The Effect Of Peer Assessment On Junior Middle School Students' English Writing Proficiency

English writing can reflect students' comprehensive level of English and it is one of the key points and difficult points in English teaching.Evaluation is not only an indispensable but also an important part in the process of English writing.If the evaluation can be adopted properly,it can greatly promote teachers' teaching and students' learning.However,in the real situation of English writing assessment in junior middle school,teachers often prevail in correcting each student's composition,that is to say,teachers become the only judge of writing assessment.Although this assessment method has its merits,it is not conducive to inspire and cultivate the initiative and creativity of students' learning.In the long run,students usually pay too much attention to the scores of their compositions after the correction from their teachers,hence students' interest and confidence towards English writing decreases day after day.This will make it difficult for students to improve the proficiency of their English writing.Therefore,how to improve students' proficiency of English writing by perfecting the way of assessment is a problem that teachers and experts need to study and solve urgently.This study attempts to introduce peer assessment into English writing teaching activity in junior middle school.Based on the Constructivist Theory,the Zone of Proximal Development Theory,Process Writing Theory and Cooperative Learning Theory,the author puts forward the following research questions with the combination of English teaching practice research:1)What is the effect towards the proficiency of students' English writing after the application of peer assessment in junior middle school English writing activity?2)What is the effect towards the interest of students' English writing after the application of peer assessment in junior middle school English writing activity?The objects in the research are 94 students selected from two classes in grade eight at Guangzhou Junjing Middle School.They have the same English learning background and similar English learning competence.There are 48 students in the experimental class and 46 students in the controlled class.During the process of sixteen weeks' experiment,the author tries to explore and answer the above two questions through the adoption of some experimental methods,like questionnaires,interviews and tests.The research found that most of the students participating in the experiment hold a positive attitude towards the peer assessment activities.Through the pre-test and post-test,it was found that the students' English writing proficiency in the experimental class was improved significantly than those in the controlled class.Therefore,the author believes,as a supplementation to teacher's correcting and assessing compositions,peer assessment can be combined with teachers' assessment to apply to junior middle school English writing activities.