EAL WRITERS AS PEER
REVIEWERS
Challenges and Opportunities
Amanda Goldrick-Jones, SFU Student Learning Commons
Shauna 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?
CHALLENGES
OPPORTUNITIES
Devolves into mere editing for
For EAL students, the
grammar or mechanics (Holstpositive effects on learning
Larkin, 2008; Rieber, 2010)
and revision of giving oral &
“I don’t trust a peer’s writing
written peer feedback may
ability” or “Only the prof/TA’s
feedback counts.”
be greater than the effects
Corporate culture: peer review
of receiving feedback. (Choi,
has not been adopted broadly in
2013; Min, 2006; Vorobel &
business faculties (Rieber, 2010)
Kim, 2013).
Integrating peer-review support in BUS 360W
SLC, Week 2:
orientation to
peer-review
strategies
BUS 360W:
Students assigned a
“peer buddy”
SLC, Weeks 4-8:
Peer-review RUBRIC
for 1st submission
sessions on
argument,
paragraphing,
sentence structure
Peers revise based on peer
reviews for 2nd submission
BUS 360W peerreviewed assigns
include
• Portfolio exercises
• Email case study
• Letter case study
• Peer-review buddy
evaluations
Peer-review RUBRIC
sample …“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?
Results of comparative final-grades analysis
(over 3 terms)
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+.)
Although theAlthough
peer review
takes
time takes time
the process
peer review
process
and involvesand
organization
and planning,
it planning, it
involves organization
and
proves its worth
at grading
(Rieber,
2006)
proves
its worthtime.
at grading
time.
(Rieber,
2006)
step .stage
.. ...
FinalNext
research
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.
Wrap up: using Next
peer review
step . .in. your classes or in
curriculum design
Greatest benefit or opportunity?
Greatest challenge?
Your main take-away from this
session?
Thank you for participating!
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
References
Choi, 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