A comparative study of peer and teacher feedback in a Chinese EFL writing class

Feedback plays a central role in writing development. This is particularly so in tertiary education in China because of both the attitudes of tutors and staff and also the move towards a more process orientation to teaching writing. However, constraints resulting from examination-focused programmes and the number of students in each class mean that the provision of feedback is limited. This study examines whether peer feedback may provide a resource for addressing this issue by examining two groups of students at a Chinese University writing essays on the same topic, one receiving feedback from the teacher and one from their peers. Textual and questionnaire data from both groups and video recordings and interviews from 12 individual students revealed that students used teacher and peer feedback to improve their writing but that teacher feedback was more likely to be adopted and led to greater improvements in the writing. However, peer feedback was associated with a greater degree of student autonomy, and so even in cultures that are said to give great authority to the teacher, there is a role for peer feedback.