Student – Student Conferencing

1. Student – Student Conferencing Lecture 7 Teaching Writing in EFL/ESL Joy Robbins

2. A quick note about assignments • (1) Design a writing lesson or material to teach writing. Explain the approach(es) your lesson/material uses (e.g. product, etc.) and justify your choices by referring both to theory and practice, including your teaching context. * • (2) Critically evaluate a set of published materials for teaching writing and explain how you would use/adapt them in your teaching context, referring to the literature to justify your choices. The materials could be a selection of writing activities from an integrated course book, a writing text book, online activities, or a mix thereof. * • (3) Describe, illustrate, and justify the principles which underlie your approach when correcting student writing. • (4) Respond to an authentic student text by giving written feedback. Explain and justify why you have given the feedback you did, and outline any other form(s) of feedback you might give this student. Remember to set the scene by explaining the student’s context, needs, etc. Please note that I can supply some authentic student texts if required. However, I will NOT accept an assignment about the student text you did a presentation on in week 5! * • (5) A title of your choice. However, this MUST be discussed with me first.

3. Today’s Session • What is student—student conferencing? • What are the pros and cons of student—student conferencing? • Does conferencing work, according to research evidence? • Would conferencing be appropriate in your teaching context? N.B. Ferris (2003a,b), Ferris & Hedgcock (1998), and Yang et al (2006) provide excellent discussions of conferencing

4. Types of conference: Reminder (1)Teacher—Student conferences, where students meet teachers individually to discuss their writing (2) Student—Studentconferences, where students evaluate/discuss their colleagues’ writing Last week we looked at teacher—student Today we’ll look at student—student Before we look at conferencing in detail, make a list of arguments FOR and AGAINST holding student—student conferences in class.

5. Student—Student conferencing: pros Ferris & Hedgcock (1998:170-1) and Ferris (2003a: 129-30, b) summarize the potential pros and cons of student—student conferences. First the pros… • Students receive feedback from multiple sources (Mittan 1989). • Students gain a clearer understanding of audience (readers’) needs by receiving feedback on what they have done well and on what remains unclear (Mittan 1989; Moore 1986; Witbeck 1976). • Responding to peers’ writing builds the critical skills needed to analyze and revise one’s own writing (Leki 1990; Mittan 1989). • Students gain confidence (or reduce apprehension) by seeing peers’ strengths and weaknesses in writing (Leki 1990; Mittan 1989)

6. Pros (contd.) • Students can engage in unrehearsed, low-risk, exploratory talk, which is less feasible in whole-class or teacher-student interactions. • Students receive “reactions, questions, and responses from authentic readers” (Mittan 1989:209….). • Students’ communication skills are developed through interacting with their peers (Mangelsdorf 1989) • Students are encouraged to become more autonomous and to rely less on the teacher (Tsui & Ng 2000), developing the capacity for ‘independent problem solving’ (de Guerrero & Vilamil 1994) • Students will become aware of their own strengths and weaknesses as writers (Tsui & Ng 2000) • Students will realize how important it is to rewrite and revise writing several times in order to ensure the meaning’s clear! • Peer conferencing can reduce the teacher’s workload and reveal to the teacher what kind of writing students believe is ‘good’ writing

7. Peer conferencing: cons (Leki 1990) Leki (1990) noted several potential problems with peer feedback, derived from both the comments of 20 ESL students and from her own and other writing teachers’ experiences: • Students sometimes focus too heavily on “surface concerns” (p.9) or editing, neglecting larger revising issues; • Students can provide vague, unhelpful comments; • Students may be hostile, sarcastic, overly critical, or unkind in their criticisms of their classmates’ writing; • Students feel uncertain about the validity of their classmates’ responses;

8. Cons (Leki 1990) (contd.) • In peer group discussions, students may struggle with their own listening comprehension skills or with the peer’s foreign accent; and • Lack of L2 formal (rhetorical) schemata may lead to inappropriate expectations about the content and structure of peers’ texts, which can then result in counterproductive feedback that leads writers further away from [western] academic expectations.

9. Even more cons • Students, due to their limitations as both developing writers and L2 learners, are simply not very good at giving one another helpful feedback, thus calling into question the time and effort needed to implement peer response (Connor & Asenavage 1994; Leki 1990; Nelson & Carson 1998). (Ferris 2003a: 129-30, see also Nelson & Murphy 1993) • Villamil & de Guerrero (1998) summarize this well: ‘Among practitioners, there seems to be a lingering feeling that L2 students are not knowledgeable enough to detect and correct errors in the target language’ (p.491)

10. Even more cons (contd.) • Students misunderstand the purposes for peer feedback and are uncomfortable with it (Leki 1990; Nelson & Carson 1998; Zhang 1995). • Peer feedback can be especially uncomfortable for students from “collectivist” cultures, who are more interested in group solidarity than individual achievement (Allaei & Connor 1990; Carson & Nelson 1994, 1996).(Ferris 2003a: 129-30)

11. Cultural factors & conferencing • Carson & Nelson (1994, 1996) claimed that conferencing for students from ‘collectivist’ cultures (e.g. China, Japan) may be difficult • They claim that their study of Chinese students conferencing shows that “the Chinese students were reluctant to initiate comments and, when they did, monitored themselves carefully so as not to precipitate conflict within the group” (p.1). So if the students are more preoccupied with avoiding causing offence than with making honest criticisms of their colleagues’ writing, is there any point in using student—student conferencing at all??

12. One last very obvious con • Zhang (1995) found that the vast majority of the 81 ESL university students questioned preferred teacher feedback to peer feedback So if students prefer other types of feedback, is there any point in using student—student conferencing?

13. Teacher feedback vs. peer feedback • Although many, perhaps most, students do prefer teacher feedback to peer feedback, this doesn’t mean that peer feedback has no value • Villamil & de Guerrero’s (1998) have written persuasively about this. They used student conferencing successfully with intermediate-level EFL students • As they freely admit, an intermediate student’s feedback on another student’s work is never going to be error free, or be equal to a teacher’s. But this is not the point…

14. Teacher feedback vs. peer feedback • “...peer revision is not a substitute for teacher feedback. We do not see peer feedback and teacher feedback as being in competition; rather, we see them as complementary forms of assistance in the writing classroom. Perhaps the time has come to stop asking ourselves, ‘Which is better (or which is more effective), peer feedback or teacher feedback?’ We should begin to ask ourselves instead, ‘What and how can peer revision contribute to the students’ writing development in a way that complements teacher feedback?’” (Vilamil & Guerrero 1998: 508)

15. More on students’ feelings about feedback • Reviewing all of the studies which have questioned students about how they feel about peer feedback, Ferris (2003a) claims that most students enjoy peer conferencing and find it helpful. But doesn’t her conclusion directly contradict Zhang’s (1995), which found that students generally preferred teacher feedback to peer feedback? Not necessarily—students may think teacher feedback is more worthwhile than colleagues’ feedback. But that is not to say that students think colleagues’ feedback is worthless…

16. Comparing teacher and student feedback • Yang et al (2006) investigated whether Chinese university students paid more attention to teacher or peer feedback, and the effects of this feedback: • 41 students received teacher feedback on their first draft of writing, which they then revised in response to the feedback; • 38 students received peer feedback (doing conferences in Chinese), which they used to revise their writing

17. The comprehensiveness and accuracy of teacher and student feedback • Students received much more feedback from the teacher than from their peers • ‘…students received feedback on 43% of possible feedback points from their teacher as opposed to only 27% from their peers’ (Yang et al 2006: 188)

18. The impact of teacher and student feedback: using readers’ suggestions • 90% of usable teacher feedback was used by students when revising their writing, in contrast to 67% of usable student feedback • ‘The most common reason for the rejection of peer feedback was that the writers did not accept the feedback for the reason that it seemed “incorrect” to them’ (Yang et al 2006: 189)

19. The impact of teacher and student feedback: self-correction • Self-correction = ‘Any revision that was made by the writers themselves, not initiated by their teacher or peers’ (Yang et al 2006: 192) • ‘The more [writers] doubted the feedback, the more likely it was that they would develop their own independent ideas they had for revision. […] [E]xposure to teacher feedback seemed to reduce self-correction, perhaps because students believed that the teacher had pointed out all their mistakes and there was no need for further correction. […] The over-dependence on teacher feedback is likely to lower the students’ initiative and lead to fewer self-initiated corrections…’ (Yang et al 2006: 192) So peer feedback may lead to greater autonomy…

20. The usefulness of peer feedback • ‘…in the peer feedback class, over 60% of the students thought peer feedback was “useful” or “very useful”, a contrast to 22% in the teacher feedback class…. This may indicate that experience of peer feedback has a positive impact on student perceptions…’ (Yang et al 2006: 186) …All of which supports Ferris’ (2003a) claim that students generally DO enjoy peer conferencing and find it helpful (even if they feel teacher feedback is even more valuable…)

21. Another important question:Do students listen to their colleagues’ advice? However, some studies disturbingly suggest that student writers don’t actually revise their writing in response to what their colleagues say during conferencing…

22. Do students listen to their colleagues? Research evidence is conflicting about the degree to which students utilize peer feedback in their revisions • Some researchers have found students make only minimal changes to their writing based on other students’ feedback: Connor & Asenavage (1994) say only 5% of changes in their students’ final drafts were due to student—student conferencing. • However, Mendonca & Johnson (1994) claimed that 53% of revisions in students’ final drafts were due to student—student conferencing Possible reasons for this massive variation? Let’s see…

23. Do students listen?: conflicting reports • As Ferris (2003a) and Ferris & Hedgcock (1998) argue, many factors could account for the differences in results between these 2 studies, including: --whether the students had been trained to conference --what the students were writing about, & how confident the readers were about their knowledge of the topic --whether the students were writing in their own academic field or not --whether the students had been given a structured feedback form or not --how well the students interacted with their peers Ferris (2003a) concludes that results are inconclusive and that more research is needed…

24. Do students listen? • Although studies like Connor & Asenavage (1994) suggest students might not take other students’ feedback seriously, more recent studies like Villamil & Guerrero (1998) suggest that students do listen And if we implement conferencing in our classes in an organized way, this will probably encourage our students to take the whole idea even more seriously… So let’s have a look at how we can do this…

25. Implementation: the crucial factor In my opinion, the most important thing is to realize that the results of and the reaction to student—student conferencing crucially depends on the way conferencing is implemented in the classroom… Other researchers agree with me: Berg (1999), Ferris (2003a,b), Mittan (1989), and Stanley (1992) all claim that successful conferencing sessions are far more likely if students have been trained to respond effectively

26. Implementation: the crucial factor (contd.) Imagine 2 classrooms: • a classroom where students have seen videos of students conferencing and are given feedback sheets by the teacher to fill in after reading their colleagues’ work; and • a classroom where students are given no training about conferencing, no explanation as to why the teacher thinks it’s a good idea, and no feedback sheets to fill in as they read their colleagues’ work. While they read, the teacher sits at their desk, does nothing, and has a coffee… I suggest the reaction to conferencing will be very different in the 2 classrooms

27. Preparing students to conference Studies like Min (2005) suggest that training students to conference can be successful… So let’s explore some of the ways teachers can train and prepare students to conference with each other… Write down a few ideas about how you would train students to give each other feedback

28. 7 general principles • Ferris (2003b) talks about seven general principles teachers should have in mind when implementing student—student conferencing: 1. utilize peer feedback consistently 2. explain the benefits of peer feedback to students 3. prepare students carefully for peer response 4. form pairs or groups thoughtfully 5. provide structure for peer review sessions 6. monitor peer review sessions 7. hold students responsible for taking peer feedback opportunities seriously (p.165) Let’s have a look at some of these in a bit more detail…

29. Utilizing peer feedback consistently • Ferris (2003b) points out that giving feedback on other people’s writing is a skill and therefore requires plenty of practice: ‘For peer feedback to be a useful tool, teachers must commit to it as an option, communicate from the outset that it will be a regular part of the class, and allow adequate, regular time for it’ (p.165) However, taking student conferencing seriously requires time…

30. Taking conferencing seriously:the time factor • Ferris (2003b) claims that in her university writing classes, ‘I have found that having groups of three read and respond to each other’s papers (completed drafts) takes a minimum of 45 minutes of class time (and could have gone on longer if I had permitted it)’ (p.166) If you only have 3 hours a week with your students and are expected to cover everything (i.e. grammar, lexis, skills), how could you do student conferencing using less class time?

31. The time factor • Ferris points out that class time can be reduced if students have read each other’s writing outside of class • You could also try getting the students to conference about parts of their texts (e.g. their introductions), which will also reduce time

32. Preparing students carefully to conference • Get students to practise first with a text written by a student from another class • Give the students guidelines about what to look for • Give the students guidelines about how to give feedback • Consider demonstrating yourself first • Provide the students with feedback forms which provide structure and will help students focus on specific areas (e.g. content, organization, etc.)

33. Forming groups thoughtfully • Ferris (2003b) claims she likes to put strong and weak students into the same group: ‘The weaker writers benefit from regularly reading the texts of more proficient writers, and the more advanced writers profit from the critical thinking required to give helpful feedback to their less able classmates’ (p.170) Do you agree with Ferris? Why (not)? Would you always put strong and weak students together?

34. Monitoring peer conferencing • Ferris (2003b) talks about the dangers of teachers intervening during peer conferencing: ‘there is a definite risk that students will simply wait for the teacher to [become involved]’ (p.173) • However, she also says she believes it is important for her to monitor to make sure students are successfully giving feedback

35. Getting students to take peer conferencing seriously (1) • Ferris (2003b) suggests students are likely to take peer conferencing more seriously if we get them to respond to their colleagues’ feedback on their writing • For instance, after reading other students’ feedback on their work, they complete the following: --What comments do you agree with? Will you act on them in writing your revision? --Are there any comments you do not understand? What will you do about them? --Are there any comments that you disagree with? What will you do about them? --Now that you have re-read your own essay, do you have any ideas of your own for changes? (p.180)

36. Getting students to take peer conferencing seriously (2) • Another idea Ferris recommends is to get the student to submit their colleagues’ feedback forms to you when you mark their work. Then you can comment on what some of the student’s colleagues said • Ferris also suggests that you could even build peer feedback into the marking scheme! So if the students put lots of effort into their written feedback for their colleagues, they’ll be rewarded in their final mark for the course

37. Preparing students to conference:practical steps to take • explain the benefits of conferences and how conferences work • show video clips of good and bad conference behaviour. Highlight/teach useful language the students can use from the good clips and things to avoid (e.g. sarcastic, insulting comments!) from the bad clips • ensure conferences don’t degenerate into chats where nothing is achieved by providing students with feedback forms to fill in • stress that students can approach/email the teacher if they’re unsure that their colleagues’ advice is sound

38. Practical steps (contd.) • Perhaps most crucially, don’t exclusively rely on any 1 type of feedback. Tell the students you won’t be abandoning teacher feedback, or teacher—student conferences Now let’s have a closer look at the kinds of feedback forms you could give students to complete while they’re reading their colleagues’ work…

39. Conference feedback forms Imagine you’d like to get your class of upper intermediate learners to conference together, discussing and evaluating each other’s writing. Design a feedback form to give the students to complete as they read someone else’s work. The idea is that they’ll use this form to comment on their colleagues’ work. Include a maximum of 5 questions/categories for the students to comment on. Then we’ll compare your feedback forms with 2 from Ferris (2003b)…

40. Ferris’ feedback forms • What’s your opinion of Ferris’ feedback forms? Think about the following: --ease of use for students --difficulty of language in questions --focus (grammar; organization; content, etc.) • What questions would you have added or taken away? Why?

41. Taiwanese students’ reactions to conferencing training: Min (2005) • Min (2005) explains how 18 intermediate Taiwanese university students were given training to read and comment on their colleagues’ work • The students then talked about the pros and cons of the training they received, and their reactions to peer conferencing Let’s look at some of their comments…

42. Perceived benefits of training • As a result of training, Min’s (2005) students realized ‘good writing’ is not just about grammar. As one of the students wrote in his/her diary, ‘I realized that the most important thing of composing is ideas and organization, not vocabulary or grammar. I learned how to give suggestions to others by following the steps in the procedure…’ (p.301) • 13 of the 18 students also claimed peer conferencing ‘helped them increase their vocabulary repertoire’ (Min 2005: 301) as they developed the skill of writing suggestions and comments on their peers’ writing: ‘When I tried to explain why I thought a certain part was problematic, I had to look words up in the dictionary sometimes. At first, it was quite a nuisance. But later I found that my vocabulary increased a lot. I think it’s an advantage of following the steps’. (p.301)

43. Perceived benefits of training (2) • The training also helped the students become better at what Min (2005) calls ‘self-monitoring’ (p.301): ‘Eleven students mentioned in their journals that this training made them reflect on their own problems and seek out solutions for themselves. “This training indeed helped me revise my writing. When I read others’ essays, I discovered the same mistakes I made in my own composition. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for me to find out my own mistakes if I hadn’t read the same ones in others’ essays.”’

44. Perceived benefits of training (3) • The students also talked about how conferencing increased their confidence and about how their peers gave them ideas and new perspectives to use in their writing

45. Students’ tone • And Min (2005) also notes that with practice, the students’ tone when making comments became friendlier, and less like ‘teacher’s corrections’ (p.302)

46. So does training work? • Two recent studies, Min (2005) and Hu (2005), both suggest training can work. • Min (2005) and Hu (2005) both describe their training procedures in considerable detail. You should look at both of these studies if you’re interested in this topic Note also that both these studies were with South-East Asian students who are supposedly some of the students that are least likely to be receptive to peer conferencing!

47. Discussion • I asked you at the beginning of today’s session whether you thought student—student conferences were pedagogically useful… Have you changed your mind about this as a result of today’s session? Why (not)? • If you’re an experienced language teacher, have you used student—student conferencing before? Did it work? If not, why not? • Based on today’s session, would you consider using student—student conferencing in your classroom in future? Why (not)?

48. More references • If you’re interested in this topic, although we haven’t discussed their work in today’s session, among interesting studies which are relatively recent are Berg (1999) and Paulus (1999). • Ferris (2003b), in particular, provides an excellent summary of what we know about the benefits of peer conferencing, and also provides a number of very useful practical suggestions on how to implement peer conferencing in the classroom

49. Online conferencing • Recently, there’s been an increase in research looking at student—student conferencing online • The research of Christian Schunn and his colleagues suggests that online conferencing can work, and be very productive (see link below for publications) • Students can use online conferencing tools like Schunn’sSWoRD (http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/schunn/sword/index.html) We’ll look at this, and using technology to teach writing, in the last lecture…

50. References Allaei SK & Connor U (1990) Exploring the dynamics of cross-cultural collaboration. The Writing Instructor 10: 19-28. Berg EC (1999) The effects of trained peer response on ESL students' revision types and writing quality. Journal of Second Language Writing 8(3): 215-241. Carson JG & Nelson G L (1994) Writing groups: Cross-cultural issues. Journalof Second Language Writing 3(1):17-30 Carson J G & Nelson GL (1996). Chinese students' perceptions of ESL peer response group interaction. Journal of Second Language Writing 5: 1-19. Connor U & Asenavage K (1994) Peer response groups in ESL writing classes: how much impact on revision? Journal of Second Language Writing 3: 257-276. De Guerrero MCM & Vilamil OS (1994) Social-cognitive dimensions of interaction in L2 peer revision. Modern Language Journal 78: 484-496. Ferris D (2003a) Responding to writing. In B Kroll (ed.), Exploring the Dynamics of Second Language Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.119-140. Ferris D (2003b) Response to Student Writing: Implications for Second Language Students. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Ferris D & Hedgcock JS (1998) Teaching ESL Composition: Purpose, Process, and Practice. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hu G (2005) Using peer review with Chinese ESL student writers. Language Teaching Research 9(3): 321-342. Leki I (1990) Coaching from the margins: issues in written response. In B Kroll (ed.), Second Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp.57-68. Mangelsdorf K (1989) Parallels between speaking and writing in second language acquisition. In DM Johnson & DH Roen (eds.), Richness in Writing: Empowering ESL Students. New York: Longman, pp.134-145.