A Case Study of College Freshmen''s Responses to Teacher and Peer Feedback in English Compositions

• Main Authors: Shu-chi Hung, 洪淑琪
• Other Authors: David S. D. Tseng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1999
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/30994239592611427960

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 87 === The present study aimed to investigate college freshmen''s responses to the feedback from their teachers and peers in English compositions with special reference to feedback types, response types, and the students'' receptivity to these feedback types. Thirty-nine freshmen from a teacher-training institution in central Taiwan, as well as their writing teachers, participated in this study. They are all English majors and enrolled in two different freshman composition classes. Three compositions of each participant were collected. Each composition included at least one draft, one revision, and the final product. Two types of feedback -teacher feedback and peer feedback (senior peer feedback in class A and classmate peer feedback in class B) were given to students'' compositions.Data were collected through classroom observing, questionnaire responding, verbal protocols and unstructured teacher interviews. Twelve participants were selected to do verbal protocols and retrospective interviews, six from each class, whereas all of the thirty-nine participants answered the questionnaires. Major findings were:First, the teachers used local, explicit feedback, praise, questions and modeling feedback most frequently, whereas both classmate peer feedback and senior peer feedback used local, explicit feedback, and modeling more frequently but less often praise and questioning feedback. Secondly, in response to teacher and senior peer feedback, the student writers used expansion most frequently; when dealing with classmate peer feedback, however, correction was the most common response type. Thirdly, the students used more correction in response to teachers'' local feedback, but they used expansion most frequently in response to global, explicit, and questioning feedback. While responding to peer feedback, the students used correction most frequently in response to both local and explicit feedback. Fourthly, the students accepted feedback which directly pointed out their errors, clearly provided explanations, and specifically interpreted how to revise their works. Nevertheless, during the process of writing and revising, the students expressed different degree of agreement and receptivity to teacher feedback, senior peer feedback, and classmate peer feedback. Fifthly, the results also showed that students'' perceptions of the most and least helpful feedback in revision depended on whether the feedback was specific or not. Finally, pedagogical implications, recommendations for EFL writing teachers, and suggestions for future studies were given.