Korean English Writers’ Noticing Peer Errors and Incorporation of Peer Feedback

Korean English Writers’ Noticing Peer Errors and Incorporation of Peer Feedback

The present study explores the pedagogical effectiveness of peer feedback in an EFL setting. Little has been known about what kinds of feedback EFL students give to their peers’ writing, what kinds of peer feedback they incorporate or ignore in their revision, and why they incorporate or discard particular feedback from their peers. Data obtained from 80 university students who enrolled in Introductory Business English were analyzed in this study. The participants’ first drafts, peer feedback markings, revised drafts, the teacher’s markings, and open-ended questionnaire responses were collected and analyzed. The results of the study showed that Korean college students could give various types of feedback on peers’ writing. Compared to teachers’ feedback, the students displayed similar patterns of noticing errors except in two categories (word choice and pronoun). The current research evidenced that these EFL students could give feedback confidently (87% of accuracy rate) and incorporate them successfully (79% revision rate) in their later drafts and that both giver and receiver could benefit from peer feedback activities. Further, based on the results obtained in this study, this study lends instructional insight for teachers and warrants the possibility of implementing peer feedback as a pedagogical writing activity in EFL classrooms.