel classes of grade2from Guiyang No.30Middle School byadopting three instruments. He did questionnaire at the beginning and endof the writing experiment, then he interviewed volunteers during theexperiment. In the three months’ experiment, he was to assign5writingpractices. By doing questionnaires, interview and writing practice, theresearcher carried out his research.After three months’ research, three questions were answered.Before the study, students from two classes thought more highly ofteacher feedback. But after study, students in experimental class viewed peer feedback as another important way of improving writing skills.Through the research, the researcher found that both teachers’ feedbackand peers’ feedback had positive effect on improving students’ writingskills and then students got high writing score. However, peers’ feedbackhas extra significance: Peers’ feedback can stimulate students’ writingmotivation and interest the most, enhance students’ awareness ofcooperative learning and help students to form the habit of cooperativelearning. During cooperative learning, the interrelationship amongstudents will be enhanced. Besides, such successful learning experiencecan make students accept cooperative learning in writing process.Peer feedback, an important component of writing process, helpsstudents understand each process of writing better firstly and then getmore involved in writing process to improve writing. Peer feedback is aneffective learning strategy, and it helps students improve their writing inmany aspects by giving and accepting it in the context of cooperativelearning. By giving peer feedback, students’ ability of thinkingindependently would be improved. Through revising writing with peerfeedback, students’ inner language will be aroused and reconstructed. Inan appropriate context, writing will be a key activity that fosters students’language competence. At the same time, this study finds limitations aboutpeer feedback. When using peer feedback in middle school classroom,many students only focus on the surface of writing, they seldom put attention on inner structure of writing. Because the lack of enoughknowledge, some of them cannot give effective feedback and this makespeer feedback useless. Thus, in this background, the proper combining ofpeer feedback and teacher feedback is needed. With the adopting of thecombining of them, students will learn more from the feedback whetherhe gives or gets feedback.