Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
355585 English for Specific Purposes 2008 21 Pages PDF
Abstract

Research has shown that reviewers’ stances can impact the efficacy of peer response/review and subsequent revision. The purpose of this classroom-based study was to compare reviewer stances and writer perceptions of/and attitudes toward these stances prior to and after peer review training in an EFL writing class. Eighteen intermediate EFL writers were coached for 2 months to make “revision-oriented” commentary by following a four-step procedure: Clarifying writers’ intentions, identifying problems, explaining problems, and making specific suggestions. Each step characterized the probing, prescriptive, tutoring and collaborating reader stances, respectively. A textual analysis of reviewers’ itemized commentary and retrospective interviews with writers revealed a dominant prescriptive stance among reviewers before the peer review training and a relatively more collaborative stance after training. The researcher discusses the research, methodological, and curricular implications of the findings and recommends a multiple-stance training procedure to better prepare ESL/EFL reviewers in the writing class.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities Language and Linguistics
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