Improving English L2 writing in Web Communication: Can Peer Feedback help?

Marian Flanagan; Carmen Heine

doi:10.24989/fs.v50i3-4.1712

Improving English L2 writing in Web Communication: Can Peer Feedback help?

School of Communication and Culture - English Business Communication

Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

As teachers of English as a second language (L2) in web communication, our aim is to help L2 students improve their spoken and written English language skills. Teacher feedback has been shown to do this in some cases. However, only using teacher feedback can put huge pressure on the teacher, both in terms of time and resources. This paper describes and discusses our attempt at introducing peer feedback as an additional way of providing students with feedback on their English writing. Before conducting this study, we did not know if peer feedback would be feasible in our teaching environment or whether it would benefit the students and teachers. Our aim was to establish a status quo of our students’ abilities in providing and implementing peer feedback. We introduced peer-feedback tasks and focused on the types of feedback provided by the students, the phrasing of the feedback, both when implemented and not implemented by the students, and the types of revisions made by the students. Our findings allowed us to develop peer-feedback process guidelines for web communication as a way towards improving written feedback processes in higher education, and hopefully for others to adapt and implement in their own communication classrooms.

Original language	English
Journal	Fachsprache: International Journal of Specialized Communication
Volume	40
Issue	3-4
Pages (from-to)	94-121
Number of pages	27
ISSN	1017-3285
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.24989/fs.v50i3-4.1712
Publication status	Published - 2 Nov 2018

Keywords

L2 writing
peer feedback

Access to Document

10.24989/fs.v50i3-4.1712

Cite this

@article{8189aa88931b433fb16c4104ca3c0258,

title = "Improving English L2 writing in Web Communication: Can Peer Feedback help?",

abstract = "As teachers of English as a second language (L2) in web communication, our aim is to help L2 students improve their spoken and written English language skills. Teacher feedback has been shown to do this in some cases. However, only using teacher feedback can put huge pressure on the teacher, both in terms of time and resources. This paper describes and discusses our attempt at introducing peer feedback as an additional way of providing students with feedback on their English writing. Before conducting this study, we did not know if peer feedback would be feasible in our teaching environment or whether it would benefit the students and teachers. Our aim was to establish a status quo of our students{\textquoteright} abilities in providing and implementing peer feedback. We introduced peer-feedback tasks and focused on the types of feedback provided by the students, the phrasing of the feedback, both when implemented and not implemented by the students, and the types of revisions made by the students. Our findings allowed us to develop peer-feedback process guidelines for web communication as a way towards improving written feedback processes in higher education, and hopefully for others to adapt and implement in their own communication classrooms.",

keywords = "L2 writing, peer feedback",

author = "Marian Flanagan and Carmen Heine",

year = "2018",

month = nov,

day = "2",

doi = "10.24989/fs.v50i3-4.1712",

language = "English",

volume = "40",

pages = "94--121",

journal = "Fachsprache: International Journal of Specialized Communication",

issn = "1017-3285",