A Case Study of Peer Feedback in a Chinese EFL Writing Classroom

The present study investigated peer feedback provided by 11 students in a Chinese EFL writing classroom. The objectives of the research were to understand how much peer feedback was incorporated into revisions, what kinds of revisions were made, and whether the revisions could lead to improvement in the students’ essays. Text analyses of all the 11 students’ first and second drafts were conducted by measuring accuracy, fluency, grammatical complexity, and vocabulary complexity. Results showed that the students incorporated a substantial part of the peer feedback in their revisions, most of which were surface-level revisions. The revised drafts were slightly improved in terms of fluency but greatly improved with respect to accuracy. No significant differences were found with respect to grammatical and lexical complexity. Results also indicated that peer-review activities could induce self-correction among students and cultivate independent critical readers and writers.