Let’s Make Use of Peer Feedback

Let’s Make Use of Peer Feedback  

Author: Neema Loy

What is feedback and what are its potential sources?

“Feedback is information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement” (Google dictionary). Feedback in second language (L2) writing or even in first language (L1) writing is important in helping learners improve or develop their writing skills. In my experience, feedback is one of the core elements of improving writing. Yet, over the years, studies (such as Rollison, 2005; 2013) have shown that feedback has not served its utmost potential role in improving students’ writing due to several issues such as inadequate quantity in the drafting stages. For example, in the case of product writing,  it is provided at the end along with a final grade or comments for future consideration, and this makes it ineffective (Ferris and Hedgcock, 2013). Furthermore, it is not surprising that learners may usually refer to only one type of feedback (teachers’ feedback) when they hear the word “feedback”.  This can also be the case for teachers when they think about providing feedback to students. However, there are other types of feedback including feedback from peers. We can also get feedback through technological tools such as grammar checkers, and from unknown people when we post our writing on public blogs, websites or social media. Despite their drawbacks, several types of feedback have been proven to be effective in different ways. So, as teachers’ we should presume that we are the only source of (effective) feedback.  We should also train our students to how effectively consider other sources of feedback.

What is peer feedback and its advantages? 

Peer feedback means that students are giving comments on each other’s work, behavior, or performance. In our discussion, the focus is writing, where students share their work with peers for constructive feedback and then use this feedback to revise and improve their work. Peer feedback also is known as peer review, peer response, peer evaluation, peer editing, peer assessment, peer comments, e.t.c.  (Lee, 2017; Ferris and Hedgcock, 2013). 

Peer feedback is useful in many ways, and even most L2 learners already know the value of it. For example, it is common to find some students asking for their peers' feedback about their writing before submitting them to their teachers or presenting them. So, students can benefit even more from teachers' well-structured peer feedback process. Several studies explain the benefits of peer feedback, and these include:

• Helps students improve communication among themselves. For example, students learn to clarify ideas or comments to others and providing constructive feedback. 
• Helps students become lifelong thinkers who can evaluate their own work and communicate their thoughts on other people’s work, rather than just being good in responding to a writing prompt. 
• It builds collaboration among students.
• It is effective for early drafts.
• Students get a broader audience for their work than just a single instructor.
• Students get to see different approaches that other students have taken in responding to an assignment.
• It provides a professional experience to students (e.g, editing/proofreading). 
• Develops independent and collaborative learning  (learner autonomy) ( Lee, 2017)
• It motivates students and improves morale.

When to use peer feedback?

Oftentimes, we tend to think about feedback in the final product. However, feedback should be provided in multiple drafts and all stages of writing. Peer feedback is useful in improving students' writing, especially in the drafting stages (Rollinson, 2005). 

How to implement peer feedback?

For peer feedback to be effective as a teacher you must invest in planning and management. It is important to do so because students tend to be skeptical about peer feedback and they might not take it seriously (Rollinson, 2005). For example, you need to know ahead of time about the size of your class, the type of writing that you would like students to do e.g, a research project vs commentary on readings, etc., which technology/platform you will have students post or comment on (e.g, in the case of writing and commenting on blogs), a number of drafts that students will have to submit and comment on (and this is the case for a project writing), follow up strategies and how the evaluation will be provided. As for best practices of implementing peer feedback in the classroom, you need to: 

• State the goal of peer feedback and explain it to students. Why do you want to use peer feedback in your instruction? What skills do you want students to obtain through peer feedback (e.g, proofreading skills, analytical skills, ability to handle criticism, etc.)? Stating the goal will help you focus as a teacher, and help students value peer feedback. 
• Decide upon the structure. How do you want to do it? Do you want it to be done individually or in groups? How do you want comments to be shared, e.g, only on blog posts or you also want to discuss them in class or review students’ comments?
• Train students on peer review: Again,  not all students understand the concept or benefits of peer review. In this case, it is important to train students about the benefits of peer review, and ways of providing constructive feedback, e.g, starting with positive comments and communicating the errors politely. 
• Provide guidelines. As a teacher, you should not assume students will provide useful feedback to their peers without guidelines. You need to create a guideline, and this can be a set of questions or statements that help students see the important writing goals. A rubric is one of the effective tools for guiding students in providing feedback and here is an example: Sample of rubric for letter writing 
• Make it valuable- give credits! Through grades, students will be motivated and see the value of their work.

Generally, I encourage teachers to use and incorporate peer feedback in their instruction as much as possible, because it offers opportunities that might not be found by receiving feedback from a teacher only (Cauk, 1994; Berg, 1996, as cited in Rollinson, 2005). These opportunities include developing independent and collaborative learning and providing professional experiences such as editing skills. As a teacher, you should also do your research on peer review to find other additional information for implementing it and ways of using it in teaching other skills such as speaking. Moreover, teachers' use of peer feedback regularly will open doors for further research on specific issues.

References 

Ferris, D. R., & Hedgcock, J. (2013). Teaching L2 composition: Purpose, process, and practice. Routledge.

Lee, I. (2017). Peer Feedback in L2 Writing. In Classroom Writing Assessment and Feedback in L2 School Contexts (pp. 83-103). Springer, Singapore.

Lee, L. (2017). Learners' perceptions of the effectiveness of blogging for L2 writing in fully online language courses. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT), 7(1), 19-33.

Mourssi, A. (2013). Theoretical and practical linguistic shifting from product/guided writing to process writing and recently to the innovated writing process approach in teaching writing for second/foreign language learners. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 3(5), 731.

Rollinson, P. (2005). Using peer feedback in the ESL writing class. ELT journal, 59(1), 23-30.