A comparative study of the effects of self-assessment and peer feedback on literature students’ oral production

Mahmoud Azizi,Hedviga Tkáčová,Lucia Petrikovicova,Roman Kralik

doi:10.15293/2658-6762.2005.01

Abstract

Introduction. The purpose of the current study is to investigate self-assessment and peer feedback as two helpful strategies for facilitating teaching and learning in language classrooms and to investigate the effects of these techniques on EFL learners' oral performance. Materials and Methods. To achieve the purpose of the study and answer the research questions, a quasi-experimental study was conducted. The participants of the study were two groups of five EFL learners who were called self-assessment group and peer feedback group. The self-assessment and peer feedback techniques were incorporated to the self-assessment and peer feedback group respectively. There were a pretest and posttest sessions and four sessions of treatment were between the pretest and posttest. The instruments used in this study were storyboards and checklists. The data was collected via recording device and then it was transcribed for further analysis. Some parts of the data were also analyzed qualitatively. Results. The findings of the present study showed that both techniques are helpful in different aspects of oral performance. Self-assessment had significant effects on the use of correct error- free clauses, subject verb agreement, word choice and tense consistency and also the features of fluency and organization. Conclusions. Peer feedback also improved the use of error-free clauses and fluency but not the other items. But there is no significant difference between the two techniques.

Highlights

The purpose of the current study is to investigate self-assessment and peer feedback as two helpful strategies for facilitating teaching and learning in language classrooms and to investigate the effects of these techniques on EFL learners' oral performance
To investigate the impact of self-assessment on oral performance based on the collected data, first the descriptive statistics of the data in both pretest and posttest were obtained
Regarding the peer feedback technique, the current study found that it has a positive effect on the accuracy of the students’ oral presentation in particular on their correct use of error free clauses

Summary

Introduction

The purpose of the current study is to investigate self-assessment and peer feedback as two helpful strategies for facilitating teaching and learning in language classrooms and to investigate the effects of these techniques on EFL learners' oral performance. Nowadays there is a great emphasis on encouraging learners to judge their own and their peers' language ability either through engaging in different meaning-focused or form-focused tasks (Khonamri&Roostaee,2014) or through strategy training (Khonamri& Ahmadi, 2015). This emphasis has led to an increased interest in the use of the self-assessment and peer feedback techniques in ESL classrooms since the late 1970s Pierce (1999) defines assessment as a beneficial tool which shows students that they are making progress in foreign language development, and this would promote their motivation to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and increase their autonomy and independent learning skills. Self-assessment of foreign language skills: Does it work? CLE Working Papers, 1994, no. 3, pp. 18–35

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