Effectiveness of Peer Feedback in Teaching Academic Chinese Writing for CSL Students
Southwest University, China
Peer feedback has been widely used in English as a foreign language writing, but rarely in CSL (Chinese as a second language) students’ academic Chinese writing. In order to explore the effectiveness of peer feedback in teaching of academic Chinese writing, this study was conducted among junior CSL students (n=16) majoring in TCSOL (teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages) at International College of Southwest University. Multiple sources of data were collected, including peer feedback rubric, classroom observation, semi-structured interviews and student assignments. Data analyses revealed that, firstly, according to peer feedback rubric, students paid most attention to language, less attention to structure and least attention to content, they focused on the use of vocabularies, grammar and punctuation in language, and focused on cohesion and coherence, completeness and moderation of content in structure and content. By comparing students’ first draft and second graft assignments, it was found that the effect of peer feedback on improving students’ academic writing performance was slight, but it could cultivate students’ abilities to discover, analyze and solve problems, improve students’ thinking abilities, stimulate students’ awareness of self-preparation and learning autonomy, train students’ awareness of self-reflection. Secondly, the effect of peer feedback was susceptible to student’s Chinese proficiency and writing knowledge, personality, social culture of native country and academic authority hierarchy. Among them, student’s Chinese proficiency and writing knowledge affected the breadth and depth of evaluation, personality, social culture of native country and academic authority hierarchy affected the subjective willingness and enthusiasm of evaluators.
Peer feedback, teaching of academic Chinese writing, effectiveness, influencing factors
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