Korean EFL College Students’ Identity Negotiation through Peer Review and Revision in Their Writing

Abstract

The present study explores how Korean college EFL writers construct identity in peer review and revision during the essay writing process. Twelve Korean college students from the university English newspaper club participated in a 15 week writing project that included peer reviews and revision. After the writing project, the semi-structured interview was carried out. To understand their perspectives on constructing writer identities, qualitative methods were employed with writing drafts, peer review comments, revision drafts, and interview transcriptions. For coding the data, the repeated and salient patterns were identified. through careful and repeated reviews. The findings show that six writer identities can be categorized as the six identities: face negotiator, evaluator, junior and senior, facilitator, audience, and opinion-holder. At the beginning of the project, participants showed themselves to be face-saving individuals, but during the process they have negotiated their identities as a face negotiator during the process. Over time, as a facilitator, they became aware of the benefits of providing comments and suggestions in the peer review process. Future studies will include a greater sample size, classroom-based settings, and investigations of constructs of investment and imagined identities from their writings. (Keimyung University)