the effectiveness of written feedback in ESL class

In the era of globalization, it is common knowledge that learning how to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings well via writing plays an indispensable role in not only academic but also daily life. In general, having a good writing skill is widely considered to be one of the vital factors for better career opportunities. Furthermore, the competence in writing skill is commonly regarded as one of the major elements of the success in learning a target language. In fact, finding the effective methods for teaching writing has been attracted much attention in the past decades. There are an enormous number of studies related to this issue, and a vast majority of researchers is in favor of the fact that peer feedback is one of the pivotal tools of teaching writing owing to its benefits. Notwithstanding the fact that most studies have proved how remarkable peer feedback is, this method is still partly impractical in ESL writing class. In order to more deeply understand about the effectiveness of written peer feedback in the ESL classroom, this paper will determine and analyze four advantages of written feedback toward the recipients, the givers, and the teachers.
One of the potential advantages of written peer feedback to the recipient (receiving the feedback) and the giver (reviewing and giving the feedback) is that it can enhance the ability of critical thinking for the leaners. As noted by Rollinson (2005) that in the period time of peer response process, the writers are likely to be aware of the fact that commenting on the essay is making them more critical on their own ideas. According to Lundstrom et al. (2005), students will have opportunities to read different formats of thinking and arguing. Therefore, they are able to self- evaluate through their peer’s text. Afterward, they can achieve an idea of how much they should make progress so as to follow the whole class’ learning peace. It can be explained that since having received certain feedback from the partners, the writer has an intention of making a careful consideration on every aspect of the text such as spelling, tense, vocabulary, and preposition errors presented in the text. They are supposed to make decisions on how to ameliorate the essay. It is likely that the more feedback the writers can get, the more critical they represent. It also appears that peer correction makes students notice the problems that they are unable to notice by themselves. Moreover, peer feedback can help students become more self –reliant writers, who have the skills of self-critical and revise their writing. According to an empirical study carried out with 36 first-year immediate level students at Anadolu University, Subaşı (2014) highlights that the experience of peer feedback provided an indispensable opportunity for learners to analyze textual problems, internalize the needs of different rhetorical modes, acquire a sense of audience, and generally become sensitive to the genre of the student essay. As an interested reviewer, proofreader and observer, the giver has to have a considerate look on their classmate’s writing in order to assist their partners; consequently, they gradually become more and more critical. Through the development of critical evaluation, learners are able to review effectively the essay and figure out logical gaps, issues with mistakes at global levels(i.e organization, lexical errors, pronoun agreement errors,…) (Diab, 2016; Yu & Lee, 2014; Ho & Duong, 2014; Ruegg, 2015 ), which can scaffold the learning of writing (Lundstrom & Baker, 2009). It may draw to the conclusion that written peer feedback makes learners think more and more critically.
Not only fostering the ability of critical thinking but written peer feedback also makes a contribution to the encouragement of learners’ confidence. The findings of a study conducted at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, a National University in Taiwan, during eight weeks of writing training and peer feedback activities, revealed that the writers are seemingly more confident and feel supportive through the activity of brainstorming thanks to the proceeding cognitive interaction created by peer correction (Lin & Chien, 2009). It is clear that the writers find it comparatively comfortable to be in the involvement of pair work because they are able to exchange their ideas and suggest a number of solutions to the problems of their companions’ essay. Surprisingly, giving comments on their partners’ writings become an integral part of raising confidence among learners because peer feedback can “enhance intellectual communication and give students a sense of group cohesion” (Hansen & Liu, 2005). When they can help their fellows to figure out the problems, they perhaps feel helpful and comfortable to be engaged in pair activities. With those viewpoints, it is no doubt that confidence may be fostered by peer feedback activity.
Besides the benefits mentioned above to the recipients and the givers, written peer feedback is also an applicable tool for teachers to teach writing skills. Copious researchers have found that written peer feedback facilitates the development of self-assessment (reflection) in learning. During the process of peer work, students may have the ability to analyze and evaluate their own essays and have quite accurate assessments on the areas in which they need improvements and revise them (Rollinson, 2005; Gielen et al., 2010). The readers and/ or writers may acknowledge that they would better revise form-related mistakes that their peer supposed to correct or it is likely that they consolidate the knowledge they have to learn so as to help their essays better and better. Moreover, “the reviewers likely determine the level at which the peer review occur” (Lundstrom & Baker, 2009: 38). This means they intend to evaluate themselves and perceive that they have to make progress in their learning process to catch up with their classmates. It does not hesitate to think that peer feedback is seemed to be applicable to fulfill individual’s gaps of language, or what they need to consolidate, even this is a way to discover new knowledge that facilitates their writing paper.
Last but not least, written peer feedback in ESL writing class is beneficial to facilitate the teachers in the evaluation of learners’ essays. The findings of Ruegg (2005) claimed that teachers often concentrate mainly on both grammar and content in their feedback while peers focus on other aspects such as organization and academic style. That means that students are willing to assist their teachers to analyze students’ writings on other sides. Through this activity, teachers are able to respond to the writing papers relatively accurately. Furthermore, students constantly make mistakes on grammar and spelling that their peers can help them correct without the appearance of teachers. Gielen et al (2010) stated that peer feedback may also increase the frequency, extent, and speed of feedback for students while keeping workload for teachers under control. To support this view, Ho and Duong (2014) stressed that in class, students help their partners to proofread written work before the submission to the teacher. Meanwhile, this activity has not been considered as a powerful technique but a minor section to engage learners in the lesson. In reality, although a number of learners were found not to have much confidence in their classmate’s competence, peer feedback makes less teacher-induced biased views and was sometimes regarded as a useful tool in aiding language and writing development (Lee, 2015). It can ensure that peer feedback significantly assists teachers in ESL classroom.
In conclusion, writing is one of four skills that students are stimulated to pay much attention to. With the responsibility for helping students with their writing skills, teachers have to make a great effort on the application of finding effective teaching tools. It is advisable that written peer feedback should be applied in English class because it positively assisted students’ learning in English writing. Obviously, written peer feedback helps both givers and receivers in terms of enhancing critical thinking, confidence, and self- assessment; additionally, it shares a hand with teachers in the evaluation of learners’ writing papers. Despite the challenges of demanding curricula, sizable classroom, time-limited (Berggren, 2014), it is no doubt that peer feedback will be utilized as complementary forms of assistance in writing classes (Subaşı, 2014; Lin & Chien, 2009). In order for maximizing the potential advantages of written feedback in ESL writing class, it is a recommendation that teachers should have an instructional intervention, training students to adopt specific quality criteria, the use of a quality control system that rewards or sanctions assessors for the quality of their feedback, and the adoption of question form (Gielen et al., 2010).