Assessing The Effectiveness Of Trained Peer Response In Chinese College L2 Writing Class

Since the late 1980s, peer response to writing has gained increasing attention in L1 and L2 class. Whereas effective benefits have been reported in the literature, little is known about the effects of peer response on L2 students' revision and writing outcomes. This study investigates these effects and also considers an often-cited suggestion for successful peer response, that is, training students to effectively participate in the peer response activity. The principal question addressed by the study is whether trained peer response affects L2 students' writing quality. Effectiveness of trained peer response were investigated through a comparison of 50 ESL students divided into two groups, one trained in how to participate in peer response to writing and the other adopted the traditional teaching methods, that is, the teacher is the only one who gives comments and instructions. Writing quality was determined by a holistic rating procedure of two rounds of students' writing products. Besides, the study also investigated students' attitudes towards peer response according to a questionnaire, and with another corpus-based study, in terms of grammatical mistakes, to what extent, peers gave each other the most effective correction. With the help of these, teachers can give better instructions on students' writing.Results of the investigation indicate that although the quality of writing by the experimental and control groups showed no significant difference, but in fact trained peer response improved students peer revision abilities and attitudes, both of which may help enhance their writing in the long run. And according to the study, students did welcome peer response as a new approach to helping them with their writing.This paper is composed of seven parts. Following the introduction, the first chapter is to present a background and literature review, introducing the theoretical stances, researches and observations in related fields. Current situation of English writing is also covered in this part. Chapter two will make a detailed description of the research design, which includes a comparative experiment, a questionnaire survey, and a corpus-based study. The third chapter mainly introduces the results of data analysis. Chapter four is a discussion. The last chapter contributes to the teaching implications and proposes future researches in China's L2 environment. The last part is the conclusion of the thesis.