The Role of Peer Feedback in Improving EFL Writing Skills of Saudi Essay

The Role of Peer Feedback in Improving EFL Writing Skills of Saudi English Major Students - Essay Example The essay explains the role of peer feedback in helping them improve their EFL writing competencies. Following this, a section of the paper presents the concept of peer feedback in detail. Finally, the last section looks at the issue of collaborative learning, in order to provide a theoretical basis for the process of peer feedback to help better understand this type of approach. Many researchers have found a positive relation between students’ writing achievements and the provision of feedback. It is seen that feedback improves writing skills since it gives both students and teachers a picture of students' progress and improvement. It is also considered to be â€Å"a key element of the scaffolding provided by the teacher to build learner confidence and the literacy resources to participate in target communities†. This paper makes a conclusion that peer feedback as it was presented in this essay can be a very beneficial collaborative activity in EFL writing sessions. Unfortunately, this kind of feedback is novel in many non-Western teaching contexts such as Saudi Arabia where teacher-feedback based classes are still dominant. The education system in Saudi Arabia is in the traditional style where it is loaded by rules, and is bound by a certain structure. Saudi students are taught writing by structured written exercises and traditional drills. Students’ writing is most often controlled and guided with model writings provided by teachers rather than allowing them to write freely. However, this situation could be changed with proper awareness of the educational problems and with appropriate writing instructions such as applying cooperative learning and peer feedback to make students better writers.