Teaching Academic Writing in Iranian EFL Classrooms: Teacher-initiated Comments or Peer-provided Feedback?

This research study aimed at investigating whether using peer-provided feedbacksrather than teacher-provided comments would result in any significance differencein Iranian English undergraduate students’ ability in writing. In so doing,based on a pretest (an OPT & a writing exam), 40 subjects were assigned to twohomogeneous groups of equal number; the subjects in the control group receivedmore traditional form of feedback; i.e., Teacher’s Written Comments (TW) andthose in the experimental group who received the alternative: Peers’ WrittenComments (PW). The students were required to write ten paragraphs, five pairs,on each topic, one before receiving feedback and another, the revised version,after the feedback. The analyses of the data revealed that peer feedback--in itsgeneral sense--affects students’ writing performances, which in turn means thatthe students do incorporate suggestions made by their teacher and/or peers whilerevising their drafts. In sum, Peer-reviews in the form of comments andsuggestions given by the students on one another’s drafts proved beneficial.

Keywords:

English Writing , Peer-provided feedbacks , Teacher-provided comments , Iranian EFL learners