Feedback on second language students’ writing

concept. In order to help tutors provide effective scaffolding, Aljaafreh & Lantolf (1994) attempt to catalogue some of the characteristics of effective scaffolding in an L2 context. They suggest scaffolded help needs to be offered only when needed and removed as soon as the learner is able to function independently; graduated according to the learner’s changing proficiency needs; and must be given in a dialogic conversation actively involving both teacher and student. Williams (2004) suggests that teachers can scaffold interaction and the learner’s movement towards autonomy by marking critical features in the text, simplifying the task, and ‘modelling’ indirectly by eliciting an improved performance from the writer. Weissberg (2006) attempts to make the concept of scaffolding more concrete by providing a detailed examination of the ways that oral scaffolding can work with L2 writers through a linguistic analysis of interactions during four one-on-one, tutor-student writing conferences. He operationalizes scaffolding as a set of ‘observable discourse mechanisms’ which can help tutors to improve the quality of their interventions. Using data from the conferences, he illustrates how a tutor creates verbal linkages to the L2 writer through lexical and phrasal repetition, questioning, phrase completion and extension, summary and paraphrase statements, and statements of personal affiliation. Such links are then used as a springboard to make instructional points. Weissberg however, cautions that although his data show a tutor addressing student needs through interaction, the impact of this scaffolding on student writing still remains to be determined. 3. Peer feedback and self-evaluation Strong justification for the use of peer response is found in four theoretical stances: process writing, collaborative learning, Vygotskian learning theory and interactionist theories of L2 acquisition (Liu & Hansen 2002). Peer response is seen as an important support for the drafting and redrafting of process approaches to writing (Zamel 1985; Mittan 1989). Collaborative learning theory (Bruffee 1984a) encourages students to ‘pool’ their resources and both complete tasks they could not do on their own, learning through dialogue and interaction with their peers (Hirvela 1999). Vygotskian approaches also underline the importance of social interaction with peers as Vygotsky’s (1978) theoretical construct of the Zone of Proximal Development suggests that writing skills can emerge with the mediation and help of others. While not directly driving interest in peer feedback, interactionist perspectives offer an important theoretical foundation for it by suggesting how opportunities to negotiate meaning through group work are a means of encouraging more effective acquisition of the language (Long & Porter 1985). Effective peer response is a key element of helping novice writers to understand how readers see their work. Interactional modifications can assist acquisition by making input available and comprehensible while providing learners with important opportunities for practice, for testing hypotheses about language use against peers’ responses, and for revision and writing in response to peer feedback. It is therefore not surprising that peer response remains a popular source of feedback in the L2 classroom and a continuing area for research. 3.1 Effectiveness of peer response The research literature claims many positive effects for peer feedback in both L1 and L2 contexts. In particular, it is seen as a way of giving more control and autonomy to students since it involves them actively in the feedback process as opposed to a passive reliance on teachers’ feedback to ‘fix’ up their writing (Mendoca & Johnson 1994). Freedman & Sperling (1985), Mittan (1989) and Caulk (1994) consider that peer response provides students with an audience for their writing which is more authentic than teacher response tends to be. It also enhances the ability of peer reviewers to evaluate their own work by providing a sense of audience and a checklist of evaluative questions to apply to their own writing (Stoddard & MacArthur 1993; Cheng & Warren 1996). Since student reviewers perceive that other students experience the same difficulties in writing that they do, peer feedback may also lead to a reduction in writer apprehension and help them to develop their autonomy and self-confidence as writers (Chaudron 1984; Curtis 2001; Cotterall & Cohen 2003;). Oral interactions with peers during the writing process can also provide social and affective support (Guerrero & Villamil 1994; F. Hyland 2000b). However, in the past decade, research has reassessed the value of this type of response for ESL writers and the assumption that what works well in the first language classroom can be transferred wholesale to the L2 context. Studies have questioned L2 students’ ability to offer useful feedback to each other and