In peer assessment, the responsibility for evaluation shifts away from the teacher and to the learners themselves as they review and appraise the work or performance of other students. A major strength of peer assessment is that learners’ enhanced role in setting instructional objectives, developing assessment criteria and rubrics, and evaluating outcomes leads to a greater investment on their part in the language learning process. In addition, learners are likely to better understand standards and objectives and the work required to meet them, and therefore may come to better manage their own language learning.
In near-peer assessments, one student has attained proficiency levels slightly ahead of his or her partner. This approach offers several advantages for both learners. More advanced learners can challenge their own language skills while correcting or commenting on the work of their partners. Such work may also stimulate advanced learners to positively reflect on their own language learning progress. For less-advanced learners, near-peer work of course provides an additional source of feedback, but the real benefit may come in observing the language abilities of someone not that much further along in language learning. For less-proficient learners, the attainment levels of a near-peer may prove a more accessible and motivating example than that of an expert or native-speaking teacher.
At present the majority of work on peer-assessment has focused on peer response to writing provided in the form of written and/or spoken feedback. Peer review of written work has been justified by an appeal to process approaches to composition which emphasize cognitive and affective aspects of writing over traditional product-based approaches that privilege formal accuracy. Influenced by work in English language rhetoric and composition studies, English as a Second Language (ESL) researchers have dominated this field of inquiry to date.
Research on the potential of peer assessment to positively contribute to student learning has provided mixed results. For example, while some composition studies show that students effectively incorporate peer feedback in later drafts, others indicate students are less attentive to peer comments than they are to those made by instructors. Students who are not used to taking an active role in classroom assessment may have reservations about relying on their own knowledge to comment on others’ work and may lack confidence in the quality of feedback they receive from classmates. The success of implementing peer assessment in the language classroom therefore largely depends upon careful instruction, modeling, and practice to familiarize learners with assessment criteria and characteristics of effective feedback.
In a formalized version of near-peer interaction, the University of Charleston provides a voluntary Spanish L2 speaking course for undergraduates that is taught entirely by advanced proficiency undergraduate students. Referred to as Peer Teaching Assistants (PTAs), these student instructors are responsible for all aspects of the course, including assessment. Evaluation of the program has found that students in the course reported greater confidence speaking Spanish with peer instructors while PTAs noted an improvement in their own oral skills and viewed the experience as an opportunity to review their knowledge of formal aspects of the language (Rodgriguez-Sabater 2005).
The handwritten, electronic, or oral feedback students give each other on their writing is the most common form of peer assessment in foreign language classrooms. By analyzing their classmates’ work and receiving comments on their own work in return, students can gain new insights into the strengths or weaknesses of their writing (Amores 1997; Blain & Painchaud 1999).
Suggested Readings and References:
Amores, M. J. (1997). A new perspective on peer-editing. Foreign Language Annals, 30, 513-522. The author presents findings from a four-month study of peer-editing work by students in a third-year Spanish course. Although many students felt uncomfortable discussing their work directly with classmates, almost all of them believed the process of checking others’ work improved their own attention to form and function while writing.
Blain, S., & Painchaud, G. (1999). The impact of verbal feedback by peers on written composition improvement among fifth-year immersion French students. The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 56, 73-98. This article presents statistical evidence that student writers in French immersion courses revised their work by responding to over half of the comments made by classmates in writing conferences.
Patri, M. (2002). The influence of peer feedback on self- and peer-assessment of oral skills. Language Testing, 19, 109-131. In a study of the peer-assessment of oral ESL presentations at a Hong Kong university, the researcher found that intensive preparation allowed students to make assessments similar to those of instructors.
Rodríguez-Sabater, S. (2005). Utilizing undergraduate peer teaching assistants in a speaking program in Spanish as a foreign language. Foreign Language Annals, 38 , 533-543.
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