Multilingual Academic Journal of Education and Social Sciences

search-icon

Peer Feedback: Its Impact on Assessing Writing in Greek as a Second Language

Open access
Peer feedback has gathered momentum in writing courses in the last twenty years, since it contributes to the improvement of the students’ writing skills, their motivation and collaboration. To this end, the present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of peer review from a cognitive and attitudinal perspective within the framework of the “process writing” approach to teaching writing in the context of teaching Greek as a second language. Elements of the genre approach were also incorporated in the “process writing” framework. More specifically, a study was carried out in the second grade of a Greek Intercultural Junior high school involving twenty students of diverse nationalities. The subjects attended six writing lessons whereby they were provided with peer commentary. Pre- and post-questionnaires were administered to the participants to identify their attitudes towards peer feedback at the entry point of the research and trace any differentiation in their stances at the exit point of the intervention. The findings revealed a positive shift of the respondents’ attitudes towards the merits of peer treatment and unraveled development of their metacognitive awareness in that they gained insight in their writing development in Greek as a SL.
Al-Jamal, D. (2009). The impact of peer response in enhancing ninth grader's writing skill. Umm Al-Qura University Journal of Educational & Psychologic Sciences. Vol. 1-N0. 1 January 2009. (Retrieved October 8th 2012) libback.uqu.edu.sa/.../3200020-8.pdf (Retrieved October 22nd. 2010) http.//uqu. edu.
sa/files2/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/admins/pag3673/e1. pdf.
Anastasiadou, A. (2011). Implementing the process writing approach in the English language classroom: An innovation for the development of young learners’ writing skills in the Greek state primary school. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki: Thessaloniki.
Anastasiadou, A. (2015). Feedback revisited: The impact of peer commentary on students’ attitudes and writing performance in the EFL classroom. In An-Najah University Journal for Research Humanities, Vol. 29/2 ISSN: 1727-8449, ISSN Online: 2311-8962, pp. 369- 402.
Azarnoosh, M. (2013). Peer assessment in an EFL context: Attitudes and friendship bias. Language Testing in Asia. 3(11), 1-10. Available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F2229-0443-3-11#page-1.
Badger, R., & White, G. (2000). “A process genre approach to teaching writing” ELT Journal 54/2, pp.153-160.
Barak, M., & Rafaeli, S. (2004). On-line question-posing and peer-assessment as a means for web-based knowledge sharing in learning. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 61(1), pp. 84-103.
Berg, I., Admiraal, W., & Pilot, A. (2006). Peer assessment in university teaching: Evaluating seven course designs in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31/1, pp. 19-36.
Cai, J. (2011). A contrastive study of on line peer feedback and online teacher feedback in teaching English writing to college students. Foreign Language World, 134 (2), pp. 65 -72.
Cho, K., Schunn, C. D., & Charney, D. (2006). Commenting on writing: Typology and perceived helpfulness of comments from novice peer reviewers and subject matter experts. Written Communication, 23(3), 260-294.
Coit, C. (2004). “Peer review in an online college writing course”, Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on advanced learning technologies, pp. 902-903.
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (1993). The Powers of literacy: A Genre approach to teaching writing. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Dornyei, Z. (2003). Questionnaires in second language research. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Farrah, M. (2012). “The impact of peer feedback on improving the writing skills among Hebron university students”. An-Najah Univ. J. Res. (Humanities). Vol. 26/1 pp. 179-200.
Falchikov, N. (1995). Peer feedback marking: developing peer assessment. Innovations in Education and Training International, 32, pp.175–187.
Frankenberg-Garcia, A. (1999). Providing student writers with pre-text feedback. ELT J 53/2, pp. 100-106.
Hedge, T. (1988). Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hyland, K., and Hyland, F. (2006). Feedback in second language writing: Contexts and issues. Cambridge University Press.
Jacobs, H. L., Zingraf, S. A., Wormuth, D. R., Hartfiel, V. F., & Hughey, J. B. (1981). Testing ESL composition: A practical approach. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Kaufman, J., & Schunn, C. (2010). Students’ perceptions about peer assessment for writing: their origin and impact on revision work. Learning Research and Development Center. University of Pittsburgh. Published on line 10 March 2010 at
http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/research/ papers/KaufmanSchunnStudentPerceptions.pdf.
Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Krashen, S. D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman.
Lee, I. (1997). ESL learners' performance in error correction in writing: Some implications for teaching. System 25/4, pp. 465-477.
Liu, J., & Hansen, J. (2002). Peer response in second language writing classrooms in Belcher, D. Liu, J. (eds.) Michigan series on teaching multilingual writers. Ann Arbor. MI. University of Michigan Press.
Miao, Y., Badger, R., Zhen, Y. (2006). A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL writing class, Journal of Second Language Writing 15, pp. 179–200.
Morahan-Martin, J. (1996). Should peers' evaluations be used in class projects?: Questions regarding reliability, leniency, and acceptance. Psychological Reports, 78, 1243–1250.
O’ Brien, T. (1999). The teaching of writing skills in a second/ foreign language. Vol. 3, 4. Patras: Hellenic Open University.
Rollinson, P. (2005). Using peer feedback in the ESL writing class in ELT Journal Volume 59/1 pp. 23-30. doi: 10.1093/elt/cci003.
Steele, V. (2005). “Product and process writing: A comparison” in BBC www.teachingenglish. org.uk/think/think.shtml - 28k - 30.
Ting, M., & Qian, Y. (2010). “A case study of peer feedback in a Chinese EFL writing classroom”. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 33/4. Pp. 87-98.
Van Zundert, M., Sluijsmans, D. M. A., & Van Merri?nboer, J. J. G. (2010). Effective peer assessment processes: Research findings and future directions. Learning and Instruction, 20(4), 270-279.
White, R., & Arndt, V. (1991). Process Writing. Harlow: Longman.
In-Text Citation: (Anastasiadou & Iliopoulou, 2017)
To Cite this Article: Anastasiadou, A., & Iliopoulou, K. (2017). Peer feedback: Its Impact on Assessing Writing in Greek as a Second Language. Multilingual Academic Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 5(1), 14–28.