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The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong

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Reader Stances and Writer Responses in L2 Peer Review: A Study of L2 Writing Literacy among Hong Kong Secondary School Students


Author : Kong, A., & Bui, G.
Category : Journal Article
Department : English
Year / Month : 2019 / 07
Source : The Asian EFL Journal, 23(5), 139-186.

Abstract

    One research area concerning peer review in L2 writing literacy development has been to examine the impact of training on the quality of peer feedback and/or interactions. However, few studies have adopted the micro-genetic approach to exploring the types of scaffolds (e.g., advising, instructing, reacting, eliciting, and asking for clarifications) and the social relationships (authoritative or collaborative) between two trained peers over an extended period, not to mention their effects on young learners at the junior secondary school level. Adopting the Vygotskian sociocultural framework, the study explored how mutual scaffolding unfolded between Hong Kong secondary students when they moved through the zone of proximal development (ZPD) after training. Twenty Secondary 1 (equivalent to Grade 7) students from two different band-one, EMI secondary schools in Hong Kong participated in a writing course of twelve 1.5-hour sessions. The presentation of an array of scaffolding strategies marked the beginning of the course, followed by the instruction on five narrative writing tasks in the subsequent weeks. Each time, students completed the essay at home and paired up for peer review in the following class. Three dyadic peer review sessions were recorded, transcribed, and coded to explore what scaffolds were applied by the reviewers, what responses were elicited from the writers, and what social relationships were resulted. Stimulated recalls and pre-/post- interviews before and after the course were conducted to understand students’ rationale for their peer review stances. Analyses of the results show that, despite the introduction of these scaffolds, the readers tended to adopt “advising” during peer interactions, which did not induce meaningful responses from the writers. Such negligence of peer comments resulted in the collapse of the collaborative nature of peer review and disrupted the ZPD. The current research suggests that the emergence of camaraderie during peer review depends on the types of scaffolds adopted by the readers since they propel the writers to respond differently. However, the choice of scaffolds stems from individual preferences in addition to training. The study unveils the inadequacies of peer review in L2 writing literacy training when it is situated in an authentic classroom context and relevant pedagogical implications are discussed.