Desastres Topológicos

During the last two decades, peer feedback has become a common feature in both L1 and L2 settings (Liu & Hansen 2002). The interest in peer feedback is reflected in a large number of studies investigating the effects of peer feedback on EAL students‘

writing and the improvement of their writing skills. The enthusiasm for peer feedback is grounded in a theoretical framework that emphasises the social nature of language, knowledge-making, collaborative learning theory and writing theory (Vygotsky 1978; Flower & Hayes 1980; Bruffee 1984).

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Hyland and Hyland (2006a) define peer feedback as a formative developmental process that gives writers the opportunity to discuss and to discover other interpretations of their texts. Liu and Hansen (2002) state that learners assume roles and responsibilities

normally performed by a tutor to comment upon and critique each other‘s drafts in both written and oral formats. Zhu (2001) advocates that peer feedback constitutes a viable tool of teaching writing and has the potential to help students to develop audience awareness and to improve their writing. Mangelsdorf (1992, p.275) concluded that peer feedback represents a powerful learning tool that can:

 provide students with an authentic audience,

 increase students‘ motivation for writing,

 enable students to receive different views on their writing,

 help students to learn to read their own writing critically,

 assist students in gaining confidence in their writing.

Despite the extensive theoretical support, the accumulated empirical data suggests conflicting findings. On the one hand, many studies (Keh 1990; Mendonça & Johnson 1994; Jacobs et al. 1998; Berg 1999; Paulus 1999; Muncie 2000; Tsui & Ng 2000; Min 2005) revealed evidence of the positive impact of peer feedback on further revision and on enhancing EAL students‘ writing skills. Findings suggested that writers who revised

their essays in the light of their peers‘ comments developed ―the crucial ability of re- viewing their writing with the eyes of another and allowed them to modify their written texts to meet the needs of their audience‖ (Mendonça & Johnson 1994, p.766).

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For instance, Paulus (1999) established that under a third (32%) of the amendments made to second drafts of essays, written immediately after receiving only peer feedback, were a result of that feedback. Furthermore, he found that a majority (63%) of the second draft peer-influenced revisions was meaning changes, showing that students reflected upon their peer comments and used them to revise their writing. The findings also showed that peer feedback was used almost as often as teachers‘ feedback,

accounting for a third (34%) of the total revisions. However, as Jacobs et al. (1998) argued, any effort to establish the superiority of one over the other seems to be erroneous. The roles played by the teacher and the peers are complementary and they can work together for the students‘ benefit.

On the other hand, a number of studies (Leki 1990; Connor & Asenavage 1994; Zhang 1995; Nelson & Carson 1998; Zhu 2001) suggested that there are strong reservations about the effectiveness of EAL students‘ comments on text revision. Primarily, these studies illustrated students‘ tendencies to respond to surface problems and mechanical

errors at the expense of more meaningful issues such as the development of ideas, organisation or the overall focus of what they are writing. They also reported that students provided unconstructive and unhelpful advice to their peers. For instance, Connor and Asenavage (1994) revealed that although the research participants made large amendments to their texts, a relatively small number of revisions were triggered by peer response (i.e. peer comments triggered 6% of the total number of changes in group 1 and 1% of total cases in group 2). Additionally, Nelson and Carson (1998) revealed that students focused particularly on discovering sentence-level problems, perceiving their task as detecting grammatical errors rather than problems of meaning.

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The dynamics of peer response are very complex and are characterized by a series of recursive communicative activities and social behaviours that, if overlooked, may result in students‘ failure and withdrawal. It is suggested that some problems with peer

feedback are specific to EAL writers (Zhu 2001). Such factors as students‘ language

proficiency and cultural background may constrain their participation in peer feedback. EAL learners may encounter difficulties when commenting on peer writing in a

language in which they are still developing their skills and when they need to respond to the various communication styles of peers who come from different cultures. They also have to cope with ―different attitudes toward working in groups and different

expectations concerning group norms‖ (Nelson & Murphy 1992, p.173). For instance, some studies (Nelson & Murphy 1992; Carson & Nelson 1994) stated that the function of a peer-response group in China and Japan is to serve the needs of the whole group; whereas in the U.S. it serves the needs of individual writers. Likewise, Nelson and Carson (1998) reported that students from countries such as China depended on grou p consensus to guide decisions about making changes to their final drafts. On occasions when students received differing opinions on a matter, they did not respond to that particular comment. These EAL students appeared reluctant to speak because they did not want to embarrass writers and aimed to create a positive group climate and maintain harmonious group relations. Nelson and Carson (2006) concluded that some EAL students view the dynamics of peer feedback groups as being antithetical to their values and goals. However, as was mentioned earlier, it is erroneous to assume that particular groups of students or, indeed, individuals will behave in certain ways in accordance with their cultural differences (Spack 1997).

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Although a number of studies on peer feedback indicated mixed results, literature suggests that peer feedback can be beneficial for EAL writers provided that they are trained in offering peer feedback and structuring peer feedback sessions (Nelson & Murphy 1992; Stanley 1992; Jacobs et al. 1998; Berg 1999; Min 2005). These studies proposed several training procedures that aim to build constructive and positive interactions among students. Empirical findings pointed out that trained participants, regardless of their proficiency level, demonstrated a greater level of student engagement in the task of evaluation, more productive communication about writing and greater writing improvement in revised drafts.

Hyland, F. (2000) indicated in her study on peer conferencing that the aspects of peer feedback mentioned most positively by respondents were informal peer support mechanisms. Most interactions functioned mainly at the affective level and did not involve providing comments on completed drafts. Instead, students turned to one another for support and advice on understanding task requirements, language and vocabulary problems. Hyland, F. (2000) suggested that encouraging spontaneous peer talk during the writing process was a better strategy than using formal peer feedback sheets. By contrast, the formal feedback sessions, where students had to follow the written guidelines, appeared to lose their meaning as a communicative event becoming just another class task where the teacher controlled peer interactions.

Based on these findings, it is crucial to draw upon diverse resources and opportunities where EAL students can negotiate and construct the disciplinary literacy. As Nelson and Carson (2006, p.43) have pointed out, ―self, peer, tutor, and teacher feedback are not

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mutually exclusive categories and that multiple types of feedback including peer feedback are useful for students‖. This quotation infers that a discourse community

needs to provide a range of literacy practices where students can learn the privileged academic conventions.