Collaborative Discussion and Peer Review Activity in Computer-Mediated EFL Writing

This study investigates the use of face-to-face and computer-mediated peer review in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing course to examine how different interaction modes affect comment categories, students’ revisions, and their perceptions of peer feedback. The participants were an intact class of 13 students at a Taiwanese university. The computer-mediated peer review involved OnlineMeeting, software specifically designed for peer review activities and featuring a split screen protocol, document sharing, and chat room functions. The results of chi-square tests show that overall students offered more revision-oriented comments than non-revision-oriented ones among different writing tasks in either mode. Also, peer review mode affected some types of peer comments to a certain extent. There were significantly more global alteration comments and fewer local alteration comments in face-to-face than computer-mediated mode. While the participants liked comments via Word’s annotation features over handwritten comments, they felt face-to-face discussions to be more effective than online chat via OnlineMeeting due to the affordance of face-to-face talk (e.g., immediacy and paralinguistic features), that cannot be easily replaced by electronic chat. Pedagogical implications regarding the balanced use of computer-mediated and non-computer-mediated writing activities are discussed, along with suggestions for future research.

Download Full-text

Effects of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Peer Review in an EFL Writing Course

International Journal of English Linguistics ◽

10.5539/ijel.v10n6p417 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 417

Author(s):

Yiwen Lin

Keyword(s):

Peer Review ◽

Review Process ◽

Peer Review Process ◽

Computer Mediated Communication ◽

Mediated Communication ◽

Efl Writing ◽

Text Revision ◽

Computer Mediated ◽

Writing Course ◽

High Level

This study aims to investigate the effects of the two-step blended computer mediated communication (CMC) peer review process (Word commenting followed by Zoom discussion) in an English writing course for 29 Chinese EFL learners, and their perceptions of this mode. Compared with previous studies, the findings of this study are encouraging: 1) the proportions of revision-oriented comments students gave reached at a high level of above 85% of the total comments; 2) students gave more local comments, but the ratio of revision-oriented comments in global areas to revision-oriented comments in local areas was more balanced (approximately 40% vs 60%); 3) the adoption rates of revision-oriented comments in text revision were also at a high level (63%-73%). What’s more, most students held positive attitudes toward this mode, perceiving it useful in their text revision and development of writing ability. 65% of them expressed their willingness to attend this mode of review activities in the future. This study reveals that the two-step CMC peer review process with Word commenting followed by discussion via online video conferencing system can be used as a useful tool in EFL writing class. This study contributes to the current research on CMC peer review since most previous studies investigated effects of peer review using text-based CMC tools and little research has been done on speech-based tools.

Download Full-text