Students’ peer written feedback in paragraph

i

Acknowledgement
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Ms. Nguyen Thu Hien,
M.A. for her invaluable support, useful guidance and comments. I am truly grateful to her
advice and suggestions right from the beginning when this study was only in its formative
stage.
I would also express my gratitude to all the teachers of English department at Hanoi
University of Industry for their constructive and insightful comments, constant support as
well as suggestions for this paper.
Especially, I am grateful to the students in the three classes which I am in charge
for their actively taking part in completing the writing tasks and answering the survey
questionnaire. Without their help, this paper could not have been completed.
Finally, my special thanks go to my friends and my family who have been beside
me and have encouraged me a lot to fulfill my study.


ii

DECLARATION
I confirm that this is my own research, and that it has not been published or
submitted for any other degrees.

Student's signature

Nguyen Thi Lai


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Abstract

The main aim of this minor thesis is to examine the way in which intermediate
students at Hanoi University of Industry respond to their peers’ writing, the effectiveness
of the peer written feedback and students’ perceived difficulties when giving feedback to
their peers’ writings. In order to obtain adequate information for the study, document
analysis of students’ peer written feedback and survey method were applied. The
participants involved in the study were 100 intermediate students from three classes at
HaUI.
The analysis of the peer written feedback reveals that students gave feedback on all
the areas of the paragraph especially on grammar and vocabulary. Also, the study results
show that the peer written feedback is fairly effective to the students’ learning of writing.
Despite the effectiveness of the peer written feedback to students’ writings, a large
number of students at HaUI still have difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’
writings and providing suggestions to improve those mistakes.
Based on the findings, the researcher provides some suggestions to improve the teaching
and learning of writing using peer written feedback.


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Table of contents
Acknowledgement...................................................................................................i
Abstract....................................................................................................................ii
Declaration ..............................................................................................iii
List of tables, figures and appendices......................................................................iv
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................1
1. The rationale of the study........................................................................................1
2. Aims of the study and research questions...............................................................2
3. Scope of the study....................................................................................................3
4. Significance of the study.........................................................................................3
5. Methods of the study...............................................................................................3

6. Organization of the paper........................................................................................4

Chapter 2: Literature review............................................................5
2.1. Theoretical backgrounds of feedback to students’ writing...........................................5
2.1.1. Definitions of feedback..........................................................................................5
2.1.2. Types of feedback to students’ writing...................................................................6
2.1.2.1. Teacher’s feedback

.....................................................................................6

2.1.2.2. Self-editing .....................................................................................................6
2.1.2.3. Peer feedback...................................................................................................7
2.2. Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing.......8
2.2.1. Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in writing........................8
2.2.2. Arguments against students’ peer written feedback in writing.............................10
2.3. Different ways of peer feedback in writing..................................................................11
2.3.1. Written comments..................................................................................................12
2.3.2. Talking about the paper.........................................................................................12
2.3.3. Using checklists.....................................................................................................13
2.4. Guiding principles for effective peer written feedback................................................14
2.4.1. Before peer written feedback ................................................................................15
2.4.2. During peer written feedback................................................................................16
2.4.3. After peer written feedback ..................................................................................16

Chapter 3: The study.................................................................................18


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3.1. The current situation of teaching and learning writing at HaUI...................................18

3.2. Methodology.................................................................................................................18
3.2.1. The participants......................................................................................................18
3.2.2. Instrumentation.......................................................................................................19
3.2.3. Data collection procedure.......................................................................................21
3.2.4. Data analysis procedure..........................................................................................22

Chapter 4: Result and discussion.....................................................23
4.1. The current practice of students’ peer written feedback in writing..............................23
4.1.1. Paragraph organization...........................................................................................23
4.1.2. Grammar.................................................................................................................24
4.1.3. Vocabulary..............................................................................................................26
4.1.4. General written comments......................................................................................28
4.2. Improvement of students’ writing after receiving peer written feedback.....................29
4.3. Students’ perceived difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers’ writings
.............................................................................................................................................31
4.3.1. Students’ perceived difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings. .31
4.3.2. Students’ perceived difficulties in providing suggestions for the mistakes in their
peers’ writings.....................................................................................................................35
4.4. Implications for the teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback.....39

Chapter 5: Conclusion.............................................................................41
5.1. Summary.......................................................................................................................41
5.2. Limitations of the study ...............................................................................................41
5.3. Suggestions for further studies.....................................................................................42
References
Appendices

Lists of tables
Table 1: Students’ giving feedback on grammar.................................................................25

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Table 2: Examples of students’ giving feedback on grammar............................................26
Table 3: Students’ giving feedback on vocabulary..............................................................27
Table 4: Examples of students’ giving feedback on vocabulary.........................................28
Table 5: Students’ improvement in grammar and vocabulary after receiving peer written
feedback...............................................................................................................................30
Table 6: Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback..........30
Table 7: Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback......31
Table 8: Students’ perceived difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings
.............................................................................................................................................32
Table 9: Students’ perceived difficulties in providing suggestions for the indicated
mistakes in their peers’ writings..........................................................................................36

List of figures
Figure 1: The proportion of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization........23
Figure 2: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for the grammatical
mistakes...............................................................................................................................24
Figure 3: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for the vocabulary mistakes
.............................................................................................................................................27
Figure 4: The proportion of students who gave general written comments........................29

List of appendices
Appendix 1: Questionnaire..................................................................................................I
Appendix 2: Checklist.........................................................................................................III
Appendix 3: Symbols for correcting mistakes....................................................................IV


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Chapter1: Introduction
1.1. The rationale of the study
Nowadays, English is considered to be one of the key factors that help our country
make faster progress on the way of industrialization and modernization. Therefore, the
demand to use English fluently as well as to master the four basic skills is becoming
essential among all students in general and students at Hanoi University of Industry in
particular. Of the four skills, writing seems to be the most difficult but really important
because it is especially necessary for them to acquire ESP lessons in their last term.
Therefore, helping students enhance their writing skills is one of the teachers’
responsibilities. This can be done in a number of ways as Skroll (2003, p115) notes,
“Second language writers often benefit most and make most progress when teachers
contribute to this goal through a variety of intervention strategies available in classroom
settings”. One of these intervention strategies is students’ peer written feedback in writing.
It is obvious that one of the most meaningful and important methods of teaching
writing is the use of students’ peer written feedback. In this way, students write the first
draft and exchange it with their peers. Then, they read each other’s paper and provide
feedback, usually based on the checklist given by the teacher. The checklist focuses on
three main areas of the writing: organization, grammar and vocabulary.
The use of peer feedback especially peer written feedback in writing classrooms
has been generally supported in the literature as a potentially valuable aid for its social
cognitive, affective and methodological benefits (see, Mendonca and Johnson (1994),
Villamil and De Guerreco (1996), Jacobs (1998), Brinton (1983). They all believe that peer
feedback is very important and has great influence on the success of teaching and learning
writing. Keh (1990) states that Peer feedback is essential to the teaching and learning
writing as peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can and do revise
effectively on the basis of comments from peer readers. Besides, it is found that when
students become critical readers of others’ writings, they will be more critical readers and
revisers of their own writings (Rollinson, 2005). These are the main reasons why a lot of
teachers have chosen to use peer written feedback in the writing classroom. However,

using peer written feedback in writing is not easy as it takes the teachers a lot of time and
effort to teach writing skills.


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Recently, every school and university in Vietnam has tried to apply the latest
methodology in teaching language skills in general and in teaching writing skills in
particular in order to make language teaching and learning as effective as possible. Hanoi
University of Industry is certainly not an exception. Founded in 2006, HaUI has different
training programmes. Since its establishment, the university has paid great attention to
English as one of the main subjects so that students after graduating should be able to use
English confidently in their jobs and read documents written in English in their majors.
Therefore, all students at HaUI study English for five terms. During these terms, they learn
and practice the four basic skills and some ESP lessons. The textbooks such as
International express - Elementary (Keith Harding and Liz Taylor, 2005), International
express – Pre-intermediate (Keith Harding and Liz Taylor, 2005) and International
Express – Intermediate (Keith Harding and Liz Taylor, 2005) are chosen as the materials at
HaUI. The students share the same English course for the first four terms (each term
includes 120 periods, 45minutes/period) and some ESP for the last term. In the first four
terms, students learn different skills, which are integrated in a lesson as organized in the
textbooks. However, writing skills are especially necessary for them.
Each of the textbooks like that consists of twelve lessons with specific topic,
vocabulary and grammar. At the end of each lesson, students are usually asked to write a
paragraph of approximately 100 to 120 words based on the topic of the lesson to revise
what they have learnt. This writing not only helps them revise the vocabulary and grammar
but also gives them a chance to get used to writing and expressing ideas in English. The
importance of writing is undeniable, yet, it places a heavy burden on teachers. A huge
amount of feedback from teachers is required. In order to relieve the teachers’ heavy
workload of marking the papers and make this process meaningful to students’ learning, a

new way of giving feedback- peer written feedback provided by the intermediate students
in their third term- was introduced.
1.2. Aims of the study and research questions
This research is designed to investigate students’ peer written feedback in
paragraphs writing skills among Intermediate students at Hanoi University of Industry. Its
aims are to investigate students’ current practice of peer written feedback giving, the
effectiveness of the peer written feedback and the students’ perceived difficulties when
giving feedback to their peers’ writings. The thesis also desires to propose some


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implications for the teaching and learning writing using peer written feedback and provide
some suggestions for further study.
In order to achieve those aims, the research attempts to answer the following
questions:
1. How do students respond to their peers’ writings?
2. How do students improve their writings after receiving peer written feedback?
3. What are students’ perceived difficulties when giving feedback to their peers’
writings?
1.3. Scope of the study
Feedback in writing is such a broad topic including teacher’s feedback and peer
feedback. Therefore, within the framework of a minor thesis, this study focuses only on
one type of feedback -peer written feedback- in paragraph writing skills among
intermediate students at Hanoi University of Industry.
1.4. Significance of the study
Theoretically, the study proves that peer written feedback is crucial to the teaching
and learning of writing. Peer written feedback offers a number of advantages. Indeed, peer
written feedback gives both the readers and the writers more opportunities for
collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate. It also gives

the teacher a better chance of closely following the progress of individuals and groups,
both in terms of the feedback offered and revisions made.
Practically, the study shows that using peer written feedback not only eases the
teachers’ burden in giving feedback to students’ writings but also helps students improve
their writing skills. Obviously, when students read their peers’ writings, they not only help
their peers recognize and correct the mistakes but also become more critical writers.
1.5. Methods of the study
In this study, two methods were used in order to obtain adequate information for
the study. They were document analysis and survey.
First, document analysis of 100 students’ first drafts with the peer written feedback
was done to find out how students provide written feedback to their peers’ writing. Then,
the students’ first drafts were compared with their second drafts to see whether the peer
written feedback helps students improve their writing.


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Second, the survey was done on the 100 students who had given peer written
feedback to find out the students’ perceived difficulties in responding to their peers’
writing.
1.6. Organization of the paper
The paper consists of five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 – Introduction – briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims,
research questions, scope as well as the significance and organization of the study.
Chapter 2 – Literature review- discusses the literature related to the feedback to
students’ writing, different views and ways of peer feedback in writing as well as the
guiding principles for effective peer written feedback.
Chapter 3-The study-describes the current situation of the teaching and learning
writing at HaUI and the methodology which deals with the participants, instrumentation,
data collection procedure and data analysis procedure.

Chapter 4 – Results and Discussion- analyzes and discusses the data and then draws
the implications for the teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback.
The last chapter – Chapter 5 – summarizes the major findings of the study,
acknowledges its limitations and provides suggestions for further study.


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Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1. Theoretical backgrounds of feedback to students’ writing.
2.1.1. Definitions of feedback
Although there have been so far few attempts in the literature to define the term
feedback in teaching writing, researchers seem to have reached a consensus of the nature
and function of the feedback.
Various researchers define the term “feedback” in different ways, among which the
one put forward by Keh (1990) is one of the most comprehensive. Keh considers feedback
as “any input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the
writer for revision” (p. 294). In other words, when giving feedback, the reader gives the
writer comments, questions and suggestions with an aim to help him/her revise the writing.
According to Chaudron, (1988, p.133) feedback which is contrasted with the narrower
notion of correction is therefore “an evitable constituent of classroom interaction” and
“from the teacher’s point of view, the provision of feedback is a major means by which to
inform learners of their accuracy of both their formal target language production and their
classroom behavior and knowledge”. Thus, feedback can be considered as an effective
means to communicate to the students about their writing. Through feedback, the student
knows whether he or she has misled or confused the reader by not supplying enough
information, illogical organization, lack of development of ideas, or something like
inappropriate word-choice or tense (Keh, 1990).
However, this information is much more helpful if it is provided on preliminary and
intermediate stage, rather than on the final one as Seow (2002) claims that feedback is

regarded as teacher’s quick initial reaction to the students’ drafts. Added to this, Rynandya
and Richards (2003) state that if students write only one draft which is then graded by the
teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition comes too late. This means
feedback should be provided in the process of writing rather than in single act of producing
a text as Raimes (1983, p.139) notes, “Responding to students’ writing is very much a part
of the process of teaching writing”. That means feedback is very necessary for the success
of the writing tasks.


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2.1.2. Types of feedback to students’ writing
A review on the literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback as
revision. These areas are: teacher’s feedback, self-editing and peer feedback.
2.1.2.1. Teacher’s feedback
There has been limited literature on the effectiveness or the way in which teachers
“correct” students’ compositions (Shrum and Glisan, 2002). It raises the question of
whether teachers’ kind of correction and comment match students’ expectations (Murphy,
1994) or still presents a mismatch (Charles, 1990). It’s necessary to find out the ways to
improve the quality of students’ written work (Shrum &Glisan, 2000).
In terms of a mismatch between teachers’ and students’ expectations, Charles
(1990) says that students are interested in comments on vocabulary, organization and
content as surface-structure problems, meanwhile, teachers prefer to comment primarily on
surface level features (Zamel, 1985). In other words, “much of the conflict over teacher
response to written work has been whether teacher feedback should focus on form or on
content” (Fathme and Wholly, 1990, p178). As a result, to improve the quality of teacherfeedback, teachers must decide whether to focus on form (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, and
mechanics) or on content (e.g., organization and amount of detail). Much of the literature
on correcting written errors supports the claim that learners’ writing skills may improve
with teacher feedback that focuses on content rather on form. Besides, in order to make
teachers’ feedback more effective, teachers should give students more control over the

feedback they receive by underlining the parts of the text they are dissatisfied with .This
will enable students to evaluate their own writing and set their goal (Charles, 1990).
Hyland (1990) also agreed that this will lead to a high success rate.
2.1.2.2. Self-editing
Raimes (1984, p.149) notes that “What students really need more than anything
else is to develop the ability to read their own writing and to examine it critically, to learn
how to express their meaning fluently, logically, and accurately”. He also believes that
students need to be able to find and correct their own mistakes. Students’ attempt in
language learning is one of the crucial factors towards their success. If a learner was aware
of self-editing and tried to learn from his own failure, he would receive more chances of
overcoming difficulties in learning than others who did not care why they failed. Besides,
the techniques of reading closely and analyzing the writing develop students’ critical skills


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to their own writing. Importantly, the students need to develop the critical skills in
checking their own writing right in the early stage when ideas are forming. However, in
order to help students to revise their own writings effectively, the teacher should provide
students with correction codes to work with.
2.1.2.3. Peer feedback
According to Bartels (2004), peer feedback means feedback from your fellow
students. If one student is working on the same assignment as another student, peer
feedback can mean exchanging drafts and comments on each other’s drafts. Additionally,
Hansen and Liu (2005:1) also state that peer feedback is “the use of learners as source of
information, and interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and
responsibilities normally taken on by teachers in commenting and critiquing each other’s
performance in both written and oral formats”. In the literature on writing, peer feedback
referred to many names, for example, peer response, peer editing, peer critiquing, and peer
evaluation. Each name connotes a particular slant to the feedback, mainly in terms of

where along the continuum this feedback is given, and the focus of the feedback. Whatever
form it may take, this kind of feedback gives students a chance to read each other’s papers
and to provide feedback to the writer, possibly based on specific questions the teacher has
provided. These responses can be oral or/and written.
Oral peer response, as presented in Mittan (1989)-a classic article- calls for students
to work in groups of four or five. Each student gives one copy of her paper to every
member of the group. Then usually out of class for homework, each group member reads
other students’ papers and prepares a response to each of them, using focus questions
provided by the teacher. In the following class, students give oral comments on each paper
they have read, as well as ask and answer clarifying questions. Each student then uses this
feedback from the other group members to rewrite his/her paper.
Bartels (2004) also states that nowadays teachers have changed

the ways of

conducting peer feedback. For example, many teachers now train their students to give
positive, useful feedback and give students practice in evaluating written work. Stanley
(1992) and Zhu (1995) found that untrained students tend to focus on surface errors rather
than on organization or style. Nelson and Murphy (1992) also believe that feedback
formulated in a negative way can be more discouraging than helpful. Therefore, instead of
having their students give oral feedback to their peers’ writings in group setting, many


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teachers today have students write feedback, which is then given directly to the author of
the paper. After receiving this written feedback, students are given time to read it and ask
any questions or seek clarification about what their peers have written. As in oral peer
feedback, this feedback is then used to write the final draft of the paper. Johnston (2004)
has found that, when oral peer response is possible, there are advantages to having students

give written responses to their peers’ writing.
2.2. Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing
As mentioned above, although in recent years, the use of peer feedback in English
writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature as a potentially available
aid for its social, cognitive, affective and methodological benefits, doubts on the part of
many teachers and students are not uncommon. Therefore, some of these real concerns will
be discussed in this part.
2.2.1. Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in the teaching and
learning of writing
Peer feedback is part of a larger category of educational activities (Jacobs, 1989).
The use of peer feedback is becoming more common for two reasons. First, the growing
popularity of teaching writing as a process with several dimensions has made peer
feedback more appropriate because there is more emphasis on revision. Second, these
dimensions of the writing process- creating ideas, shaping those ideas into a piece of
writing, and then fixing the form of that writing- provide more points at which feedback
can be offered. Therefore, peer feedback in many famous researchers’ point of view has a
lot of advantages that help to make the teaching and learning of writing more effective.
One of the key advantages of peer written feedback is that peer readers can provide
useful feedback. This point is supported by several researchers. Rollinson (1998) found
high levels of valid feedback among his students. Similarly, Caulk (1994) found that the
comments and suggestions that students made were useful. These prove that the comments
from peer readers can help students revise their writings effectively. Indeed, Mendonca and
Johnson’s study (1996) showed that 53% of revisions made were incorporation of peer
comments. Rollinson (1998) found even higher levels of uptake of reader feedback, and
65% of comments were accepted either completely or partially by readers.
In addition, Rollinson (2005) finds out that peer written feedback gives both
readers and writers more time for collaboration, consideration and reflection. Similarly,


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Bartels (2004) shows that peer written feedback provides instant feedback and negotiation
of meaning. Although negotiation of meaning is considered a vital element in language
learning, it is difficult to create situations in which students have the opportunity to
negotiate meaning in regard to their writing. However, when students get written feedback
to their writings, they spontaneously request clarification, ask questions such as "What
exactly do you mean by…?"; "What about this paragraph did you find confusing?" and
"Don't you think it would be a little boring if I added more detail here, as you suggested?".
Students even argue about the feedback, giving their peers instant feedback and an
excellent opportunity for negotiation.
Another advantage of peer written feedback is that every student has a chance to
give and receive peer written feedback (Bartels, 2004). If a student misses the class the day
that oral peer feedback is done, she does not receive any feedback on her writing and
misses the opportunity to give feedback to her peers. With peer written feedback, students
can still give and receive feedback, even if they miss the class. Giving this responsibility to
students may also foster learners’ independence.
Peer written feedback also gives the teacher a better chance of closely following the
progress of individuals and groups (Rollinson, 2005). First, peer written feedback helps
teachers check if students are giving the proper type of feedback and can provide actual
examples of positive and negative feedback, which is difficult to do with accuracy and
depth in oral feedback. Second, when writing assignments are turned in accompanied by
the previous draft(s) and the peers' comments, it is easier for the teacher to ascertain which
ideas originated with the student author and how well the student was able to respond to
and incorporate the feedback and suggestions from peers, something that would not even
be possible with oral feedback.
Furthermore, peer written feedback also changes students’ role in the class. As
Jacobs (1989) says that with the teacher feedback, the students’ role is limited to producing
writing which will be read and evaluated solely by the teacher. In contrast, peer written
feedback broadens learners’ involvement by giving them the additional roles of reader and
advisor to go with that of writer. Keh (1990) also discovered that when students read the

writings of their classmates, they can find out their mistakes and at the same time, this
helps to remind them to avoid and correct such mistakes.


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Besides, peer written feedback is considered to be more at learners’ level of
development or interest (Chaudron, 1984). And since multiple peers may be used, learners
can gain a sense of wider audience than simply the one teacher. The reader learns more
about writing through critically reading others’ paper. They will write with a more specific
focus because they know that their peers will also be reading their paper. Students also find
peer written feedback useful for obtaining immediate feedback and detecting problems in
others’ papers.
What is more, teachers’ time may be saved by eliminating certain editing tasks,
especially in large classes, thus freeing them for more helpful instructions and guidance
(Rollinson, 2005). Also, in large classes, teachers often do not have enough time to write
thorough comments on each student's paper. Instead, peer written feedback provides
students with thorough feedback because peer reviewers will notice different aspects of the
paper (Caulk 1994).
Finally, peer written feedback also provides the readers with a written record for
revision (Rollinson, 2005). It is obvious that when students are listening to oral feedback,
some listen and make very few notes on what is being said. Often, they rewrite their papers
without the benefit of remembering what the feedback from their peers was and after the
semester is over, they have little material to review besides the teacher's comments. Peer
written feedback provides students with reference materials for their own writing.
In short, it can be inferred from those advantages above that peer written feedback
can be very useful in a wide variety of classes with students of different levels. Peer
written feedback can also be valuable in classes where improving speaking skills is just as
important as improving writing skills. Overall, this technique can be instrumental in
helping students understand the process of writing and become independent thinkers and

writers.
2.2.2. Argument against peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing
Against those enthusiastic claims and generally positive findings, however, the
following considerations should be taken into account.
One of the disadvantages that make peer written feedback difficult to be applied in
many writing classes is the time constraints. In other words, the peer written feedback itself
is a lengthy one (Rollinson, 2005). Indeed, the peer written feedback often includes reading
a draft (probably more than one), making notes, then write the comments, or engaging


11

orally with the writer in a feedback circle. All these activities will certainly consume a
significant amount of time. Furthermore, before the peer written feedback process begins,
some form of pre-training is crucial if the activity is to be really profitable. That means
students can only get benefits from peer written feedback when they are taught a variety of
basic procedures as well as other essential skills, such as arriving at a consensus, debating,
questioning, asserting, depending, evaluating the logic and coherence of ideas, and
expressing criticisms and suggestions in a clear and comprehensible, yet tactful way. The
consumption of time in this case is considerable.
Another issue requiring some consideration is the student characteristics. Rollinson
(2005) also affirms that many students may not easily accept the idea that their peers are
qualified enough to evaluate their writing, so they may need a significant amount of initial
persuasion of the value of peer written feedback. Besides, some students may feel
uncomfortable to give critical comments either because they want to maintain group
harmony or because they were reluctant to claim a degree of authority (Carson and Nelson,
1996). In addition, the age of students can also limit the co-operative and collaborative
aspects of peer written feedback.
Finally, teachers might find it hard to hand over a significant degree of
responsibility to the students (Rollinson, 2005). He also mentions that it may be difficult

for teachers not to interfere by providing feedback in addition to that of the student readers
as it might well reduce the students’ motivation and commitment to their own responding.
No less significant is the fact that the teacher’s role as trainer and supervisor may be rather
arduous.
2.3. Different types of peer feedback in writing
As argued by Keh (1990) and Mangeldorf (1992), writing is the process in which
different ways of feedback such as written comments, talking about the paper and using the
checklist could be carried out. According to Shrum & Glisan (2000), responding to writing
simply used to mean that the teacher correct students’ errors in grammar, vocabulary, and
typical types of mistakes. However, this narrow view of correction has been expanded in
recent years because we can consider the effect that various kinds of feedback have on
improving the quality of students’ written work. Obviously, the understanding of different
ways of giving feedback to students’ writing will help teachers make the right decision
about which kind of feedback to apply in certain teaching situations.


12

2.3.1. Talking about the paper
According to Raimes (1984), ‘talking about the paper’ means students discuss their
peers’ papers with each other to find out what the other is trying to say in his writing. It
also means “peer review” where students read their peers’ written papers in order to make
suggestions for revision (Mangelsdorf, 1992). It can be conducted after students write their
drafts. Then, they exchange their writings, reading or listening to a peer’s draft and
commenting on what they find most interesting, what they want to know more about,
where they are confused and so on. The writers then use this feedback to decide how to
revise their writing.
Although ‘talking about the paper’ can be time-consuming, a talk of just a few
minutes can be productive. During a discussion, students can take notes of what the other
student says (Raimes, 1984). The student is then surprised at the ideas produced in a few

minutes. The written notes then can be used as basis for further rewriting activities.
Mangelsdorf (1992) allows students to collaborate in pairs on a student’s essay.
This way they can decide together what comments to give and how to express them. By
working together, students often have more exact and better comments because they can
discuss ideas with each other. Collaboration also enables students to feel more confident
about the feedback they are giving their classmates (Mangelsdorf, 1992).
2.3.2. Using checklists
One way to help students approach the feedback task is to provide them with a set
of yes/no questions to be answered while they read and analyze each other’s paper. This
document, or checklist, according to Raimes (1983, p.147) “is a very useful tool as a
starting point for training as it directs the students’ attention to the elements which should
be focused on during peer feedback sessions”.
Raimes (1983) also says that a checklist should be short and it should be used first
by the student to check a piece of writing then by a teacher to evaluate it. In each writing
assignment, a new checklist can be devised to be suitable to the features of one particular
writing task as well as the objective of the lesson.
Keh (1990) suggests the guide-lines for the feedback sessions should begin as very
structured checklists, and then be less structured; finally, there are no guide-lines. He also
says that the guidelines are based on lesson objectives and use vocabulary from readings
and discussions. Actually, in each writing assignment, a new checklist can be devised to be


13

suitable to the critical features of one particular task. For example, a checklist can focus
attention on form and grammar, without being overwhelming in its demands or a checklist
can be used to note only success with items that have been taught in class.
The checklist is used to identify any problems in the writing and is designed to give
the writer some ideas about areas which should be improved. The checklist can contain
questions about manuscript form, instructions about grammar, tasks to analyze content and

organization. Students can use the checklist to answer questions concerning the draft’s
topic, unity, development, focus and whatever the teacher wants to emphasize for that
lesson.
2.3.3. Written comments
Written comments mean students respond by writing down their notes or ideas on
their peers’ writings. Normally, written comments that take the form of a paraphrase of the
ideas expressed, praise, questions, or suggestions are more productive than an end
comment like “Only fair,” “Good”, or “Need more work”, etc.
Feedback may not always be sufficient and effective if they are too short and
uninformed (Shrum and Glisan, 2000). Students preferred comments referring to specific
points in their writing, rather than a list of general comments at the end (Todd; Mills;
Palard & Khamcharoen, 2001).
To make the comments more valuable to students’ written papers, Cohen (1997)
classifies students into two kinds as “good learners” and “poor learners” with respects to
their use of feedback. He discovers that “good learners” pays greater attention to comments
dealing with vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics than those who report being “poor
learners”.
In order to avoid ineffective comments, writers should write comments from three
different points of view, as a reader, as a teacher and as a grammarian (Keh, 1990). Firstly,
a reader’s comments to the writer can have the content such as ‘good point’ or ‘I agree’.
Then, from a writing commentator’s point of view, it should be commented on the
confusion or the illogical ideas (e.g. I as your reader am confused by …). Finally, the
comment from the view of a grammarian may refer to grammatical mistakes such as tense
choice.
Raimes (1983) suggests the ways to give comments to students’ papers by
paraphrasing ideas, praising, questioning or giving suggestions. He also points out


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“noticing and praising whatever student does well improves writing more than any kind of
or amount of correction of what he does badly” (1983, p.143).
The steps to give the comments to students’ written papers are described by Raimes
(1983) as followed.


The first thing is to read the paper through then to note what
students have done well before writing anything on it.



Then note what students have done well from organizing ideas to
using apostrophe correctly.

He argues that after students receive the praise of the strengths, they then need to
know what to do to improve the piece of writing. A suggestion to “Revise” tells nothing.
Suggestions must be specific, giving directions that the students can follow, step by step.
Besides, he also suggests questions be useful if commentators want to lead students
to consider other options without necessarily suggesting those options themselves.
Questions are valuable to direct a student’s attention to unclear content or organization or
insufficient details. Questions are useful recommendations for revision.
Keh (1990) also suggests six useful recommendations for writing comments:
1. connect comments to lesson objectives (vocabulary)
2. note improvements: ‘good’, plus reasons why;
3. refer to a specific problem, plus strategy for revision
4. write questions with enough information for students to answer
5. write summative comment of strengths and weaknesses;
6. ask ‘honest’ questions as a reader to write rather than statements that
assume too much about the writer’s intention/meaning.
2.4. Guiding principles for effective peer written feedback

Coffin et al. (2003, p.101) states that good feedback includes “positive comments”,
“criticism” and “suggestions for improvements”. Therefore, this part presents guiding
principles teachers can utilize in their own planning and student training for effective peer
written feedback as the key to making peer written feedback a welcome component in
writing classrooms lies in teacher planning and student training. Therefore, the guiding
principles given below as Hansen and Liu (2005) state emphasize three stages: before peer
written feedback, during peer written feedback and after peer written feedback.