Feedback. (c2010)

Abstract

Feedback plays a central role in writing development. The immense studies conducted on the effectiveness of teacher feedback and peer feedback have resulted in inconsistent findings. While some found that teacher and peer feedback were futile and induced little revision, others found that they did enhance students’ writing skills. This research project reported on the study of the effect of teacher and peer feedback in writing among 10th grade secondary L2 students in one private school in Lebanon. Moreover, it examined students’ perception toward teacher and peer feedback. Both quantitative and qualitative data were obtained and triangulated. A content analysis of three writing essays was applied. A pre-post questionnaire was addressed to L2 students to analyze their perceptions toward teacher and peer feedback. The interviews with the L2 learners identified the role of peer and teacher feedback. A classroom observation revealed the features of peer interaction. Findings showed that teacher feedback was preferred to peer feedback. No statistically significant data was obtained concerning the impact of teacher and peer feedback on the writing quality. The implications of the findings of this study for the writing teacher were also discussed.