PEER FEEDBACK: STUDENTS’ NARRATIVE WRITING DEVELOPMENT AND STUDENTS’ RESPONSES (A Case Study in an ESL Writing Classroom)
Daftar Isi:
- Peer feedback has been widely accepted as in English as second language classroom, although it was originally used in the first language classroom in North America during the 1970s (Hyland and Hyland, 2006). Researchers have revealed that peer feedback has influential impact on the students’ learning achievement and development of their language skills. In English as Second Language writing classroom, peer feedback is strongly advocated based on the research result. However, peer feedback effectiveness until this day is still hotly debated. Peer feedback is said to have advantages in one hand and drawbacks in the other hand (Williams, 2005; Spear, 1988; Lim, 2007; Lee, 2009). Various issues regarding peer feedback in ESL writing are reviewed. It must be acknowledged that the available empirical evidence is limited. That is why this research is then conducted. This research investigated the impact of peer feedback in the students’ narrative writing and the students’ responses toward peer feedback activity in the ESL writing classroom. 15 undergraduate students were purposively selected to participate in this research. Students’ texts were collected through two cycles of peer feedback, and at the end of the research process, students were interviewed to gather their responses toward peer feedback in which they were engaged. By using content analysis on students’ narrative texts, it was indicated that the students’ narrative writing developed organizationally and grammatically; whereas data from the interview suggested that the students positively welcome peer feedback in the ESL writing classroom. However, it was also found that there are difficulties in doing peer feedback. Mostly, difficulties the students encountered are caused by the limitation of students’ language competence. This causes some unobserved mistakes in their drafts left uncorrected through peer feedback. This recommends that in implementing peer feedback, especially in ESL classroom, students’ background knowledge should be taken into consideration.