An Empirical Study Of Peer Feedback Applied In English Writing In Senior High School

English writing ability is considered a significant criterion for assessing students’ learning ability and teachers’ teaching ability. Currently, the Product Approach still dominates most English writing classes in senior high schools. It is evident that the teaching efficiency is far from satisfactory. Peer feedback, a vital part of the Process Approach, is widely applied in colleges and vocational schools to teach writing. Its effectiveness and feasibility has been confirmed and recognized by numerous scholars through a good many empirical studies. This thesis attempts to employ peer feedback in senior high schools with a view to exploring a new efficient English writing teaching model, thus bringing students’ writing ability to a higher level.This thesis focuses on the following research questions:1. What is senior high school students’ attitude towards “peer feedback” in English writing?2. Whether “peer feedback” is helpful in helping improve students’ writing ability? If yes, in what aspects?3. Whether students of different English proficiency benefit from “peer feedback” similarly or differently?Experiments, questionnaires as well as interviews are used as research instruments to gather relevant data. Based on quantitative analysis using SPSS17.0 and qualitative analysis, the following findings are obtained:1. The majority of senior high school students participating in the study hold a positive attitude towards “peer feedback”.2. “Peer feedback” does profit students a lot, especially in enriching contents, correcting spelling, grammatical and syntactic mistakes. However, in terms of structure and discourse coherence problems, teachers’ feedbacks are more reliable, acceptable and beneficial.3. Students of different English proficiency level benefit differently from peer feedback. Students in the middle proficiency group make remarkable progress in English writing. While the high proficiency group and the low proficiency group also achieve certain advances, the effects are not that significant.The research findings also indicate that to achieve maximum teaching efficiency, peer feedback should be employed as a useful supplement to teacher feedback. In view of high school students’ limited English level and low self-discipline ability, teachers should act as good organizers, guides and supervisors in the peer feedback activity.