Oral peer feedback in process approach implemented EFL writing classes

Abstract

As a reflection of the co-operative learning theory and the process approach, peer feedback is used in process approach implemented writing classroom. By this, teachers aim at helping student writers to develop a sense of audience, to move from writer-based prose to reader-based prose, and to motivate for revision. Despite this, classroom experiences are not very encouraging about using peer feedback, and teachers have reservations about the effectiveness of it. These initiated several classroom oriented studies, and researchers started to investigate different factors, suck as stances readers adopt during peer feedback sessions and their attitudes towards peer feedback, that influence peer feedback. Based on the review of empirical studies, the purpose of this study is to investigate the stances adopted by EFL readers, function and content categories used by readers in different stances, their attitudes towards peer feedback and finally to investigate the relation between the reader's stance and writer's attitude. For this purpose, proficient EFL writers were selected and two sets of data were collected for analysis. First one consisted of the peer feedback interactions of the sixteen pairs and the other was the journals in which the subjects expressed their attitudes towards peer feedback.