Self & peer assessment in EFL writing classes

This study investigated the benefits of self and peer assessment in EFL writing classes at university for both students and teachers. Besides, it examined the correlation between self, peer and expert given marks for students writings. To this end, 17 B1-level participants who study in English preparatory programme at a foundation university were examined for 7 weeks. First, the students were informed and trained as to how to assess a writing using a rubric. Then, each week after students composed a writing, a paragraph for the first three weeks and an essay for the remaining four weeks, they were asked to assess and mark first their own writing then one of their friends' writing by using self and peer assessment forms. After the students, the teacher and a co-teacher also assessed and marked the papers. The average of the marks given by two different teachers were calculated creating the expert mark. All given marks were noted each week to be compared at the end of the study. In addition, a questionnaire was conducted at the beginning of the study to investigate whether the students could identify their own strengths and weaknesses in writing, whether they could make sense of the criteria that are used for writing quizzes, and whether they made sense of the feedback given by the teachers for their writings. The same questionnaire was conducted again on the last day of the research to check whether the participants changed their opinions. Moreover, students were interviewed twice, once in the 3rd week and once in the last week, for the study. The first interview was planned to capture the early impressions of the students regarding self and peer assessment procedures. The students were interviewed again in the last week with the same questions to check whether they changed their opinions after being involved in self and peer assessment activities for a while. The results suggested that the students improved their assessment performance including their understanding of rubrics over time by practice, they offered quality feedback to each other regarding their writings, they understood teacher feedback more easily, and they participated in the lessons more by interacting with one another. As for marking, self and peer given marks were correlated to the expert given marks only twice out of seven suggesting the students could not mark their own and their peers' writings as correctly as their teachers. Keywords: Self-assessment, peer assessment, EFL writing.