A Preliminary Study for English Writing Instruction Using Peer Feedback

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23520685
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Foreign language education
• Research Institution: Aichi Prefectural University
• Principal Investigator: HIROSE Keiko 愛知県立大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (40145719)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: ピアフィードバック / ライティング / 英作文指導 / 英語

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The present study examined how two groups of Japanese university students who differed in terms of prior English writing background changed their written English and attitude towards English writing. Both groups received a semester-long writing course incorporating paragraph-level writing instruction combined with written and spoken peer feedback in English. The study compared pre- and post-course English compositions to capture student writing development by employing such measures as the numbers of words, clauses, and T-units (fluency), the numbers of words, clauses, and S-nodes per T-unit (syntactic complexity), and the Guiraud index (lexical complexity). The results demonstrated the less experienced group wrote post-course compositions that significantly increased fluency and lexical complexity, whereas neither group substantially improved in syntactic complexity. The results also showed both groups shared positive attitudes and increased enjoyment towards English writing.

Free Research Field

英語教育学