同伴+教师反馈在高中英语写作教学中的应用实证研究

Chapter One Literature Review

1.1Research on Peer Feedback
From the 1970s to the 1980s, a large number of empirical studiesconducted by researchers focused on the effectiveness of peer feedback inthe teaching of mother-tongue writing. Since the 1990s, peer-to-peerevaluation has gradually increased in the application of L2 writingteaching. The empirical research in this field has attracted more and morescholars' attention.
The research focuses on students' attitudes toward peers, the impactof mutual evaluation on the effectiveness of writing and the comparisonbetween peer feedback and teacher feedback. Partridge (1981) isconsidered to be the first researcher to study the attitudes toward peerfeedback. In his research, 12 ESL students expressed a positive attitudetoward peer review. Mangelsdorf (1992)'s study of the attitudes of 60ESL freshmen to another ESL student's essay found that the final score inthe writing class was the student's cooperative attitude towards the author.Clifford (1981) observed that the experimental group that cooperatedunder the mutual evaluation mode improved the writing level far morethan the control group using the traditional composition evaluationmethod. Cazden (1986) believes that peer review can not only providestudents with a rich source of conversation, but also enable students toplay different roles such as leaders and builders, thus fully mobilizing theenthusiasm and initiative of learning. Huff and Kline (1987) pointed outthat mutual evaluation can not only create a comfortable learningatmosphere for students, enhance their readers' consciousness, promotestudents' change from self-awareness to readers' consciousness, but alsoeffectively reduce the burden of teachers' review. Bender's (1989)research shows that peer evaluation can stimulate students' learningpotential, especially for students with strong writing ability andconfidence.
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1.2 Research on Teacher Feedback
Some abroad studies asserted that teacher feedback was effective forlanguage learners to improve their ESL writing. Some foreign scholarshave done a lot of researches on teacher feedback. Their views on teacherfeedback were mainly these two aspects: the effect of feedback and theattitude of students. Many scholars have discussed the effects of feedback.Most acknowledge the positive role of teacher feedback. Sheppard (1992)believed that through teacher feedback, students' ability to express wasimproved, and errors in vocabulary, grammar as well as structure instudents’ writing could be improved.
Nelson & Murphy (1993: 26) believed that among Chinese traditionalvalues, teachers were authoritative and students were more convinced ofteacher feedback. The experimental results of Ferris (1995) showed thatthrough teachers’ evaluation of students’ essays, it could improvestudents ’writing skills. Ferris also suggested that teacher feedback couldreduce the chances of students making mistakes in the essay, makingstudents be more willing to correct mistakes. Similarly, Ashwell (2000)believed that teacher feedback could promote students to express theirown more accurate views.
Of course, some scholars doubted the validity of teacher feedback.Sommers (1982) questioned the “arbitrariness and heterogeneity” of thefeedback behavior of 35 NES writing teachers, and also pointed out thatteachers may misinterpret the meaning of students. Chaudron(1984)argued that teacher feedback was too mechanistic, helpful, and difficult tounderstand. Zamel (1985) believed that teachers' chaotic comments arenot conducive to student writing. A survey by Ferris (1995: 53) found thatabout half of the students did not understand the content of the commentfor various reasons. Bender (1989) commented that teachers often use thesame model, so students may not see the comments they want to see.
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Chapter Two Theoretical Basis

2.1 Interactive Hypothesis Theory
The theory of interaction hypothesis was first proposed by Long(1981). The theory of interaction hypothesis is actually an extension ofKrashen's “Language Input Theory”. It insists there should be a largeamount of comprehensible input. And an attempt to study how to turnlanguage input into enhanced input is the only way to learn language. Inthis regard, Krashen (1981) pointed out that context was very important.We should make full use of context and simplify input, while Long (1996)paid more attention to the interaction in the process of languageacquisition. That is negotiation of meaning, which plays a decisive role inthe learning process.
The theory of interaction hypothesis holds that language acquisitionis largely due to interactions, especially negotiation of meaning, and thisprocess only occurs when the interlocutor tries to overcome the obstaclesin semantic expression, which leads to additional Input and usefulfeedback on the learner's own language output (Richards 2002).
Feedback theory is based on the theory of interaction hypothesis. Inthe high school English writing teaching, the instant information feedbackin the classroom such as the teacher-student interaction, life-timeinteraction provides an important platform for the better understanding ofthe problems in the writing process. In his research, Keh (1990)emphasized that if teachers gave timely and effective feedback tostudents' essays, students are able to be greatly praised and felt that theywere valued.
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2.2 Zone of Proximal Development Theory
The famous Zone of Proximal Development theory was proposed bythe former Soviet psychologist Vygotsky. Vygotsky believed that childrenhad two levels of development; one was the children’s current level ofdevelopment, which was the level of development of children's mentalfunction formed by a certain completed development system. The other was the level of development that children could achieve. We refer to thedifference between these two levels as the zone of proximal development.
Vygotsky believed that the exchange between students and teachershad led to the development of the zone of proximal development, and thatthis stage of development in the middle could only be provoked whenstudents interacted with their mentor in their environment or with theirpeers. Until the entire process was internalized, students would developtheir own independent problem-solving skills. In English classroomteaching, the input of comprehensibility is mainly from the teacher. Whenteaching students new knowledge, the teacher should control thedifficulty of the classroom content, so that the students do not feel tooeasy or too difficult.
According to this theory, with the phrase “best period of teaching”,Vygotsky also pointed out that traditional teaching was at the lower limitof teaching, and a wonderful teaching what we usually think was the“best period of teaching”. The decisive factor in the "best period ofteaching" was the zone of proximal development. There are many factorsaffecting the student's zone of proximal development. The socialenvironment in which students live, their own learning experience, andthe cultural background are all related to the zone of proximaldevelopment.
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Chapter Three Methodology........................................ 28
3.1 Research Design............................................ 28
3.1.1 Research Questions.................................. 28
3.1.2 Research Subjects..........................................29
Chapter Four Results & Discussion..........................45
4.1 Learner’s Attitudes towards Combined Peer-Teacher Feedback....45
4.1.1 Analysis of the Questionnaires.................... 45
4.1.2 Analysis of the Interview............................ 52

Chapter Four Results & Discussion

4.1 Learner’s Attitudes towards Combined Peer-TeacherFeedback
In this part, it mainly concentrates on the first research question byanalyzing the questionnaires and interview to see the students’ attitudestowards the combined peer-teacher feedback. As mentioned above, thequestionnaires would be made use of before the pre-test and after thepost-test in EC. There will be a comparison between the results ofpre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire so that we are able to see thechanges of students’ real and inner thoughts.
4.1.1 Analysis of the Questionnaires
Questionnaire is a common means in researches. In this research, thesame questionnaire was used twice, but the questionnaire in the pre-test ispart of questionnaire in the post-test, which includes six questions andaims to see the changes of students’ attitudes about English writing. Andthe questionnaire in the post-test includes 20 questions covering fiveaspects, which comprehensively know about the research subjects’opinions and experiences about the whole teaching experiment. The firstaspect is about students’ views on English writing consisting of threequestions. Aspect two is about students’ views on peer feedback includingfive questions. Also five questions are involved in the third aspect that isviews on teacher feedback. The fourth aspect of the questionnaire isregarding the viewpoints on combined peer-teacher feedback.
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Conclusion

Major Findings

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