STUDENT – STUDENT
CONFERENCING
Lecture 7
Teaching Writing in EFL/ESL
Joy Robbins
A QUICK NOTE ABOUT ASSIGNMENTS
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(1) Design a writing lesson or material to teach writing. Explain the
approach(es) your lesson/material uses (e.g. product, etc.) and justify your
choices by referring both to theory and practice, including your teaching
context. *
(2) Critically evaluate a set of published materials for teaching writing and
explain how you would use/adapt them in your teaching context, referring to
the literature to justify your choices. The materials could be a selection of
writing activities from an integrated course book, a writing text book, online
activities, or a mix thereof. *
(3) Describe, illustrate, and justify the principles which underlie your
approach when correcting student writing.
(4) Respond to an authentic student text by giving written feedback.
Explain and justify why you have given the feedback you did, and outline
any other form(s) of feedback you might give this student. Remember to set
the scene by explaining the student’s context, needs, etc. Please note that I
can supply some authentic student texts if required. However, I will NOT
accept an assignment about the student text you did a presentation
on in week 5! *
2
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(5) A title of your choice. However, this MUST be discussed with me first.
TODAY’S SESSION
What is student—student conferencing?
 What are the pros and cons of student—student
conferencing?
 Does conferencing work, according to research
evidence?
 Would conferencing be appropriate in your
teaching context?

N.B. Ferris (2003a,b), Ferris & Hedgcock (1998),
and Yang et al (2006) provide excellent
discussions of conferencing
3
TYPES OF CONFERENCE: REMINDER
(1) Teacher—Student conferences, where
students meet teachers individually to discuss
their writing
(2) Student—Student conferences, where
students evaluate/discuss their colleagues’
writing
Last week we looked at teacher—student
Today we’ll look at student—student
Before we look at conferencing in detail, make
a list of arguments FOR and AGAINST holding
student—student conferences in class.
4
STUDENT—STUDENT CONFERENCING:
PROS
Ferris & Hedgcock (1998:170-1) and Ferris (2003a:
129-30, b) summarize the potential pros and cons of
student—student conferences. First the pros…
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Students receive feedback from multiple sources (Mittan
1989).
Students gain a clearer understanding of audience
(readers’) needs by receiving feedback on what they have
done well and on what remains unclear (Mittan 1989;
Moore 1986; Witbeck 1976).
Responding to peers’ writing builds the critical skills
needed to analyze and revise one’s own writing (Leki
1990; Mittan 1989).
Students gain confidence (or reduce apprehension) by
seeing peers’ strengths and weaknesses in writing (Leki
1990; Mittan 1989)
5
PROS (CONTD.)
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Students can engage in unrehearsed, low-risk, exploratory talk,
which is less feasible in whole-class or teacher-student
interactions.
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Students receive “reactions, questions, and responses from
authentic readers” (Mittan 1989:209….).
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Students’ communication skills are developed through
interacting with their peers (Mangelsdorf 1989)
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Students are encouraged to become more autonomous and to
rely less on the teacher (Tsui & Ng 2000), developing the
capacity for ‘independent problem solving’ (de Guerrero &
Vilamil 1994)
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Students will become aware of their own strengths and
weaknesses as writers (Tsui & Ng 2000)
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Students will realize how important it is to rewrite and revise
writing several times in order to ensure the meaning’s clear!
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Peer conferencing can reduce the teacher’s workload and reveal
to the teacher what kind of writing students believe is ‘good’
writing
6
PEER CONFERENCING: CONS (LEKI 1990)
Leki (1990) noted several potential problems with
peer feedback, derived from both the comments of
20 ESL students and from her own and other
writing teachers’ experiences:
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Students sometimes focus too heavily on “surface
concerns” (p.9) or editing, neglecting larger revising
issues;
Students can provide vague, unhelpful comments;
Students may be hostile, sarcastic, overly critical, or
unkind in their criticisms of their classmates’ writing;
Students feel uncertain about the validity of their
classmates’ responses;
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CONS (LEKI 1990) (CONTD.)
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In peer group discussions, students may struggle
with their own listening comprehension skills or
with the peer’s foreign accent; and
Lack of L2 formal (rhetorical) schemata may lead
to inappropriate expectations about the content
and structure of peers’ texts, which can then
result in counterproductive feedback that leads
writers further away from [western] academic
expectations.
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EVEN MORE CONS
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Students, due to their limitations as both
developing writers and L2 learners, are simply not
very good at giving one another helpful feedback,
thus calling into question the time and effort
needed to implement peer response (Connor &
Asenavage 1994; Leki 1990; Nelson & Carson
1998). (Ferris 2003a: 129-30, see also Nelson &
Murphy 1993)
Villamil & de Guerrero (1998) summarize this well:
‘Among practitioners, there seems to be a lingering
feeling that L2 students are not knowledgeable
enough to detect and correct errors in the target
language’ (p.491)
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EVEN MORE CONS (CONTD.)
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Students misunderstand the purposes for peer
feedback and are uncomfortable with it (Leki
1990; Nelson & Carson 1998; Zhang 1995).
Peer feedback can be especially uncomfortable for
students from “collectivist” cultures, who are
more interested in group solidarity than
individual achievement (Allaei & Connor 1990;
Carson & Nelson 1994, 1996).(Ferris 2003a: 12930)
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CULTURAL FACTORS & CONFERENCING
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Carson & Nelson (1994, 1996) claimed that
conferencing for students from ‘collectivist’ cultures
(e.g. China, Japan) may be difficult
They claim that their study of Chinese students
conferencing shows that “the Chinese students were
reluctant to initiate comments and, when they did,
monitored themselves carefully so as not to precipitate
conflict within the group” (p.1).
So if the students are more preoccupied with
avoiding causing offence than with making
honest criticisms of their colleagues’ writing, is
there any point in using student—student
conferencing at all??
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ONE LAST VERY OBVIOUS CON
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Zhang (1995) found that the vast majority of the
81 ESL university students questioned preferred
teacher feedback to peer feedback
So if students prefer other types of feedback, is
there any point in using student—student
conferencing?
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TEACHER FEEDBACK VS. PEER
FEEDBACK
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Although many, perhaps most, students do prefer
teacher feedback to peer feedback, this doesn’t
mean that peer feedback has no value
Villamil & de Guerrero’s (1998) have written
persuasively about this. They used student
conferencing successfully with intermediatelevel EFL students
As they freely admit, an intermediate student’s
feedback on another student’s work is never going
to be error free, or be equal to a teacher’s. But this
is not the point…
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TEACHER FEEDBACK VS. PEER
FEEDBACK
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“...peer revision is not a substitute for teacher
feedback. We do not see peer feedback and teacher
feedback as being in competition; rather, we see
them as complementary forms of assistance in the
writing classroom. Perhaps the time has come to
stop asking ourselves, ‘Which is better (or which is
more effective), peer feedback or teacher feedback?’
We should begin to ask ourselves instead, ‘What
and how can peer revision contribute to the
students’ writing development in a way that
complements teacher feedback?’” (Vilamil &
Guerrero 1998: 508)
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MORE ON STUDENTS’ FEELINGS ABOUT
FEEDBACK
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Reviewing all of the studies which have questioned
students about how they feel about peer feedback,
Ferris (2003a) claims that most students enjoy
peer conferencing and find it helpful.
But doesn’t her conclusion directly contradict
Zhang’s (1995), which found that students
generally preferred teacher feedback to peer
feedback?
Not necessarily—students may think teacher
feedback is more worthwhile than colleagues’
feedback. But that is not to say that students
think colleagues’ feedback is worthless…
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COMPARING TEACHER AND
STUDENT FEEDBACK
 Yang
et al (2006) investigated whether
Chinese university students paid more
attention to teacher or peer feedback, and
the effects of this feedback:
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41 students received teacher feedback on their
first draft of writing, which they then revised in
response to the feedback;
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38 students received peer feedback (doing
conferences in Chinese), which they used to
revise their writing
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THE COMPREHENSIVENESS AND
ACCURACY OF TEACHER AND
STUDENT FEEDBACK
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Students received much more feedback from the
teacher than from their peers
‘…students received feedback on 43% of possible
feedback points from their teacher as opposed to
only 27% from their peers’ (Yang et al 2006: 188)
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THE IMPACT OF TEACHER AND
STUDENT FEEDBACK: USING
READERS’ SUGGESTIONS
 90%
of usable teacher feedback was used by
students when revising their writing, in
contrast to 67% of usable student feedback
 ‘The
most common reason for the rejection of
peer feedback was that the writers did not
accept the feedback for the reason that it
seemed “incorrect” to them’ (Yang et al 2006:
189)
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THE IMPACT OF TEACHER AND
STUDENT FEEDBACK: SELF-CORRECTION
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Self-correction = ‘Any revision that was made by the
writers themselves, not initiated by their teacher or
peers’ (Yang et al 2006: 192)
‘The more [writers] doubted the feedback, the more
likely it was that they would develop their own
independent ideas they had for revision. […]
[E]xposure to teacher feedback seemed to reduce
self-correction, perhaps because students believed
that the teacher had pointed out all their mistakes
and there was no need for further correction. […]
The over-dependence on teacher feedback is likely to
lower the students’ initiative and lead to fewer selfinitiated corrections…’ (Yang et al 2006: 192)
So peer feedback may lead to greater autonomy…
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THE USEFULNESS OF PEER FEEDBACK
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‘…in the peer feedback class, over 60% of the
students thought peer feedback was “useful” or
“very useful”, a contrast to 22% in the teacher
feedback class…. This may indicate that
experience of peer feedback has a positive impact
on student perceptions…’ (Yang et al 2006: 186)
…All of which supports Ferris’ (2003a) claim
that students generally DO enjoy peer
conferencing and find it helpful (even if they
feel teacher feedback is even more valuable…)
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ANOTHER IMPORTANT QUESTION:
DO STUDENTS LISTEN TO THEIR
COLLEAGUES’ ADVICE?
However, some studies disturbingly
suggest that student writers don’t
actually revise their writing in
response to what their colleagues say
during conferencing…
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DO STUDENTS LISTEN TO THEIR
COLLEAGUES?
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Research evidence is conflicting about the degree to
which students utilize peer feedback in their
revisions
Some researchers have found students make only
minimal changes to their writing based on other
students’ feedback: Connor & Asenavage (1994) say only
5% of changes in their students’ final drafts were due to
student—student conferencing.
However, Mendonca & Johnson (1994) claimed that 53%
of revisions in students’ final drafts were due to
student—student conferencing
Possible reasons for this massive variation? Let’s see…
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DO STUDENTS LISTEN?: CONFLICTING
REPORTS
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As Ferris (2003a) and Ferris & Hedgcock (1998) argue,
many factors could account for the differences in results
between these 2 studies, including:
--whether the students had been trained to conference
--what the students were writing about, & how confident
the readers were about their knowledge of the topic
--whether the students were writing in their own
academic field or not
--whether the students had been given a structured
feedback form or not
--how well the students interacted with their peers
Ferris (2003a) concludes that results are inconclusive
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and that more research is needed…
DO STUDENTS LISTEN?
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Although studies like Connor & Asenavage (1994)
suggest students might not take other students’
feedback seriously, more recent studies like
Villamil & Guerrero (1998) suggest that students
do listen
And if we implement conferencing in our classes
in an organized way, this will probably
encourage our students to take the whole idea
even more seriously…
So let’s have a look at how we can do this…
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IMPLEMENTATION: THE CRUCIAL
FACTOR
In my opinion, the most important thing is to
realize that the results of and the reaction to
student—student conferencing crucially
depends on the way conferencing is
implemented in the classroom…
Other researchers agree with me: Berg (1999),
Ferris (2003a,b), Mittan (1989), and Stanley
(1992) all claim that successful conferencing
sessions are far more likely if students have been
trained to respond effectively
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IMPLEMENTATION: THE CRUCIAL
FACTOR (CONTD.)
Imagine 2 classrooms:
1.
a classroom where students have seen videos of students
conferencing and are given feedback sheets by the teacher to
fill in after reading their colleagues’ work; and
2.
a classroom where students are given no training about
conferencing, no explanation as to why the teacher thinks it’s
a good idea, and no feedback sheets to fill in as they read
their colleagues’ work. While they read, the teacher sits at
their desk, does nothing, and has a coffee…
I suggest the reaction to conferencing will be very different
in the 2 classrooms
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PREPARING STUDENTS TO CONFERENCE
Studies like Min (2005) suggest that training
students to conference can be successful…
So let’s explore some of the ways teachers can
train and prepare students to conference
with each other…
Write down a few ideas about how you would
train students to give each other feedback
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7 GENERAL PRINCIPLES
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Ferris (2003b) talks about seven general principles
teachers should have in mind when implementing
student—student conferencing:
1. utilize peer feedback consistently
2. explain the benefits of peer feedback to
students
3. prepare students carefully for peer response
4. form pairs or groups thoughtfully
5. provide structure for peer review sessions
6. monitor peer review sessions
7. hold students responsible for taking peer feedback
opportunities seriously (p.165)
Let’s have a look at some of these in a bit more detail…
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UTILIZING PEER FEEDBACK
CONSISTENTLY
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Ferris (2003b) points out that giving feedback on
other people’s writing is a skill and therefore
requires plenty of practice:
‘For peer feedback to be a useful tool, teachers
must commit to it as an option, communicate
from the outset that it will be a regular part of
the class, and allow adequate, regular time for it’
(p.165)
However, taking student conferencing
seriously requires time…
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TAKING CONFERENCING SERIOUSLY:
THE TIME FACTOR
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Ferris (2003b) claims that in her university
writing classes, ‘I have found that having groups
of three read and respond to each other’s papers
(completed drafts) takes a minimum of 45
minutes of class time (and could have gone on
longer if I had permitted it)’ (p.166)
If you only have 3 hours a week with your
students and are expected to cover
everything (i.e. grammar, lexis, skills), how
could you do student conferencing using less
class time?
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THE TIME FACTOR
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Ferris points out that class time can be reduced if
students have read each other’s writing outside of
class
You could also try getting the students to
conference about parts of their texts (e.g. their
introductions), which will also reduce time
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PREPARING STUDENTS CAREFULLY TO
CONFERENCE
Get students to practise first with a text written
by a student from another class
 Give the students guidelines about what to look
for
 Give the students guidelines about how to give
feedback
 Consider demonstrating yourself first
 Provide the students with feedback forms which
provide structure and will help students focus on
specific areas (e.g. content, organization, etc.)

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FORMING GROUPS THOUGHTFULLY
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Ferris (2003b) claims she likes to put strong and
weak students into the same group:
‘The weaker writers benefit from regularly
reading the texts of more proficient writers, and
the more advanced writers profit from the critical
thinking required to give helpful feedback to
their less able classmates’ (p.170)
Do you agree with Ferris? Why (not)? Would
you always put strong and weak students
together?
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MONITORING PEER CONFERENCING
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Ferris (2003b) talks about the dangers of
teachers intervening during peer conferencing:
‘there is a definite risk that students will simply
wait for the teacher to [become involved]’ (p.173)
However, she also says she believes it is
important for her to monitor to make sure
students are successfully giving feedback
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GETTING STUDENTS TO TAKE PEER
CONFERENCING SERIOUSLY (1)
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Ferris (2003b) suggests students are likely to take
peer conferencing more seriously if we get them to
respond to their colleagues’ feedback on their
writing
For instance, after reading other students’ feedback
on their work, they complete the following:
--What comments do you agree with? Will you act
on them in writing your revision?
--Are there any comments you do not understand?
What will you do about them?
--Are there any comments that you disagree with?
What will you do about them?
--Now that you have re-read your own essay, do you
have any ideas of your own for changes? (p.180)
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GETTING STUDENTS TO TAKE PEER
CONFERENCING SERIOUSLY (2)
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Another idea Ferris recommends is to get the
student to submit their colleagues’ feedback
forms to you when you mark their work. Then
you can comment on what some of the student’s
colleagues said
Ferris also suggests that you could even build
peer feedback into the marking scheme! So if the
students put lots of effort into their written
feedback for their colleagues, they’ll be rewarded
in their final mark for the course
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PREPARING STUDENTS TO CONFERENCE:
PRACTICAL STEPS TO TAKE
explain the benefits of conferences and how
conferences work
 show video clips of good and bad conference
behaviour. Highlight/teach useful language the
students can use from the good clips and things
to avoid (e.g. sarcastic, insulting comments!) from
the bad clips
 ensure conferences don’t degenerate into chats
where nothing is achieved by providing students
with feedback forms to fill in
 stress that students can approach/email the
teacher if they’re unsure that their colleagues’
advice is sound
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PRACTICAL STEPS (CONTD.)
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Perhaps most crucially, don’t exclusively rely
on any 1 type of feedback. Tell the students
you won’t be abandoning teacher feedback, or
teacher—student conferences
Now let’s have a closer look at the kinds of
feedback forms you could give students to
complete while they’re reading their
colleagues’ work…
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CONFERENCE FEEDBACK FORMS
Imagine you’d like to get your class of upper
intermediate learners to conference together,
discussing and evaluating each other’s writing.
Design a feedback form to give the students to
complete as they read someone else’s work. The
idea is that they’ll use this form to comment on
their colleagues’ work.
Include a maximum of 5 questions/categories for
the students to comment on.
Then we’ll compare your feedback forms with 2 from
Ferris (2003b)…
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FERRIS’ FEEDBACK FORMS
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What’s your opinion of Ferris’ feedback forms?
Think about the following:
--ease of use for students
--difficulty of language in questions
--focus (grammar; organization; content, etc.)
What questions would you have added or taken
away? Why?
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TAIWANESE STUDENTS’ REACTIONS TO
CONFERENCING TRAINING: MIN (2005)
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Min (2005) explains how 18 intermediate
Taiwanese university students were given
training to read and comment on their colleagues’
work
The students then talked about the pros and cons
of the training they received, and their reactions
to peer conferencing
Let’s look at some of their comments…
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PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF TRAINING
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As a result of training, Min’s (2005) students realized
‘good writing’ is not just about grammar. As one of the
students wrote in his/her diary, ‘I realized that the most
important thing of composing is ideas and organization,
not vocabulary or grammar. I learned how to give
suggestions to others by following the steps in the
procedure…’ (p.301)
13 of the 18 students also claimed peer conferencing
‘helped them increase their vocabulary
repertoire’ (Min 2005: 301) as they developed the skill
of writing suggestions and comments on their peers’
writing: ‘When I tried to explain why I thought a
certain part was problematic, I had to look words up in
the dictionary sometimes. At first, it was quite a
nuisance. But later I found that my vocabulary
increased a lot. I think it’s an advantage of following
the steps’. (p.301)
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PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF TRAINING (2)

The training also helped the students become
better at what Min (2005) calls ‘self-monitoring’
(p.301):
‘Eleven students mentioned in their journals that
this training made them reflect on their own
problems and seek out solutions for themselves.
“This training indeed helped me revise my
writing. When I read others’ essays, I discovered
the same mistakes I made in my own
composition. It would have been difficult, if not
impossible, for me to find out my own mistakes if
I hadn’t read the same ones in others’ essays.”’
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PERCEIVED BENEFITS OF TRAINING (3)

The students also talked about how conferencing
increased their confidence and about how
their peers gave them ideas and new
perspectives to use in their writing
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STUDENTS’ TONE

And Min (2005) also notes that with practice, the
students’ tone when making comments became
friendlier, and less like ‘teacher’s corrections’
(p.302)
45
SO DOES TRAINING WORK?
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
Two recent studies, Min (2005) and Hu (2005),
both suggest training can work.
Min (2005) and Hu (2005) both describe their
training procedures in considerable detail. You
should look at both of these studies if you’re
interested in this topic
Note also that both these studies were with
South-East Asian students who are
supposedly some of the students that are
least likely to be receptive to peer
conferencing!
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DISCUSSION



I asked you at the beginning of today’s session
whether you thought student—student
conferences were pedagogically useful…
Have you changed your mind about this as a
result of today’s session? Why (not)?
If you’re an experienced language teacher, have
you used student—student conferencing before?
Did it work? If not, why not?
Based on today’s session, would you consider
using student—student conferencing in your
classroom in future? Why (not)?
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MORE REFERENCES


If you’re interested in this topic, although we
haven’t discussed their work in today’s session,
among interesting studies which are relatively
recent are Berg (1999) and Paulus (1999).
Ferris (2003b), in particular, provides an
excellent summary of what we know about the
benefits of peer conferencing, and also provides a
number of very useful practical suggestions on
how to implement peer conferencing in the
classroom
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ONLINE CONFERENCING



Recently, there’s been an increase in research looking at
student—student conferencing online
The research of Christian Schunn and his colleagues
suggests that online conferencing can work, and be very
productive (see link below for publications)
Students can use online conferencing tools like Schunn’s
SWoRD
(http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/sword/index.html)
We’ll look at this, and using technology to teach
writing, in the last lecture…
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REFERENCES
Allaei SK & Connor U (1990) Exploring the dynamics of cross-cultural collaboration. The
Writing Instructor 10: 19-28.
Berg EC (1999) The effects of trained peer response on ESL students' revision types and writing
quality. Journal of Second Language Writing 8(3): 215-241.
Carson JG & Nelson G L (1994) Writing groups: Cross-cultural issues. Journal
of Second Language Writing 3(1):17-30
Carson J G & Nelson GL (1996). Chinese students' perceptions of ESL peer response group
interaction. Journal of Second Language Writing 5: 1-19.
Connor U & Asenavage K (1994) Peer response groups in ESL writing classes: how much
impact on revision? Journal of Second Language Writing 3: 257-276.
De Guerrero MCM & Vilamil OS (1994) Social-cognitive dimensions of interaction in L2 peer
revision. Modern Language Journal 78: 484-496.
Ferris D (2003a) Responding to writing. In B Kroll (ed.), Exploring the Dynamics of Second
Language Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.119-140.
Ferris D (2003b) Response to Student Writing: Implications for Second Language Students.
Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ferris D & Hedgcock JS (1998) Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice.
Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hu G (2005) Using peer review with Chinese ESL student writers. Language Teaching Research
9(3): 321-342.
Leki I (1990) Coaching from the margins: issues in written response. In B Kroll (ed.), Second
Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom. New York: Cambridge University
Press, pp.57-68.
Mangelsdorf K (1989) Parallels between speaking and writing in second language acquisition. In
DM Johnson & DH Roen (eds.), Richness in Writing: Empowering ESL Students. New York:
Longman, pp.134-145.
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REFERENCES (2)
Mendonça CO & Johnson KE (1994) Peer review negotiations: revision activities in ESL
writing instruction. TESOL Quarterly 28: 745-769.
Min H-T (2005) Training students to become successful peer reviewers. System 33: 293308.
Mittan R (1989) The peer review process: harnessing students’ communicative power. In
DM Johnson & DH Roen (eds.), Richness in Writing: Empowering ESL Students. New
York: Longman, pp.207-219.
Moore L (1986) Teaching students how to evaluate writing. TESOL Newsletter 20(5): 2324.
Nelson GL & Carson JG (1998) ESL students' perceptions of effectiveness in peer
response groups. Journal of Second Language Writing 7(2): 113-131.
Nelson GL & Murphy JM (1993) Peer response groups: do L2 writers use peer comments
in revising their drafts? TESOL Quarterly 27(1): 135-141.
Paulus TM (1999) The effect of peer and teacher feedback on student writing. Journal of
Second Language Writing 8(3): 265-289.
Stanley J (1992) Coaching student writers to be effective peer evaluators. Journal of
Second Language Writing 1: 217-233.
Tsui ABM & Ng M (2000) Do secondary L2 writers benefit from peer comments? Journal
of Second Language Writing 9: 147-170.
Vilamil OS & Guerrero MCM (1998) Assessing the impact of peer revision on L2
writing. Applied Linguistics 19(4): 491-514.
Witbeck MC (1976) Peer correction procedures for intermediate and advanced ESL
composition lessons. TESOL Quarterly 10: 321-326.
Yang M et al (2006) A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL
writing class. Journal of Second Language Writing 15: 179-200.
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Zhang S (1995) Reexamining the affective advantage of peer feedback in the ESL writing
class. Journal of Second Language Writing 4: 209-222.
THIS WEEK’S READING
Ferris D (1997) The influence of teacher commentary
on student revision. TESOL Quarterly 31(2): 315-339.
If you’re particularly interested in student—student
conferencing, also have a look at:
Berg EC (1999) The effects of trained peer response on
ESL students' revision types and writing quality.
Journal of Second Language Writing 8(3): 215-241.
Yang M et al (2006) A comparative study of peer and
teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL writing class.
Journal of Second Language Writing 15: 179-200.
[…which contains an excellent literature review
summarizing research on peer conferencing]
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