EAL WRITERS AS PEER REVIEWERS

Challenges and Opportunities

Amanda Goldrick-Jones, SFU Student Learning CommonsShauna Jones, SFU Beedie School of Business

What is peer review?

An element of writing as a social, often collaborative process in which writers• give other writers non-judgmental feedback on how

to make a draft better• offer a helping hand through prompts, not a quick

fix through edits.

Why integrate peer review?

For Business Writing, we wanted to help students

Enhance their learning and writing skills learning by teaching

Prepare for collaboration at work move away from dependence on the “expert” or supervisor

Prepare to write for multiple audiences/stakeholders

Improve English fluency and confidence in the case of EAL writers

Why . . . and why not?

OPPORTUNITIESFor EAL students, the positive effects on learning and revision of giving oral & written peer feedback may be greater than the effects of receiving feedback. (Choi, 2013; Min, 2006; Vorobel & Kim, 2013).

CHALLENGESDevolves into mere editing for grammar or mechanics (Holst-Larkin, 2008; Rieber, 2010) “I don’t trust a peer’s writing ability” or “Only the prof/TA’s feedback counts.” Corporate culture: peer review has not been adopted broadly in business faculties (Rieber, 2010)

Integrating peer-review support in BUS 360W

SLC, Week 2: orientation to peer-review strategies

Peer-review RUBRICfor 1st submission SLC, Weeks 4-8:

sessions on argument, paragraphing, sentence structure

Peers revise based on peer reviews for 2nd submission

BUS 360W: Students assigned a

“peer buddy”

BUS 360W peer-reviewed assigns include• Portfolio

exercises• Email case

study• Letter case

study• Peer-review

buddy evaluations

Peer-review RUBRICsample …“checklist approach” (Rieber,

L.J., 2006)

Our research question

Can appropriate training in peer-review—emphasizing higher-order issues and supporting

second-order writing skills—raise the confidence of EAL writers as well as improve their writing fluency?

About BUS 360W: Business Writing at SFU

First, over to you! Discuss opportunities and challenges around ONE of these

questions . . .

How could peer review impact students’ revisions?How could peer review affect EAL students’ confidence in their writing?How might we help peers work through differences in language fluency?

What students said: anxieties

• peer feedback not as high in quality as teacher feedback

• peers should be more equally matched in writing ability

• writer’s mark might suffer if peer gives incorrect feedback

• a peer might unethically borrow a writer’s idea

• the rubric is too restrictive

What students said: positives

• gaining different perspectives• another pair of eyes to spot errors • promotes accountability• more incentive to meet deadlines &

do more revisions• chance to help each other improve• rubric a source of useful guidelines• builds community

Worried about offending the writer?

Confident about finding strengths/weaknesses?

Unsure about your ability to review peer writing?

Although the peer review process takes time and involves organization and planning, it proves its worth at grading time. (Rieber, 2006)

Our model predicts that, when controlling for cGPA, students in one of the sections where the supplemental writing strategies was [sic] incorporated would achieve, on average, almost one letter grade higher (.255 grade points) than those in a section without those supplemental strategies. (For example, the average could go from a B to, roughly, a B+.)

Results of comparative final-grades analysis (over 3 terms)

Although the peer review process takes time and involves organization and planning, it proves its worth at grading time. (Rieber, 2006)

Next step . . .

Analysis of “before and after” writing samples collected from 36 student participants over 3 terms. We’re looking for . . .

• patterns of language in PEER COMMENTS indicating confidence and approach to peer review (prompts? fixes?)

• linguistic features in DRAFTS and REVISIONS indicating writing improvement

We will present these findings in 2016.

Final research stage . . .

Next step . . . Wrap up: using peer review in your classes or in curriculum design

Greatest benefit or opportunity?Greatest challenge?Your main take-away from this session?

EAL Writers as Peer Reviewers: Challenges and Opportunities

Amanda Goldrick-Jones | SFU Student Learning Commons | agoldric@sfu.ca Shauna Jones | SFU Beedie School of Business | shaunaj@sfu.ca

Thank you for participating!

ReferencesChoi, J. (2013). Does peer feedback affect L2 writers’ L2 learning, composition skills, metacognitive knowledge, and L2 writing anxiety? English Teaching, 68: 3, 187-213

Holst-Larkin, J. (2008). Actively learning about readers: audience modelling in business writing. Business Communication Quarterly, 71:75, 75-80. DOI: 10.1177/1080569907312878

Min, H. (2006). The effects of trained peer review on EFL students’ revision types and writing quality. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 118-141

Rieber, L. J. (2010). Using peer review to improve student writing in business courses. Journal of Education for Business, 81:6, 322-326, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.81.6.322-326

Vorobel, O. & Kim, D. (2013). Focusing on content: discourse in L2 peer review groups. TESOL Journal. DOI: 10.1002/tesj.126