2018 Annual Conference of China English Language Education Association (CELEA2018)

240 / 2018-06-28 18:20:00

An Investigation into High School Students’ Attitudes Towards Peer Feedback in EFL Writing Classroom

peer feedback; process writing approach; language proficiency; gender; EFL writing context

Plenary track > 中国特色二语习得研究

Writing plays an important role in English study. Many researchers have found that peer feedback is of great value. They claim that peer feedback can involve students in the teaching of writing. By reading and correcting, most students can be more familiar with their writing mistakes and know how to improve their writing ability. Besides, peer feedback in English writing class symbolizes a learner-centered teaching method, and it can extremely encourage students to interact with their classmates.
Although feedback is considered an essential element of EFL teaching, the research on peer feedback is still limited. Of all the studies, most of them focus on the college students, and a few studies focus on high school students. To fill in this research gap, this study attempts to investigate secondary school students’ perceptions of peer feedback in English writing class. It aims at investigating 180 second-year high students’ attitude towards peer feedback by means of a questionnaire, a semi-structured interview. The study also intends to compare students’ perception of peer feedback between high proficiency students and low proficiency students. The goal of this study is to make both students and teachers aware of the benefits of peer feedback and provide them with practical advice to improve the English writing and teaching proficiency.
The findings of the study are expected to arouse people’s awareness of the importance of involving students into the assessment process. Besides, by examining students’ attitudes towards peer feedback, students’ motivation in English writing will be stimulated.