The Effectiveness of Peer Feedback in Korean EFL Writing Classrooms

The Effectiveness of Peer Feedback in Korean EFL Writing Classrooms

While numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of peer feedback in ESL contexts, few studies have discussed the issue of incorporating peer feedback activities into EFL contexts. Recognizing this research gap, the present study sought to examine the effectiveness of peer feedback when employed in one Korean EFL college composition class. The effectiveness was examined in three aspects: (a) what kind of feedback the students provided with regard to their peers’ writing, (b) how much peer feedback they incorporated into their second drafts, and (c) whether peer feedback helped improve the quality of the second draft. To this end, forty-four Korean college learners in one English composition class were asked to write a first draft of a composition, to participate in a peer feedback activity, and to revise their first draft based on the peer feedback they received. The overall findings suggest that the students were able to provide specific and useful feedback for their peer’s writing and to selectively accommodate peer feedback into their revision based on their own judgment of its appropriateness or correctness. Lastly, although peer feedback was not found to produce remarkably higher-quality compositions, it did not result in inferior writing.