Effects Of Peer Feedback On Development Of Senior High School Students’ English Writing Ability

High School English Curriculum Standards establishes the cultivation of comprehensive language use ability as one of the important tasks of high school English teaching.The important embodiment of high school student’s ability to comprehensively use language is their English writing ability.Therefore,writing is an important part of high school English teaching,and also an important part of the English college entrance examination.English writing teaching research is also a hot topic in English teaching research.In high school English writing teaching,feedback is one of the important means to promote students to reflect and improve their English writing ability.High School English Curriculum Standards proposes that peer feedback can be used for daily writing teaching evaluation.The teaching of English writing based on peer feedback focuses on the writing process,is student-centered,and meets the requirements of multiple evaluations.This study applies peer feedback to the teaching practice of high school English writing,aiming to study the following three questions:(1)what is the influence of peer feedback on the English writing ability of high school students?(2)How is students’ attitude toward peer feedback?(3)Does peer feedback improve students’ interest and confidence in English writing?In this study,with two parallel classes of a high school in Luoyang,Henan province,two classes were randomly divided into a control class and an experimental class for a 16-week teaching experiment.Based on the ESL Composition Profile proposed by Jacobs et al.,two writing tests were conducted to determine the starting level of students’ English writing,and peer feedback training was conducted in week 2.In weeks 3-14,students were assigned 6 writing tasks.After each writing of the first draft,students gave group peer feedback and submitted the revised draft.From weeks15 to 16,the experimental class students and the control class were tested twice as a post-test of the writing ability of the two classes.By analyzing the changes in student pre-test and post-test compositions in terms of content,structure,vocabulary,grammar,and mechanics,as well as the overall evaluation scores,the influence of peer feedback on students’ writing ability was found.In weeks 1 and 16,a total of 10 students were selected from the experimental class and the control class,and changes in students’ attitudes towards peer feedback,interest in,and confidence in English writing were found.Using Excel and SPSS 22.0 statistical software,students’ writing ability in the early and later stages of the experiment is relatively analyzed,and combined with the results of students’ interviews,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)English writing teaching under the peer feedback makes students’ writing content richer,more reasonable structure and mechanics significantly improved.However,peer feedback had no significant effect on students’ English writing ability in grammar and vocabulary.(2)Compared with traditional English writing teaching,students prefer the English writing teaching method with the peer feedback.(3)After the implementation of peer feedback writing teaching,students’ interest in English writing increased significantly,and their confidence in English writing was also enhanced.Based on the results of this study,it is suggested that high school English teachers should change the teaching methods of English writing,conduct appropriate peer feedback training for students,and combine peer feedback with teacher feedback to improve students’ comprehensive English application ability.