The effects of facebook based peer comments on english major students witing revisions at the university of social sciences and humanities vietnam national university hcmc ma

In general, there is substantial evidence ofthe usefulness of CMC peer feedback in improving students’ writingdevelopment.Although numerous researchers have subscribed to the belief that

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY — HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

THE EFFECTS OF FACEBOOK-BASED PEER COMMENTS ON ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS’ WRITING REVISIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES - VIETNAM

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HCMC

A thesis submitted tothe Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

NGUYỄN THỊ HOÀI ANH

Supervised by

Assoc Prof Dr PHẠM VŨ PHI HỔ

HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2022

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof Dr Phạm Vũ Phi Hổ, for his kindness and dedication There are no wordsthat can fully show my appreciation for what he has done for me Without hisguidance and encouragement, I would not have been able to overcome thischallenge

My sincere thanks also go to my best friend, Tạ Lê Minh Phước, who created allthe favourable conditions for me to collect data for this study I am grateful andthankful for his valuable support Also, I would like to express my sinceregratitude to all the students who participated in the present study; without theireffective participation, I could not have finished my thesis

I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my two classmates, Mr Tạ LêMinh Phước, Ms Phạm Tố Quyên, and Mr Tiêu Tiểu Long, for being by myside through ups and downs from the very beginning of the course

Last but not least, I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to myfamily for their unconditional love and support I especially own my deepestthanks to my mother and my husband-to-be Without their care andencouragement, I would have never had enough motivation to go to the end ofthis journey

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

I certify that this thesis entitled “THE EFFECTS OF FACEBOOK-BASED PEER COMMENTS ON ENGLISH-MAJOR STUDENTS’ WRITING REVISIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES - VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HCMC” is my

own work

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in anyother institution

Ho Chi Minh City, July 5th, 2022

Nguyễn Thị Hoài Anh

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, NGUYEN THI HOAI ANH, being the candidate for thedegree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirement of the University relating tothe retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the originality of my thesis deposited inthe Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, inaccordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care,loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, July 5th, 2022

Nguyễn Thị Hoài Anh

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES xi

ABSTRACT xii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 5

1.3 Research questions and hypotheses 6

1.4 Significance of the study 6

1.5 Scope of the study 7

1.6 Definition of terms 7

1.7 Assumptions of the study 9

1.8 Organization of thesis chapters 9

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 Theoretical issues on peer comment research 10

2.2 Review of existing peer comment research in writing 13

2.2.1 Traditional peer comments 13

2.2.1.1 Benefits of traditional peer comments 13

2.2.1.2 Drawbacks of traditional peer comments 15

2.2.1.3 Research on effectiveness of peer comments compared with teacher

comments 16

2.2.1.4 Research on peer comment training 18

2.2.2 Computer-mediated peer comments 20

2.2.2.1 Benefits of computer-mediated peer comments 21

2.2.2.2 Drawbacks of computer-mediated peer comments 22

2.2.2.3 The effects of computer-mediated peer comments 23

2.2.3 Facebook-based peer comments 30

2.3 Research gaps 35

2.4 Conceptual framework of the present study 36

2.5 Chapter summary 37

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 39

3.1 Context of the study 39

3.2 Participants 40

3.3 Research Design 41

3.4 Procedure of the study 42

3.4.1 The teaching materials 42

3.4.1.1 The writing topics 42

3.4.1.2 Coding scheme for language functions 43

3.4.1.3 Coding scheme for textual revision 44

3.4.1.4 Grammatical error coding scheme 46

3.4.1.5 The compare function of WPS Word 47

3.4.2 The training processes 48

3.5 Grouping arrangement 55

3.6 Pilot study 56

3.6.2 Pilot study 2 59

3.7 Research instrument 60

3.8 Data collection procedure 61

3.9 Data analysis method 63

3.10 Chapter summary 64

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 65

4.1 Research question 1 65

4.1.1 Statistical data analysis 65

4.1.2 Discussion of results 69

4.2 Research question 2 70

4.2.1 Statistical data analysis 70

4.2.2 Discussion of results 72

4.3 Research question 3 72

4.3.1 Statistical data analysis 73

4.3.2 Discussion of results 74

4.4 Research question 4 75

4.4.1 Statistical data analysis 75

4.4.2 Discussion of results 82

4.5 Chapter summary 84

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 86

5.1 Conclusion 86

5.2 Pedagogical implications 88

5.3 Limitations of the study 89

5.4 Recommendations for future studies 90

APPENDICES 108

APPENDIX A 108

APPENDIX B 114

APPENDIX C 115

APPENDIX D 117

APPENDIX E 118

APPENDIX F 120

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACMC Asynchronous computer-mediated communicationAPF Asynchronous peer feedback

CMC Computer-mediated communication

CMPR Computer-mediated peer response

EFL English as a Foreign Language

ESL English as a Second Language

LAN Local-area network

MOO Multi-user domain Object-oriented

MSN Microsoft instant messaging

SCF Synchronous corrective feedback

SCMC Synchronous computer-mediated communicationSPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

D1.2 Draft 1 in the second writing assignmentD1.3 Draft 1 in the third writing assignmentD2.1 Draft 2 in the first writing assignmentD2.2 Draft 2 in the second writing assignmentD3.3 Draft 2 in the third writing assignment

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Coding scheme for language functions 44

Table 3.2 Revision coding scheme 46

Table 3.3 Grammatical error coding scheme 47

Table 3.4 Types of comments in the first essay (Pilot test) 60

Table 4.1 Illustration of error coding scheme 66

Table 4.2 Types of grammatical errors produced in D1 66

Table 4.3 Comments addressed global and local areas 71

Table 4.4 Summary of mean differences in the number of revision-oriented comments addressed to global and local areas 73

Table 4.5 Analysis for evaluating the textual revisions 76

Table 4.6 Revisions across different levels of linguistic units in D2.1 77

Table 4.7 Revisions across different levels of linguistic units in D2.2 79

Table 4.8 Revisions across different levels of linguistic units in D2.3 80

Table 4.9 Ratios of levels of revision affected by peer comments 81

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 The conceptual framework of the present study 37

Figure 3.1 Design of the research 41

Figure 3.2 The layout of the Compare function 48

Figure 3.3 Tentative course schedule 49

Figure 3.4 Sign up for a Facebook account 50

Figure 3.5 Create a Facebook group 50

Figure 3.6 The writing process 53

Figure 3.7 An example of giving peer feedback 59

Figure 3.8 Procedure of data collection 62

Computer-mediated peer comments or electronic peer comments (e-peercomments) have long been long been researched in the field of teaching writingEnglish as a Foreign Language (EFL) However, the effects of e-peer comments

on student writing are still questioned because of the inconsistency among thefindings of studies in the field The present quasi-experimental study (1)measure the number of type of grammatical errors that students frequently made,clarify (2) the types of comments (global and local areas) frequently produced bythe students as well as (3) differences between global and local areas in terms ofrevision-oriented comments, and (4) examine the impacts of Facebook-basedpeer comments on students’ revisions A grammar class with 22 students waschosen randomly to be one experimental group The students posted theirwriting and comments on a Facebook group, and received suggestions forrevisions Both quantitative and qualitative data were used to respond to theresearch questions The results of the study revealed that ‘Nouns and articles’,

‘Present tenses’, and ‘Past tenses’ are the most frequent types of writing errorsmade by students Also, the results indicated that the number of the commentsmade was in correspondence with the number of the qualified comments(revision-oriented comments) Particularly, that the comments on local areaswere greater than those on global areas resulted in the greater number ofqualified comments (revision-oriented comments) on the local areas As a result,

it could be drawn from the study that students seemed to prefer comments onsurface features to comments on meaning Finally, the results revealed thatstudent writers mostly revised their writing basing on peer comments with threemost frequent revision levels were ‘sentence’, ‘grammar’, and ‘word’ Thefindings indicated that students more likely relied on peer comments to revisetheir drafts at all levels, which highlighted the role of peer comments in revisionprocess Based on the findings, the study proposed several implications forintegrating FB-based peer comments into teaching EFL writing to students

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the introduction to the study It includes (1) background tothe study, (2) aims of the study, (3) research questions, (4) significance of thestudy, (5) scope of the study, (6) definition of terms, (7) assumptions of thestudy, and (8) organization of thesis chapters

1.1 Background to the study

In the field of teaching writing English as a Foreign Language (EFL), there islittle doubt that the process-focused approach, which focuses on brainstorming,drafting, evaluating, and revising, develops student writers’ writing ability(Griffith, 2014; Nguyen & Filipi, 2018; Pham et al., 2020) and emphasizesstudents as an independent producer of text (Hyland, 2003) To help EFLstudents become independent writers, providing peer comments, also known aspeer feedback, peer responses, peer review or peer editing, has been thought of

as the important task at the revision stage of the process approach for studentwriters (Liu & Hansen, 2005) The definition of the term “peer comment” hasbeen suggested by Hansen and Liu (2005) who saw it as the exchange ofcompositions among writers for written comments, oral comments, or a mix oforal and written comments

The subjects of peer comments which are used as written comments in this studycan be in various areas such as local (grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics) andglobal (content, rhetoric, and organization) areas (Pham & Nguyen, 2021) There

is a large volume of published studies describing the helpfulness of peercomments integrated with academic writing courses (Nelson & Murphy, 1992;Min, 2005; Lee, 2015) Also, there are many theories supporting the use of peercomments in L2 writing instructions such as Collaborative learning theory(Bruffee, 1984), Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978), Interactionist theory ofL2 acquisition (Swain & Lapkin, 1998), and Process-oriented writing approachtheory (Hayes & Flower, 1980) to improve students’ writing Hence, it is safe tosay that peer comments confirm their importance in the current context of

teaching EFL writing In other words, with the aim of enhancing learners’writing, there is a great demand for peer feedback activities on student writing.Over the last two decades, a remarkable outcome of the increasing use ofcomputer-mediated communication (CMC) in the digital era of Web 2.0 hasbeen the integration of instructional technologies into writing practices inforeign language classrooms (Ciftci & Aslan, 2019) Several studies havereviewed that CMC is an important components in deepening studentcollaboration and increasing student participation in writing process (Beauvois,1997; Wichadee, 2013; Zheng & Warschauer, 2017) More specially, manypublished studies on CMC offer that using online peer comments can lead tobetter writing products as well as peer comment quality (Hewett, 2000; Tuzi,2004; Liang, 2010; Ho et al., 2020) In general, there is substantial evidence ofthe usefulness of CMC peer feedback in improving students’ writingdevelopment.

Although numerous researchers have subscribed to the belief that CMC offerssignificant affordances for facilitating online peer feedback (Liang, 2010; Pham

et al., 2020), some scholars offer contradictory findings about (1) types of CMCpeer comments, (2) the impacts of CMC peer comments on revisions, and (3)peer comment modes Particularly, there are some debatable findings on thetypes and the number of responses generated by the CMC peer comments Phamand Usaha (2016), Altstaedter (2018), and Pham (2021) show that trainedstudents produced more comments focused on global aspects (organization andcontent) than local aspects (grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation), whereas Liuand Sadler (2003) and Pham and Nguyen (2014) prove that the number ofcomments based on local aspects produced by student writers outweighed thenumber of comments based on global aspects In addition, the findings of studies

in the impacts of CMC peer feedback on revisions are inconsistent While Liuand Sadler (2003) and Min (2006) show that electronic peer response had animportant impact on revision, Roux-Rodriguez (2003) and Tuzi (2004) reportthat there were more revisions made by the student writers themselves than

suggestions given by their peers Furthermore, in terms of e-peer commentmodes, while Liang (2010) and Zheng et al (2015) confirmed that bothsynchronous and asynchronous comments helped improve students’ writingquality, Shang (2017) confirms that asynchronous peer comments are moreuseful than synchronous corrective peer comments in producing more sentences.According to Treglia (2006), asynchronous and/or synchronous modes usedbrings different benefits to teaching and learning As long as the modesmatching particular students' learning styles or preferences, or teaching contextsoften worked best The gap of little literature led the researcher of this currentstudy to be interested in investigating the effects of e-peer comments onstudents’ writing revisions in order to obtain more relatively results.

In the realm of teaching writing, writing instruction in Vietnam has traditionallyconcentrated on finished products that emphasize form over meaning and thefinal text rather than the writing process (Tran, 2000; Nguyen, 2013; Hoang &Nguyen, 2016) Tran (2000) asserts that in writing classes, while assigned anentire composition, instructors only required students to write on a given topiconce There is always a time constraint and few opportunities for revision afterthe students complete their first drafts Moreover, the student writers had justone audience - the instructor to write for As a result, the writing process doesnot take place in real life Another issue discovered by Hoang and Nguyen (2016)

is that the teacher reaction in writing classes is primarily focused on grammarcorrection They claim that the fact is tied to issues with school policy and thepressures of an examination-oriented educational system In addition, Nguyen(2013) concludes that, in terms of collaborative learning, the group workpractice has been still unsatisfactory for two primary reasons The first is due tothe students' insufficiency levels, lack of motivation, and preference fortraditional learning styles The other is about how the teachers implementedgroup work, the English programs, and the teaching materials These upsides ofproduct approach can be overcome by using process approach and CMC

platforms which are believed to assist students to write more effectively (Pham,2014).

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam from January 2020required education to shift to an online mode on CMC platforms However, thevirtual learning environment limits students’ collaboration in pairs or groupsduring the regular class time To solve this problem, having group work betweenstudents outside the classroom is more likely a workable solution (Pham &Nguyen, 2021) For instance, in writing sessions, instructors could useasynchronous computer-mediated peer feedback to offer students opportunitiesfor interactive learning by sharing their comments with other students, which isbelieved to help students to write more effectively as well as increase students’self-confidence (Curtis, 2001) Also, using asynchronous computer-mediatedpeer feedback helps writing teachers reduce enormous workload in givingfeedback on students’ writing in a large class size because giving comments tostudents’ writing is by far the most time-consuming work writing teachers couldnot afford to do evaluations to all students’ written papers in big size classes(Ferris, 2007)

Looking into the use of CMC peer response in the EFL context, Facebook (FB)has turned into an effective learning platform among universitystudents (Majid et al., 2015) According to a Facebook page called DataAnalysis for Marketing (2021), the number of young FB users aged from 18 to

24 in Vietnam is set to reach over 18 million of 73 million for both academicsand entertainment purposes Tran and Tran (2021) state that Vietnamese studentsare interested in exchanging comments on FB platform because FB offerslearners a friendly environment to share ideas and opinions With all above-mentioned issues in Vietnam, the researcher is inspired to conduct the study ofFB-based peer comments on writing to help students, USSH English-majorstudents in particular, write more effectively through the process approach.Observations made by the researcher and other researchers who work at

struggle with writing skills in terms of using appropriate language anddeveloping and organizing ideas Moreover, it is evident that many of them areunable of managing their self-study, such as planning, monitoring, andevaluating their writing, or identifying their strengths and limitations It appearsthat the existing method, the product-oriented approach to teaching anddeveloping writing abilities with papers and pens, is not a sufficient solution tothe students' issues Consequently, it is crucial to identify a more effectivestrategy for fostering learner autonomy and writing proficiency In addition,student participation in writing classes or in writing practices is oftendisregarded for a variety of reasons, including class size, lack of time for training

in the classroom, and excessive workload for both teachers and students Hence,

it is essential to identify more efficient means of reducing instructors' andstudents' workload in the classroom, such as the use of computer-mediatedcommunication to allow teachers and students to collaborate outside classroom.Furthermore, English-major students are those that are majoring in the socialsciences; therefore, they like to communicate with others while studying asopposed to doing separate duties such as writing as a product As a result, theprocess approach to writing may enable students to share their ideas or exchangecomments with others through a variety of tasks such as creating ideas, readingand reviewing, and revising and editing to assist students to learn writing(Hyland, 2003) Due to the importance of the aforementioned difficulties, theresearcher felt compelled to perform the current study, titled ‘THE EFFECTS

OF FACEBOOK-BASED PEER COMMENTS ON ENGLISH-MAJORSTUDENTS’ WRITING REVISIONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOCIALSCIENCES AND HUMANITIES - VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITYHCMC’

1.2 Aims of the study

Based on the aforementioned background, this study was in an attempt to:

(1) Clarify the types of comments (global and local areas) frequently produced

by the students as well as the most frequent types of grammatical errors made bystudents in their writing

(2) Investigate differences between global and local areas in terms of oriented comments

revision-(3) Examine the impacts of FB-based peer comments on students’ revisions

1.3 Research questions and hypotheses

The research generates the following research questions in order to accomplishthe earlier stated aim:

(1) Which types of grammatical errors are more frequently made by students?(2) Which types of areas of comments (global and local) are more frequentlyproduced by the students during the Facebook-based peer response activities?(2) Are there any differences between the revision-oriented comments of the twoareas?

(3) To what extent do students incorporate Facebook-based peer comments intorevisions?

1.4 Significance of the study

The study is significant in the following aspects Firstly, this study attempts tofill the literature gap on the effects of FB-based peer comments in the context ofteaching English writing to Vietnamese learners The findings of this study maycontribute to the literature of the effects of FB-based peer comments on English-major students’ writing revisions Secondly, with the detailed description of theimplementation of FB-based peer comments on writing revisions at Ho ChiMinh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty of EnglishLinguistics (USSH-EFL), the study hopes to give USSH-EFL writing teacherssome suggestions on the application of FB-based peer comments on writingrevisions at the research site context From the model of integrating FB into

teaching English writing to English-major students in this study, writinginstructors might adapt to create new models that suit their teaching contexts inorder to help their students become more effective writers Finally, the treatment

of this study may help students know how to incorporate FB into their writingpeer comment activities to improve their writing qualities through the revisionprocess Also, the rich analysis of types of made errors may help student writersavoid grammatical errors by raising students’ awareness of them

1.5 Scope of the study

The study aims to investigate the effects of FB-based peer comments onEnglish-major students’ writing revisions as well as to count grammatical errorsmade in students’ writing at The University of Social Sciences and Humanities,Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City (the USSH, VNUHCM) Theresearch was conducted in an English Grammar 1 (level B2) class which lastedfor 12 weeks Targeted grammatical structures taught in the course were (1)Nouns and articles, (2) Possessives pronouns and quantifiers, (3) Prepositions, (4)Adjectives and adverbs, (5) Present tenses, (6) Past tenses, (7) Present perfect, (8)Future forms, (9) Modal verbs, so this study counted writing errors belonging tonine categories mentioned above The genres of narrative and descriptive writingwere used for this study with the topics for writing assignments presented in thecourse syllabus The quantitative and qualitative analyses of writing errors,revisions and areas of comments are expected to shed light on writing errorcategories, types of comments and areas of comments that the participants canrevise their writing when feedback is provided or provide other writers feedback.Also, instructors can raise awareness about which grammar points and types ofcomments should be more carefully instructed in grammar or writing classes

1.6 Definition of terms

Peer comments

According to Hansen and Liu (2005), peer comments, which can also be known

as peer responses, or peer evaluation, peer review, or peer editing, are the use oflearners as sources of information and interactants for each other in commenting

on and critiquing each other's drafts in both written and oral format in theprocess of writing In other words, peer comment describes the activity duringwhich students provide comments on their peers’ writing and receive comments

on their own writing in the written and/or oral mode in pairs or small groups(Zhu, 2001)

Computer-mediated peer comments (CMC), Electronic/e-peer comments

It refers to the meaning which is giving and receiving comments throughtechnology (Okumuş & Yurdakal, 2016)

Facebook group (FB group)

Facebook group is a feature available to FB users This feature allows unlimitednumber of users to participate, communicate, and interact via post on a wall.When a group member posts something on the wall of FB group, all memberscan view, like, and comment on the posts, even when they are not FB friends Inaddition, users can adjust the privacy of the FB group such as ‘closed’ status,which means the content distributed in the group news-feed is only available tothe group members

Facebook-based peer comments (FB-based peer comments)

In this study, Facebook-based peer comments refer to activities in which peersprovide and receive comments via a FB group

Revision

Revision refers to practices in EFL or second language (L2) classes in whichstudent writers look again at their writing holistically to revise content andwriting organizational structure or writing ideas, and improve language use.Writers also make use of the comments from the peers and/or instructor to revisetheir writing (Richards & Schmidt, 2002)

Nature of comment or revision-oriented comments

Comments addressed to the issues of the writing problems that trigger revisions

in a later draft

1.7 Assumptions of the study

This study was predicated on four assumptions First, the student participantshad prior experience writing paragraphs that comprised a topic sentence,supporting sentences, unity, and coherence in particular genres of descriptiveand narrative writing Second, they were capable of speaking, reading, andwriting in English with their peers and the instructor Third, the researcher whowas allowed to conduct the study had no effect on the students' performance.Finally, the participants in this study had never received training in FB-basedpeer comments

1.8 Organization of thesis chapters

This thesis comprises five separate chapters Chapter 1 provides background tothe study, the aims of the study, research questions of the study, the significance

of the study, the scope together with definition of terms Chapter 2 presents areview of writing errors as well as related literature supporting computer-mediated peer comments in general and FB-based peer comments in particular.Chapter 3 describes methodology which was implemented to find out answers tothe research questions Chapter 4 provides the analysis of the data collected fromstudent writings Also included in chapter 4 is the discussion on the studyfindings Chapter 5 presents the study conclusion, pedagogical implications, andrecommendations for future research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents a review of writing errors as well as theoreticalbackground and previous studies relating to computer-mediated peer commentsand FB-based peer comments Based on these, the conceptual framework of thestudy is presented

2.1 Theoretical issues on peer comment research

This study is theoretically guided by four major theories supports the use of peercomments in L2 writing instructions such as Collaborative learning theory(Bruffee, 1984), Sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978), Interactionist theory ofL2 acquisition (Swain & Lapkin, 1998), and Process-oriented writing approachtheory (Hayes & Flower, 1980)

Collaborative learning theory describes that learning is socially constructed

through feedback exchanges among learners (Bruffee, 1984) Research in thisparadigm has provided much evidence that there are positive contributions tolearning through peer feedback In 2010, Hu and Lam published a paper inwhich they described comments from peers as the facilitation of peer interactionand collaboration It was through collaboration, L2 learners could receivescaffolding and social support from their peers in a facilitative socio-interactiveenvironment Similarly, it has conclusively been shown that collaborativelearning motivates students to collect peer comments to complete their writingtasks, especially tasks may not be successfully finished individually by studentwriters (Hirvela, 1999; Hansen & Liu, 2005; Hyland & Hyland, 2006) Also, asnoted by Liu and Hansen (2005) peer comment activities, types of collaborativework, help learners improve theirs writing through discussing and revisingwriting organization, content or language use In short, the collaborative learningtheory in which students interact and provide comments in learning would shedlights for the current study

Sociocultural theory draws attention to learning through socialization (Vygotsky,

1978) Central to the entire discipline of Sociocultural theory is the concept of

Proximal Development Zone (ZPD) - the distance between learners’ actualdevelopment level with self-regulation and learners’ potential development levelunder other-regulation In other words, learners in ZPD are encouraged toprovide feedback in terms of ideas to reach a particular level of learning.Villamil and Guerrero (2006) believe that L2 writing development may bemediated by peer feedback in ZPD, which provides favorable instructions forwriters revise within their respective zones Many cases reported by numerousauthors (Brown; 2007; Liu & Hansen, 2005; Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Lin, 2015)

in the sociocultural dimensions of peer feedback also support using peercomment activities in writing They believe that student writers can learn morefrom one another through giving and receiving peer comments than in isolation.Interestingly, Duff (2007) provides evidence that not only can lessknowledgeable students learn from their more knowledgeable peers, but thosemore capable students an also learn from their less capable peers throughinteraction and collaboration Similarly, Brown (2007) claims that learning frompeers is better than from only the teachers; therefore, the classroom should have

as many instructors as the members of it Coincidently, Vietnamese people alsohave a proverb that social interactions and participation of group members play amore important role in developing new knowledge, which is “Học thầy khôngtày học bạn”

In addition, research on peer feedback in L2 writing has been informed by anextension of Sociocultural theory called Activity theory (Jin & Zhu, 2010; Zhu

& Mitchell, 2012; Yu & Lee; 2015) Activity theory which believes that sociallyplanned and goal-directed mediated activities are important for humandevelopment is based on the concept of mediation, which states that humans usephysical instruments (such as paper, machines, clocks, and computers) as well assymbolic artefacts (such as language, religion, and signs) to mediate theirinteractions with others and the world (Vygotsky, 1978) Peer feedback, asinformed by activity theory, is viewed as a collective and situated activity inwhich students, as agents of the activity system, employ a variety of strategies to

support collaborative learning and achieve aims and objectives of the activity Insummary, the social-cultural theory in which students work collaboratively toprovide comments to assist one another targeting issues in their writing andsolving those issues through revisions would shine lights on the current study.The role of peer feedback in L2 writing development can be also be approached

from Interactionist theory of L2 acquisition (Swain & Lapkin, 1998), which

suggests that exchanging peer response through group work enhances theeffectiveness of language learning A few recent studies have identifiedconsiderable advantages of group work in L2 writing development For instance,Hyland and Hyland (2006) explain that peer interaction during peer feedbackactivities facilitates learning by providing L2 student writers with both positiveand negative feedback so that students can test hypotheses about language useagainst peers’ responses and revise their writing Similarly, other authors (Long

& Porter, 1985; Swain & Lapkin, 1998; Liu & Hansen, 2002; Swain, 2006)proves that peer comment through group work pushes students engage inmeaning negotiation and discussion to modify their own writing Overall, theinteractionist theory in which emphasizes the positive role of interactionalfeedback through group work to help students revise their own writing productswould provide greater insight into the effects of peer feedback on writing in thisstudy

Additionally, Process-oriented writing approach theory has also been used to

inform studies on peer comment in L2 writing (Hayes & Flower, 1980) Thisapproach focuses on the process of writing which involves a number of activitiessuch as setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selectingappropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing, and revising andediting (Hedge, 2001) Hedge (2001) holds the view that in the process-orientedwriting courses, not only can teachers be readers but also students can be oneswho give feedback to support other student writers to revise and edit theirwriting products In terms of peer review in the process-oriented writingclassroom, some authors (Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Hu & Lam, 2010) believe

that using peer review activities provides opportunities for students to practice awide range of language and writing skills by using their internal and externalresources In sum, Process-oriented writing approach theory that lays greatemphasis on the development and discovery of meaning through the experience

of writing and rewriting by using peer feedback would shine lights on the currentstudy

In summary, the theories mentioned in the above can provide theoretical insightsinto peer comment activities of the EFL students writers For instance, process-oriented writing approach theory provides theoretical concept for peer commentresearch from which the use of peer response that benefits students’ writingquality from recursive steps including drafting and redrafting can be drawn Inaddition, collaborative learning theory and interactionist theory can supportstudies that investigates peer comment issues such as peer interaction andcollaboration and peer corrective comment Social cultural frame research offerstheoretical frameworks for studies on peer interaction and computer-mediatedpeer comment which is believed to develop writing gradually throughdiscussions and peer response activities

2.2 Review of existing peer comment research in writing

Traditional peer comments and computer-mediated peer comments will bediscussed in this part Traditional peer comments are generated via face-to-facecommunication in which peers work together and comment on each other's work(Liu & Hansen, 2005) Computer-mediated peer comments are examples ofthose generated through technology by human in both asynchronouscommunication (delayed communication) and synchronous communication(real-time communication) (Okumuş & Yurdakal, 2016)

2.2.1 Traditional peer comments

2.2.1.1 Benefits of traditional peer comments

Multiple advantages of incorporating peer comment into foreign languageteaching have been highlighted by scholars Some authors (Liu & Hansen, 2005;

Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Hu, 2005; Altstaedter, 2018) confirm that peercomment helps students improve their writing quality by allowing students toobtain numerous comments from their peers Based on these comments, studentscan form topic sentences more clearly, add details to paragraphs, discover theirown most common errors, and learn new vocabulary, organizational patterns,and grammatical structures even during the early stages of paragraphconstruction Besides, Liu and Hansen (2005) posit that peer comment brings akeen sense of learners into the writing and also helps develop students' criticalreading and analysis skills when learners have to read and produce comments onsimilar writing tasks Also, Liu and Hansen (2002) and Berg (1999) prove thatpeer comment activities enhance communication skills through the negotiation

of meaning that typically takes place during peer comment process Moreover,some studies such as Berg (1999), Liu and Hansen (2005), and Min (2006) claimthat peer feedback has a significant influence on students' revision becausestudent writers tend to use most comments from peers to revise their writing Inaddition, not only is peer response beneficial to students, but it is also beneficial

to instructors because peer response activities can reduce writing teachers'workload, particularly for those who teach large classes (Liu & Hansen, 2005).Peer comments motivate students to participate in classroom activities andreduce their reliance on their teachers, who are expected to support studentsthrough multiple drafts by providing comments and suggesting revisions Peercomment activities allow students to obtain more feedback on their work thanthey would otherwise receive from their teacher (Ferris, 2007)

All in all, a number of studies support the advantages of peer comments to L2writers Some outstanding features of peer comment are enhancing L2 writingdevelopment by incorporating peer feedback into revisions, raising readerawareness, engaging learners in meaning negotiation as well as other benefitslike reducing teachers’ workload and developing communication skills.However, peer feedback also has a few drawbacks that will be reviewed in thenext section

2.2.1.2 Drawbacks of traditional peer comments

First, there are concerns regarding peer comments (Liu & Hansen, 2002) This isbecause students may question the veracity of their peers' opinions As a result,learners may lose interest in peer comments and fail to incorporate peercomments into revision As a result, it is critical that professors oversee peercomment activities so that students can seek clarification as necessary.Furthermore, peer comments must be combined with instructor remarks toenhance students' confidence in the peer comments they get

Second, when students become unduly critical of their peers, it can be productive (Liu & Hansen, 2002) If this is the case, students may feel uneasyaround their classmates and fearful of sharing peer opinions Once again, theteacher's role as a facilitator and conciliator is critical to the continuation of peercomment activities

counter-Third, low-quality peer comments might result from students' lack ofinvolvement, particularly when students tend to focus too much on surfacestructures (Liu & Hansen, 2002) Furthermore, time constraints encouragesuperficial responses Some student writers do not believe in peer feedback andexchange peer feedback just because they have to As a consequence, they prefer

to provide throwaway feedback and disregard feedback to their peers To addressthis, teachers could (1) supply students with a peer comment guideline and trainstudents on how to apply it to guarantee students take many parts of a piece ofwriting into consideration when making comments, and (2) give studentsbonuses for delivering high quality comments to encourage them to participateenthusiastically in peer response activities

The current corpus of literature on peer comments has extensively examinedboth the benefits and drawbacks of introducing traditional peer commentactivities into writing instruction However, whether their benefits exceed theirdrawbacks is debatable Although peer comment activities save teachers timespent on giving comments on students' writings, it takes teachers time toorganize peer response activities, train students to give peer comments, and

facilitate the process of peer comment exchange, which requires teachers asignificant amount of time and effort According to Ferris (2007), writingteachers and researchers are still unsure if the benefits of peer feedback exceedthe negatives and whether the time spent completing the exercises is worthwhile.

2.2.1.3 Research on effectiveness of peer comments compared with teacher comments

There is a widespread belief in EFL context that instructor comments are morevaluable than peer comments This is pointed out by Yang et al (2006), whoconducted research in which they examined peer and teacher comments inChinese writing classroom Over 90% of students in the teacher comment classconsidered teacher comments to be "helpful" or "very useful," whereas morethan 60% of students in the peer comment class claim peer comments to be

"useful" or "extremely useful" Yang et al (2006) maintains that students believeteacher comments more than peer comments because they think teachers aremore professional, experienced, and trustworthy when giving comments Interms of the impact of peer and teacher comments, the number of comments isused to revise students’ writing that produced by peers is higher than commentsproduced by teachers, at 90% and 67% respectively (Yang et al., 2006) Hence,

it is worth noting that both peer and teacher comments are beneficial to studentlearning, albeit in different ways

Also, Tsui and Ng (2000) investigate the roles of teacher and peer comments inwriting revisions among Hong Kong secondary L2 students Tsui and Ng (2000)point out in their study that students have a stronger preference for teachercomments because teachers are deemed more experienced and authoritative.Furthermore, teacher comments are thought to be of higher quality They aremore detailed in terms of describing issues more clearly, and giving morehelpful suggestions for revisions This finding is in agreement with Paulus’(1999) findings which show that teacher comments lead to more modificationsand are prioritized by students, though both peer and teacher commentsinfluence the revision process A study by Zhao (2010) reaches different

which suggests that peer comments may be even more valuable than teachercomments.

Zhao (2010) investigates the use and comprehension of peer and instructorcomments among 18 Chinese EFL students Although the participantsincorporate more teacher comments (74%) than peer comments (46%) in theirrevisions, only 58 percentage of teacher comments are incorporated intorevisions with their relevance or value appreciated by students, compared to 83percentage of peer comments These findings imply that EFL students may notcompletely comprehend instructor comments and that peer comments may bemore beneficial to student writers than teacher comments In Ruegg’s (2018)study, he compares changes in L2 writing self-efficacy between two groups ofJapanese EFL university students (teacher comment group and peer commentgroup) The finding is that the teacher comment group increases L2 writing self-efficacy significantly more than the peer comment group In terms of subjects ofthe comments, Chen (2010) discovered that writing consultants focus on localissues (grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics) whereas peer comments areconnected to global issues (content, rhetoric, and organization) in the researchnamed “Graduate students’ self-reported perspectives regarding peer feedbackand feedback from writing consultants” Therefore, besides teacher comments,peer comments do play an important role in EFL contexts

In the same vein, empirical research using anonymous comments in a ChineseEFL environment is conducted by Xu and Liu (2010) discovered that studentsuse a comparable percentage of teacher and peer comments in their revisions.The study also discovered that whereas teacher comments concentrate on localerrors (form and mechanics), students prefer to offer global issues (overallcomments, organization, etc.) and positive comments In brief, most studentsprefer teacher comments over peer comments and teacher comments result inmore revisions although both peer and teacher comments are demonstrated toplay an active role in students learning, and peer comments tend to concentrate

on meaning-related issues

Overall, recent studies have shown generally good evidence to justify the use ofpeer comments in L2 writing classes This strand of research is crucial because itprovides empirical proof of peer comments' usefulness in L2 writing However,

to improve peer comment quality, there should be a need for training peercomments

2.2.1.4 Research on peer comment training

Peer comments is seen to be successful only if participants are well trained (Min,

2005, 2006, 2008; Liou & Peng, 2009; Chang, 2015), hence a substantial amount

of research underscore the necessity of training in peer comment practice.Generally, the impacts of peer comment training have been studied by tworesearch designs that are pre-post (before versus after training) quasi-experimental design (Min, 2005, 2006; Liou & Peng, 2009; Chang, 2015) andcomparison-control (trained versus untrained groups simultaneously) quasi-experimental design (Stanley, 1992; McGroarty & Zhu, 1997; Berg, 1999; Min,2008; Rahimi, 2013) to explore the influence of training on three characteristics

of peer comments such as (1) the quality of peer comments, (2) the use of peercomments in revisions by student writers; (3) the quality of peer-revisedEFL/ESL writing

Berg (1999) examines a study on effects of trained peer feedback on ESLstudents’ revision types and writing quality by comparing differences in eachstudent’ first and second writing drafts and scoring students’ writing in bothtrained and untrained groups The result of this research finds that teaching ESLstudents to conduct peer feedback results in more meaning shifts and improvewriting quality Also, in a study conducted by Min (2006) to investigate theimpact of trained reviewers’ feedback on EFL college students’ revisions interms of revision types and quality, the author discovers that teaching EFLstudents how to offer peer comments lead to more peer comments beingincorporated into draft revisions Rahimi (2013) looks into the training students

to produce peer responses shifts their focus from only local aspects of writing to

a fair balance of local and global aspects, and subsequently enhances the quality

of students’ paragraph writing because of low percentages of wrong local andglobal responses from the trained student writers Likewise, other authors (Keh,1990; Stanley, 1992; Tsui & Ng, 2000; Min, 2005) hold the view that untrainedwriters’ foci of feedback quality are local issues (grammar, vocabulary, andmechanics), and providing vague comments In contrast to untrained writers,trained ones are more likely to provide higher-quality comments which are morebalanced in addressing global and local aspects, as well as more text-specific andrevision-oriented (Chang, 2015; Min, 2006, 2008) Trained reviewers, in turn,produce far more important meaning revisions than untrained reviewers (Berg,1999).

Significant differences exist in the quantity and quality of instruction Tsui and

Ng (2000) simply provide grading sheets, check-lists/rubrics with no or littletraining, while other researchers provide extensive trainings such as video-watching (Berg, 1999; Allen & Mills, 2016), role play (Stanley, 1992), in-classinstructor modelling, and follow-up instructor-learner conferencing (McGroarty

& Zhu, 1997; Min, 2005, 2006; Rahimi, 2013; Lee, 2015; Chang, 2015) Amongabove listed guidelines for peer comments, check-lists/rubrics are most frequentuses (Chang, 2016) Check-lists/rubrics are teacher-created recommendationsthat are used during peer response to steer commenters to the issues theinstructor wants them to focus on and address According to Wang (2014),checklists/rubrics assist writers become more aware of writing criteria, and pointreviewers to global writing aspects In addition, Chang (2014) mentions thatmake checklist/rubrics-based responses more acceptable to student writers.When asked how students decide whether to adopt or reject peer comments inChang’s (2014) study, some say they view the checklist and compare with theideas their partners’ suggestions If the checklist/rubrics are not used as a guide,students may focus excessively on local writing concerns or even wander orstray off track (Wachholz, 1997)

In the Vietnamese setting, a focus on peer response training and the impacts ofits application on English language students has also been reported Dang (2012)

contends that writing blogs have a beneficial influence on growing students'motivation and autonomous learning, and emphasizes that instructing students toprovide effective comments on peers' blogs is crucial However, when using peerevaluation, Hoang and Gillies (2010) advise that problems surroundingVietnamese students' learning culture should be considered Vietnamese students,

in particular, are hesitant to participate in intragroup peer evaluation (wherestudents evaluate their group members individually) because they are notconfident in delivering direct and face-to-face comments Rather, they prefer toparticipate in intergroup peer evaluation (where one group evaluates othergroups), where they may avoid direct conflict with their classmates

To sum up, there are several attempts highlight the importance of instructionswith checklists/rubrics on peer comment training the ESL/EFL writing context

by employing quasi-experimental design To deal with a lack of confidence fromVietnamese students when providing peer comments in face-to-face situations,providing comments through computer-mediated tools can be an alternative toface-to-face peer comments

2.2.2 Computer-mediated peer comments

Peer comments via computer-mediated communication (CMC) has become analternative to traditional peer comments in recent decades as CMC has grown inpopularity (Hyland & Hyland, 2006) According to Hyland and Hyland (2006),there have been three strands of studies on computer-mediated peer commentsfor second language writing such as (1) software-generated comments, (2)technology-enhanced peer comments by which human comment throughtechnology, and (3) the differentiation among forms of computer-mediated peercomments by using asynchronous or synchronous communication, or other kinds

of multimedia In this study, only the second and the third strands of humancomments framed by Sociocultural theory, which encourage collaborativelearning both inside and outside the classroom, are taken into account

2.2.2.1 Benefits of computer-mediated peer comments

Besides sharing similar benefits with traditional peer comments, mediated peer comments have been found more beneficial to writing students.First, computer-mediated peer comment activities enable students, particularlyintroverted and timid students, to take a more active and autonomous role inproviding and receiving comments since they can ask questions whenever theywant and take the initiative in discussion (Warschauer et al., 1996) Also, Kelseyand Amant (2012) find that introverted and timid students thrive in an onlineenvironment than in a classroom setting As a result, computer-mediated peercomment activities empower students who are unwilling to give comments inface-to-face contexts Second, it has been proven that computer-assistedconversation is more democratic than face-to-face discussion Teachers or a fewoutspoken students are far less likely to dominate computer-assisted discussionsince the medium fosters more equitable involvement, resulting in morecollaborative class discussions (Warschauer et al., 1996; Ho & Savignon, 2007).This result may allow students to engage in meaning negotiation and dialoguemore (Chang, Chen & Hsu, 2011) Third, computer-mediated comment activitiesexpand connection opportunities outside the classroom walls, and thereforebeyond the time limits of pair and group work in the classroom (Liu & Hansen,2005) In the absence of time constraints, Ware & Warschauer (2006) show thatcomputer-mediated peer comments are higher in quality and longer in quantitythan face-to-face peer comments Moreover, some authors believe thatcomputer-mediated peer comments have a favorable impact on text revisions andstudents' writing skills (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Braine, 2001; Ciftci & Kocoglu,2012)

computer-All in all, despite the various benefits of computer-mediated peer commentsdiscovered by academics, there are some drawbacks to using them in writingclasses

2.2.2.2 Drawbacks of computer-mediated peer comments

Researchers continue to question the usefulness of computer-mediatedcomments, citing factors such as less technologically competent students and theconfusion generated by an abundance of computer-mediated comments makingdifficult for students to incorporate comments into revisions (Warschauer et al.,1996; Liu & Hansen, 2002) Furthermore, according to Guardado and Shi (2007),Canadian ESL university students find online textual exchanges more difficultthan face-to-face interaction and avoid writing back to reviewers to clarify andnegotiate meaning; hence, this makes online peer comments a one-waycommunication process and leaves a high percentage of peer responseunaddressed Besides, in the study of Ciftci and Kocoglu (2012), severalstudents report the difficulty in Internet access outside of the lab in order to offerpeer comments through blog Therefore, in addition to learning how to provideeffective comments, students should be taught how to provide comments ononline platforms as well as teachers should students sufficient time to do peercomment activities if they write comments outside the class

Another issue that scholars are concerned about is the amount of engagement incomputer-mediated peer comment activities Although computer-mediatedcomments have been shown to boost students' outside-of-classroom learningtime, they do not always increase learners' engagement (Harutyunyan & Poveda,2018) Students are more ready to participate in computer-mediated peercomment activities if participation is mandatory or evaluated (Amant & Kelsey,2012) Also, Amant and Kelsey (2012) believe that students are happier withcomputer-mediated peer comment activities when the instructor is present on theplatform, which includes swiftly addressing students' inquiries, providingfeedback on tasks, and actively participating in conversation As a result, thewriting teacher's role as a facilitator, examiner, and marker is critical

Despite the numerous disadvantages of computer-mediated peer comments,instructors and researchers in L2 writing believe the concept of employingcomputer-mediated peer comments to be viable and appealing However, there

are some major concerns about incorporating computer-mediated peer commentsinto L2 writing classes, which are determining which virtual platform is suitablefor peer comments, training students on how to generate effective peercomments, and efficiently organizing the activities of exchanging computer-mediated peer comments.

2.2.2.3 The effects of computer-mediated peer comments

As previously indicated in the theory of writing process, one of the key concernsamong researchers is the revision process Three arguments have been presented

in the literature regarding (1) revision impacts, (2) type of comments, and (3)peer response mode

First, the impacts on revisions generated by the CMC peer response are stilldebatable Liu and Sadler (2003) conducted research on the impact of peerreview on L2 writing in both electronic and traditional modes The first class(traditional group) consisted entirely of 24 non-native English speakers placedinto six peer review groups, whereas the second class (technology-enhancedgroup) had seven native English speakers from the United States and 17seventeen non-native English speakers placed into six peer review groups Thetwo groups had the same fundamental curriculum, but the computer-enhancedgroup's activities used Multi-user domain Object-oriented (MOO) to exchangepeer comments, and the traditional group used paper-and-pen to give commentsand exchanged comments at face-to-face meetings The studentshad completed two training sessions before submitting their rough drafts toguarantee that they were thoroughly educated on the rationale and the process ofpeer review Teacher comments were not provided on students' essays untilstudent second drafts had been submitted Data from the survey of students’attitudes on peer comment activities, three drafts from each student, peercomments, interviews, and transcripts of peer comment interaction werecollected The results demonstrated that the technology-enhanced group receivedmore comments, had a higher percentage of revision-oriented comments, andmade more revisions than those in the traditional group Also, individuals in the

technology-enhanced group found online discussions to be more appealing.Face-to-face communication, however, resulted in a more positive response,with more targeted comments and more questions and interactions amongpeers The researchers proposed that electronic peer review should be used inconjunction with face-to-face peer review instead of a substitute.

Roux-Rodriguez (2003) conducted a case study to assess the impact ofcomputer-mediated peer response on students’ revision 12 intermediate Spanishstudents at a public university took part in this study Participants wereintroduced to a process approach from the beginning of the course, whichrequired them to participate in four writing cycles A writing cycle stayed twoweeks and required the submission of a 400- to 500-word Spanish paper All ofthe students were taught how to give good feedback before the treatment, andthey worked in self-selected pairs The cycle included (1) face-to-face peerdiscussion on a writing topic in class, (2) writing drafts individually and drafts to

a peer via e-mail for peer feedback, (3) reading the feedback and revising firstdrafts, (4) sending the modified version (second drafts) to the instructor, and (5)attending a writing conference with the instructor Data consisted of writtencomments, first and second drafts, and transcripts of interviews Data analysisrevealed that the students used comments basing on their needs When givingfeedback, students employed the responding, advising, and announcing languagefunctions and concentrated on contents The participants' revisions challengedthe concept that peer comments affected revisions directly since more than half

of the participants' revisions came from the student writers themselves, not frompeer comments Therefore, there should be a careful training about the concepts

of feedback and the types of feedback

The study by Liou and Peng (2009) investigated the impact of training oncomputer-mediated peer response (CMPR) This study used a commercial freeblog environment ‘Vox’ to investigate how CMPR training affects students' peerresponses, peer response adoption, and revised text quality Students used Vox

to enter five phases of the writing process (brainstorming, drafting outlining,

writing the first draft, peer responses on the first draft, and revising the first draft)for each of four writing tasks In the second and third writing assignments,

a peer-review training process was formed by using a peer-review instructionsheet derived from Min (2005) and a peer-review demonstration The peerresponses and peer response adoption level were evaluated using a rubric created

by Liu and Sadler (2003) The results suggested that following training, thestudents' responses became more revision-oriented and stressed on globalconcerns It was also discovered that following training, the number of revision-oriented responses increased while the adoption rate decreased Nevertheless,training increased the proportion of peer comments that led to effective revisions.Comparing the first and fourth revised versions revealed that students' revisingquality increased after training, despite adopting less responses from their peersand making fewer changes in their fourth drafts

The second debate came from the type of comments Tuzi (2004) looked at howe-feedback affected L2 freshmen students' revisions in an academic writingcourse in a writing class at a university in Pennsylvania 20 students learned andpracticed academic writing in an Internet-accessible classroom During thelearning process, student writers used their user accounts to submit their essays

on the writing web site, give oral or written comments to the other students, andrevise their essays based on comments from peers, instructors, and websitevisitors The students wrote six essays in total, with the option to review eachpaper up to five times The analysis began with gathering all of the revisions of aparticular essay and comparing each draft to the subsequent revision to detect thedifferences, as well as taking into account e-feedback The study showed thatalthough students preferred oral feedback to e-feedback, e-feedback had a biggereffect on revisions than spoken feedback This indicated that e-feedback might

be more beneficial in writing revisions Furthermore, e-feedback had a strongerinfluence on phrase, sentence, and paragraph changes Hence, L2 authors canconstruct macro revisions using e-feedback Additionally, in terms of revisions,L2 authors stated that obtaining e-feedback from a large number of

individuals helped them focus on the positives and negatives of theircompositions Also, students believed that they were motivated to rethink theiressays and revise them more after receiving many comments.

Song and Usaha (2009) evaluated the types of comments, how peer commentswere used in revisions, and the writing quality after revision in a comparisonstudy between face-to-face peer comments and peer comments via Moodle'sforum Twenty Chinese EFL university students were allocated to a face-to-facepeer comment group and a Moodle’s forum-based peer comment group atrandom They were given an argumentative essay to write and then shared peercomments with their group members after being instructed to give peercomments The data was gathered from the comments and writing scores of thestudents' argumentative essays The findings indicated that the face-to-face peercomment group generated more comments than the Moodle’s forum-based peercomment group, resulting in more comments being included into revisions.Nonetheless, the Moodle’s forum-based peer comment group generated morerevision-oriented comments The writing quality of the students in the Moodleforum-based peer comment group was considerably better than that of the face-to-face peer comment group because there were differences in the usage of peercomments in revisions

Pham and Usaha (2009) carried out the study in Vietnam to see if a blog-basedpeer comment activities could help EFL writers This study included 12 second-year English majors students enrolled in a 15-week academic writing course at

a university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The participants were grouped intothree groups of four each by mixed ability levels The students used were asked

to post their essays on blogs, instructed in a 6-step peer responsecomment procedure, and then students provided and got feedback twice fromtheir peers on the first and second drafts for revisions Collected data werestudents' drafts 1 to 3, revisions, peer feedback, semi-structured interviewsduring five weeks The results revealed that the students who participated in theblog-based peer comment training used four common forms of comments such

as 'clarification', 'suggestion/advice', 'explain', and 'modification' Second, thesefour dominant types of comments had a substantial impact on the students'writing quality in both the pretest and posttest mean scores Finally, students inthis case study indicated positive feelings about blog-based peercomment activities.

The final aspect of debates relates to the peer response modes Chang's (2009)study used synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) andasynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) modes to investigatestudents' commenting types, and students' opinions of peer review Theparticipants in the research were 30 students enrolled in an 18-week electiveEnglish writing course with five writing assignments The writing class used aprocess writing approach, in which students went through a writing cycle withdifferent steps In this writing course, two CMC tools, MSN (a Microsoft instantmessaging tool) - and E3 (a university-developed Web-based coursemanagement system) were used as synchronous (MSN) and asynchronous (E3)online commenting tools During the three peer review sessions for the second,fourth, and fifth writing assignments, the students were asked tocommunicate with different peers The data was gathered from a variety ofsources, including E3 and MSN online transcripts, writing drafts, and twoquestionnaires The findings demonstrated that the students' preferences for twomodalities were identical In addition, the frequency distribution of the fourcategories of comments (evaluation, clarification, suggestion, and alteration) wasidentical in both modes, with evaluation and alteration being the most prevalent

In terms of the commenting areas, delayed-time feature inACMC allowed students to concentrate on both global and local writing issues,whereas commenting in SCMC tended to focus more on the local than the global.The findings also showed that both communication modes generated revision-oriented comments in the local area

Liang (2010) investigated three groups of 12 EFL students' synchronous onlinepeer feedback in a writing course Students' online chat sessions, blogs, and