A Study On The Effects Of Peer Feedback On English Writing Of The Students In Senior High Schools

Writing is an important basic skill that English learners should develop and master,and its teaching has always been of the great concern of English teachers and researchers.Now,researchers have found that if we want to improve students' writing ability,we need to pay attention to the writing process,and provide proper feedback for students to reflect on.This research,therefore,focuses on the effects of peer feedback in senior high school English writing and applies peer feedback to stimulate the students' enthusiasm of writing and thus improve their writing ability.Based on Process Writing Approach,the theory of Zone of Proximal Development and Cooperative learning,by the teaching experiments,the questionnaire survey,and the interview,the thesis seeks to address the following questions:(1)What effects does peer feedback have on senior high school students' English writing ability in terms of organization,language,and contents?(2)What effects does peer feedback have on senior high school students' English writing in terms of interest and attitude?This research lasted twelve weeks from April 2018 to June 2018 in a senior high school in Jiangsu Province.There were 100 students in total working as the participants.The experimental class was made up of 50 students,and the control class consisted of 50 students.The two classes have no significant difference in students' writing ability before the experiment.The control class adopted the traditional way of teaching.The experimental class applied peer feedback to the English writing.This research demonstrates that with the application of peer feedback,student's English writing ability can be improved,especially in language and organization of the composition.Their interest and the attitude can also be improved.The major findings are that:(1)As for the language in writing,the difference between the two groups in the post-test proves to be significant,with p=.003(p<0.05),implying that the experimental class significantly outperforms the control class.This is because in the process of peer feedback,the students will have the chance to learn and imitate the language in other students' compositions,including the use of advanced words and sentence patterns.Meanwhile,as for the organization in writing,the result of Independent samples t-test indicates that P in the post-test is.000,implying that the experimental class significantly performs better than the control class.Obviously,in peer feedback,the students can also find something valuable in the organization of other students'compositions,thus having a go at their own compositions,such as the use of the key sentence,the supporting sentences and conjunctions.However,experiment shows that peer feedback has few effects on the writing content.This is due to the fact that the content of writing depends on the accumulation of basic knowledge,and it's hard to be improved in short time.(2)Compared with the traditional feedback,peer feedback emphasizes the process of learning.The important function of language is communication.During the process of active communication with peers,learning from each other is beneficial to arousing students' interest in writing,thus developing a more positive attitude towards English writing.The research findings may have implications on English teaching and learning.Peer feedback can be actively applied in the course of English writing.The teachers should group the students properly,and create an atmosphere where the students can communicate with each other and learn from each other,during the process of which the teachers should give certain guidance to the students,particularly those of lower language proficiency.