写作反馈对比分析：教师反馈和同伴反馈

1、Literature Review on Feedback in EFL Writing: TeacherFeedback and Peer Feedback摘要：写作是一种重要的语言技巧，相比较听力、口语和阅读，写作更能全面 的展现学习者的语言精准水平。所以我们需要对英语写作的教与学投入更多的精 力。然而我们当前的大学英语写作教学收效并非显著。一方面，老师花费大量的 精力和时间去阅读和修改学生的英语写作，但成效颇低；另一方面，学生只是表 面肤浅的理解老师的建议及评语或者甚至直接忽视老师给予的纠错反馈。在一定 程度上来看，造成这种现象的原因可以追溯到结果教学法在英语写作教学中的广 泛应用而带来

2、的影响。结果教学法把英语写作过程看成是一个线性的活动，在这 一过程中没有课堂活动部分，没有互动。而与之相对应的过程教学法把写作看成 是一个复杂的、相互重叠的认知过程，在这个过程中有学生的积极参与。反馈作 为过程教学法的重要组成部分而引起广泛的关注，它包括：教师反馈、同伴反馈、 自我反馈和计算机辅助反馈。其中，教师反馈和同伴反馈是其主要的两大部分。 在二语学习环境下关于这两种反馈效果的研究很多，但研究结果有所不同，有的 研究者认为教师反馈的效果更佳而有的研究更倾向于在写作中使用同伴反馈。在 以往的研究中，研究者们大多只侧重于其中一种反馈方式在大学英语写作教学中 的应用，而将两者教学方法结合起来应

3、用的研究不是很多。因此，本研究尝试将 两种反馈应用到大学英语写作教学中并期待通过实证研究能够在不久将来证实 其可行性和效度。关键字：反馈；教师反馈；同伴反馈；外语写作Abstract: As an important language skill, writing can comprehensively present the learners language proficiency compared with other basic skills such as listening, speaking and reading. Therefore, much attention shoul

4、d be paid to the teaching and learning of English writing. However, at present time, our college English writing instruction seems unsatisfactory. On the one hand, teachers contribute a great deal of time and energy to reading and correcting students composition but with low efficiency; on the other

5、 hand, students spend less time superficially understanding teachers suggestions and comments or even directly neglect teacher s error correction.To a certain extent, this current situation can be traced back to the prevailing traditional product-oriented approach which assumes writing as a liner pr

6、ocess, in which there is no students interaction within writing activities. On the contrary, the process-oriented approach assumes writing as a cognitive process, with which students can actively participant in writing activities. Feedback, an indispensable part of process-oriented approach of writi

7、ng, has attracted great attention, which mainly encompasses teacher feedback and peer feedback. In ESL context, many studies on the effects of two types of feedback has been done. Nevertheless, the results of them varied greatly in these studies. Some scholars reviewed that teacher feedback is more

8、favorable in writing class while others prefer to use peer feedback. Up to now, most of the researchers just focus on either peer feedback or teacher feedback, and few researchers have combined the two kinds of feedback in the context of the EFL writing. Hence, the study attempts to apply peer feedb

9、ack and teacher feedback into EFL writing through an empirical study and look forward to its feasibility and effectiveness will be approved in the near further study in writing pedagogy. Keywords: feedback; teacher feedback; peer feedback; EFL writingIntroductionFeedback plays a prominent role in im

10、proving students learning ability and strengthening his or her learning achievement in language pedagogy. In writing, feedback refers to “readers comprehensible input from author whose function is offering information to reader to modify composition ” (Zhu, 2010). The efficiency of writing feedback

11、will directly affect students writing level as well as reflecting the effectiveness of teachers writing strategies. Feedback in EFL writing mainly focus on: teacher feedback; peer feedback; self-feedback and computer-generated feedback. From which teacher feedback refers to the input provided by the

12、 teacher for the revision of students writings or assessment of learning performance (Keh, 1990) and peer feedback is defined as a system in which individuals evaluate counterparts or peers achievements of language learning including writing and reading (Topping, 1998). Teacher feedback plays a domi

13、nant role in L2 writing, while in recent years teacher feedback was given great attention through the popularity of process writing approach. Domestic and foreign scholars have already conducted a great deal of empirical research on teacher and peer feedback, but have not reached a consensus on the

14、effectiveness and the ranges, methods and strategies of application. And many researches paid attention to the single study on different modes of feedback as well as focusing less on the comparative study of the efficiency, merits and demerits of integrating teacher feedback and peer feedback. Based

15、 on which this study will explore the effectiveness of combining teacher feedback and peer feedback and look forward to providing practically and significantly instructional feedback in EFL writing.Related Studies of Teacher Feedback and Peer Feedback at Home and AbroadThe study of writing feedback

16、began in the 1950s. The scholars made a comparison between teacher s error correction and peers error correction with the guidance of teachers, the results of which examined that the efficiency of the latter is better than the former one. In the following 60 years, domestic and international scholar

17、s made a detail study on the practical effectiveness of peer feedback (Keh, 1990; Ferris, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2006; Paulus, 1999; Tsui & Ng, 2000; Ming, 2005; Liu, 2002; Gong, 2007; Meng, 2009; Wang, 2010; Xu, 2010; Guo, 2011; Hu & Zhang, 2011). These researchers stated that singly using teacher feedb

18、ack will not truly and efficiently improve students writing ability. “Teachers often spend a great deal of time and energy in modifying composition and putting forward many comments and suggestions on writing, however, students always neglect teachers correction comments as well as superficially und

19、erstand the correction suggestions. This kind of single and passive feedback have no effect on stimulating student s learning interests and enthusiasm” (Zhou, 2013: 121). On the contrary, peer feedback attracted more attention to scholars and teachers. They found that in the process of face-to-face

20、communication, negotiation and discussion, peer feedback can mutually, actively and accurately state what students want to express. Meanwhile, students self-learning ability and collaborative spirit could be exerted to the utmost as well as writing and thought ability being exerted to a higher exten

21、t.Some other studies investigated the essence of teachers feedback behaviors (Connors & Lunsford 1993: 200-223; Ferris, 1997: 315-339; ); the effectiveness of feedback types (Ferris & Roberts, 2001: 161-184; Kepner, 1991: 305-313); students perceptions of feedback (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990: 155-177;

22、 Hedgocock & Left-kowtz, 1994: 141-165). Totally, students generally considered that peer feedback is much more effective than teacher feedback. In terms of teacher feedback, domestic researches focused more on the importance and values of students recognition process and its development (Zhang et a

23、l., 2000: 24-28; Xie, 2011: 50-51); and its efficiency in improving students attention and their ability (Li & Wu, 2005; Bei, 2009); and its influences on the accuracy, fluency and complexity of student s writing (Wang & Liu, 2012: 49-53); or even the effectiveness of different types of teacher feed

24、back and correction and teachers and students attitudes towards teacher feedback (Wang, 2006: 24-30; Zhang & Liu, 2010: 115-118). These studies just singly focused on different aspects of teacher feedback, there are less studies on the combination of peer feedback and teacher feedback and explanatio

25、n of theirs reliability and efficiency in EFL writing.In recent writing instruction, peer feedback (Richards et al., 2005: 128) refers to “the activity in the process of composition modifying and in this activity where students read peers composition in groups and then make comments and suggestions

26、on them ”. International writing researches firmed the application of peer feedback in ESL writing (Hansen & Liu, 2005: 31-38; Jacobs et al., 1998: 301-317 ). Also many scholars conducted researches from the perspective of cognition, who put forward that peer feedback could cultivate students analyt

27、ic ability and expand their thinking space (Paulus, 1999: 265-289). In addition, students could also communicate with peers and improve the ability of using target language in specific communicative contexts (Hansen, 2005: 31-38). However, the researchers pointed out that although peer feedback coul

28、d make up drawbacks for teacher feedback, its accuracy, reliability and efficiency are being questioned and the practical operation is needed to be explored further.From the above review, we can conclude that domestic and international scholars just singly conducted researches on either teacher feed

29、back or peer feedback or made studies on the types, characteristics or strategies of feedback as well as a comparative study on peer feedback and teacher feedback. However, there are less researches on combing this two kinds of feedback from now on. Based on which, this study looks forward to making

30、 contribution to feedback in EFL writing by integrating peer feedback and teacher feedback.Definition of Terms3.1 Feedback TheoryFeedback is wisely seen in education as crucial for both encouraging and consolidating learning (Anderson, 1982; Vygotsky, 1978), and the importance has also been acknowle

31、dged in the field of English writing. In the traditional American dictionary (2006), feedback is defined as “transferring process and system input into a part of output ”. In the process of writing, the effects of writing cannot be neglected. Keh (1990: 302) referred to feedback as an indispensable

32、part in the process writing pedagogy.In language learning, feedback means evaluative remarks which are available to language learners concerning their language proficiency or linguistic performance (Larsen-Freeman, 2005). In the field of teaching and learning, feedback is defined as many terms, such

33、 as response, review, correction, evaluation or comment. No matter what the term is, it can be defined as “comments or information learners receive on the success of a learning task, either from the teacher or from other learners (Richards et al., 1998)”.A more detail description of feedback in term

34、s of writing is that the feedback is “input from the reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for revision” (Keh, 1990). From the presentation of general grammatical explanation to the specific error correction is all the range of feedback. The purpose is to improve

35、the writing ability of students by the description and correction of theerrors.The role of feedback is to make writers learn where he or she has misled or confused the reader by supplying insufficient information, illogical organization, lack of development of ideas, or something like inappropriate

36、word-choice or tense (Keh, 1999).From the perspective of teachers, feedback can be seen as a form of evaluation, aiming at producing a supportive teaching environment and helping students finish assignments better with the aid of feedback from the previous ones. From the perspective of learners, fee

37、dback can be considered as a self-assessment, which enables learners to see in what area they need to improve and understand. And feedback can be classified as teacher feedback and peer feedback in terms of the source of feedback which writers receive.3.1.1Teacher FeedbackTeacher feedback refers to

38、the input provided by the teacher for the revision of students writings or assessment of learning performance (Keh, 1990). Students usually hole the view that teacher feedback is more believable for the reason that it is originated from the influence of the traditional product-oriented approach in w

39、riting. And many teachers feel that they have the duty to make substantial comments on students compositions for the purpose of giving a response to students efforts, offering assistance for the improvement of students writing performance and justify the grades they acquired (K, Hyland, 2003).Resear

40、chers considered teacher feedback from various aspects examining the nature of teachers responding behaviors in order to find out the effectiveness of teacher feedback (Connors & Lunsford, 1993; Ferris, 1997; Sommers, 1982; Zamel, 1985); comparing students perceptions of teacher feedback with those

41、peer feedback (Chaudron, 1984); and analyzing students views on teachers feedback (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Hedgcock & Leftkowtz, 1992). The main method of response to the writing is the handwritten commentary on students drafts and teacher feedback is most emphasized in students expectation for re

42、vision. One of the major issues that have been addressed is whether teachers written comments can help students enhance their writing ability without checking the texts appropriately (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982; Straub, 1996, 1997).In fact, several early L1 studies that teacher feedback does not serv

43、e serve as a mean of effective communication between teacher and student (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982; Faigley & Witte, 1981). However, the role of teacher feedback on students writing has transferred when it refers to second language learning. Although this mode may cause some wrong communication and

44、 misunderstanding between teacher and student, teacher feedback has the potential value for stimulating students to revise their drafts (Saito, 1994; Zhang, 1995) and to improve their writing (Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris, 1995, 1997, 2006; Goldstein & Conrad, 1990). 3.1.2 Peer FeedbackDifferent

45、from teacher feedback, peer feedback is defined as the use of learners as sources of information and interaction for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by formally trained teacher, tutor or editor in commenting on and critiquing each others dra

46、fts in both written and spoken formats in the process of writing (Liu & Hansen, 2002). For many years, the unique benefits of language learners can offer to each other were ignored in writing classrooms, especially in ESL and EFL classrooms. The Process Writing Theory and The Collaborative Learning

47、Theory have justified the use of peer feedback activities in the writing process. These theories have provided the evidence that peer feedback activities not only help L2 learners improve their writing ability but also their overall language abilities through the negotiation of meaning which typical

48、ly take place during these activities.There are various forms in peer feedback, such as offering spoken suggestions and correcting errors in written form. The well-known mode of peer feedback of SL writing class is that students who work in pairs in small groups read peer s compositions carefully, p

49、ointing out problems and doubts, and offer suggestions and comments (Richards et al., 2005). The essence of feedback is to hear multiple perspectives from a wide audience (Shepherd, 1992; Cho, Schunn, & Charney, 2006). This method, which is supported by the writing workshop pedagogy, and is widespre

50、ad in the first language teaching.Theoretical Foundations of Feedback4.1 Collaborative LearningCollaborative learning, also called cooperative learning, is the second theoretical basis that back for the application of feedback in writing class (Hiltz, 1997). It is feasible that students communicate

51、actively with each other in the classroom.Collaborative learning emphasizes that both students and instructors participate and communicate actively (Hiltz, 1997). Collaborative learning is viewed from both behavioral and humanistic perspectives (Slavin, 1987). The behavioral perspective stresses tha

52、t students are encouraged to study under a cooperative situation and rewarded in the form of group rather than individual ones. From the humanistic perspective, more understanding and better performance are gained from the interaction among peers. Hence, it is obvious that collaborative learning put

53、s more attention to the influence of peers, which is different from the previous EFL writing theories (Johnson and Johnson, 1986).Collaborative learning makes it possible that students discuss and accomplish tasks that they can not do finish by themselves without higher motivation. Students acquire

54、certain kinds of knowledge and benefit from each other in the way of spoken and written communication, which occurs in the atmosphere of collaborative learning.Researches in L1 writing has found that the writing is strengthened with the help of collaborative learning strategies (Bruffee, 1984). For

55、example, students in writing groups negotiate meaning as they revise the peers writings; learning in writing teams is conducive to improving the students writing proficiency (Gere, 1987).As to the impact of collaborative learning on L2 writing instruction, many benefits of applying collaborative lea

56、rning strategies in the classroom has also been stated in the study. In some researches it is mentioned that students can make decisions reasonably and effectively compare notes from the content and application through the group work. Collaborative learning also offers students raise opportunities r

57、eview and use their growing knowledge of L2 writing through interaction with peers in writing groups (Hivela, 1999: 8). There are many opportunities for students to share and communicate ideas with each other.4.2 Process-Oriented ApproachCompared with the product-oriented approach, the process appro

58、ach is an essential component of composition instruction and research. It is obvious that product-oriented approach attaches great importance to grammar, spelling, punctuation and vocabulary and so on. The process-oriented approach in EFL writing began to appear in the late of 1960s and early 1970s

59、in L1 writing (Elbow, 1973; Emig, 1971). The process-oriented approach was introduced to L2 studies by Vivan Zamel (1976). She argues that advanced L2 writers who are similar to L1 writers would benefit from this approach (Matsuda, 2003). Although there are various process approaches in writing inst

60、ruction, some noticeable features can be concluded. The features of process-oriented approach are as followed:Putting attention to the process of writing rather than the final product;Offering suggestions and help to compose students writing;Putting forward strategies of pre-writing, drafting and re