A Study Of The Effects Of Group Peer Feedback On The Writing Ability Of Students In Senior Middle School

English writing is a crucial part of both English teaching and English learning in senior middle school and English writing ability is a significant criterion for assessing students' learning ability.With the exploration and application of process approach to writing,group peer feedback,an important part of the writing process and a new way of evaluating English writing,is widely advocated by many researchers and teachers,who have recognized and confirmed the feasibility and effectiveness of group peer feedback.However,there is a dearth of related researches on group peer feedback,especially its implementation in senior middle school and its effects on writing ability of students at different level of English proficiency in senior middle school.This thesis tries to make a comprehensive literature review on group peer feedback and implement group peer feedback in English teaching and learning in senior middle school to make a comprehensive study on the differences existing in the effects of group peer feedback on the English writing ability of students who are at different level of English proficiency in order to fill the research gap from the dual--theoretical and empirical research.In theoretical level,the thesis is expected to provide helpful references for English teachers in senior middle school on English teaching.In empirical level,the author intended to analyze the effectiveness of group peer feedback and the differences existing in the effects of group peer feedback on the English writing ability of students at different level of English proficiency and improve the methods of employing group peer feedback in English teaching and learning in order to prompt the development of students' English writing ability.This thesis is designed to resolve the following issues:1.What are students' attitudes towards English writing and group peer feedback after the experiment?2.Is group peer feedback effective in helping improve students' English writing ability?If yes,in what aspects?If no,why?3.What are the differences existing in the effect of group peer feedback on the writing ability of students who are at different English proficiency?Based on the process approach to English writing,both classes receive teacher feedback,however,the experimental class also receive group peer feedback while control class receive pair feedback.Both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are made by using SPSS17.0 in this research based on experiments,questionnaires as well as interviews.The following findings are summarized:1.The majority of students hold positive attitudes towards English writing and group peer feedback.They begin to feel pleasure and enjoy the sense of achievement in English writing.They like working in groups to evaluate others' compositions and they agree that they benefit a lot from group peer feedback.2.The group peer feedback plays a significant role in developing students' writing ability in both local and global aspect.Although students in both experimental class and control class make progress in English writing,the analysis of figures and numbers proved that students in experimental class make more significant improvements in both writing ability and evaluating skills.What's more,students in experimental class make huge improvements in content,structure,language and handwriting.3.Students of different English proficiency benefit differently from group peer feedback.All of the students in experimental class make significant progress in English writing,but the students of medium and low English proficiency group make remarkable progress in English writing while the improvements of high proficiency group are not equally significant.The implications of this research suggest that in English writing teaching,the implementation of group peer feedback based on process approach to writing in senior middle school is of high effectiveness and solid feasibility because it provide opportunities for students to learn to write both autonomously and collaboratively,form a good habit of writing in process and improve their ability of writing,especially the revising ability and evaluating ability.