40 1 Set up a class mailing list

* 研究對象： 40位義守大學應英系進修部二年制 在職學生 * 進行步驟： 1. Set up a class mailing list in the first week of class 2. Choose a peer by themselves 3. Read the assigned material and write down 2 paragraphs regarding the summary and personal comments 9

4. Send it to the peer via email and give each other feedback and corrections of writings 5. The instructor would receive copies of all their correspondence 6. Hand in their assignment to the instructor electronically at least 1 day ahead of class meeting time 7. Grade not only on the final product but also on the process of writing and how well they follow the instructions (to encourage participation) 10

* 閱讀成效： l 大部份學生持正面的態度： ü Force them to finish reading the article earlier and harder so as to increase their reading comprehension ü Discuss and get peer’s opinions to learn more different viewpoints ü Have a relaxing environment to write/discuss more ü Ask more questions without considering the rules ü Get more fun in reading because it’s authentic 11

l 少部份同學持負面意見： ü Take too much time to do the activity or get the returned message since most of them have jobs at the daytime ü Have poor typing skills ü Unfamiliar with the computer; have no computer available ü Can’t accept peer’s criticisms because of their low English level; can’t get useful feedback if peer’s English is poor ü Afraid of losing their faces (too shy) if they can’t express their viewpoints clearly 12

* 寫作成效： Aspects of interesting More practices Communication Peer correction Fun More knowledge/learning Low anxiety New/more vocabulary More/correct grammar Self-monitoring Spelling Technology/Computer skills More complex sentences Frequency Percent 15 17 9 5 8 5 15 10 20 12 5 8 41. 7 47. 2 25. 0 13. 9 22. 2 13. 9 41. 7 27. 8 55. 6 33. 3 13. 9 22. 2 13

Help with English writing No A little Yes Very much Attitude toward language Improved The same Worsened Time of writing assignment In the evening On weekdays On weekends Place of writing assignment On campus At home At work 2 16 17 1 5. 0 40. 0 42. 5 24 11 1 60. 0 27. 5 2. 5 13 9 14 32. 5 22. 5 35. 0 0 27 9 0 67. 5 22. 5 14

ü Improvements on syntactic complexity and grammatical accuracy; no improvement on lexical density => Interaction with peers could help to generate more syntactically complex and grammatically accurate written language => Lexical density suffered because students used more corrective feedback on complicated sentence structures and grammatical accuracy, but decreased monitoring in using richer vocabulary 15

ü First-time communication: A slightly greater improvement on grammatical accuracy & lexical density => Urgency of communicative flow demanded that students paid less attention to syntactic complexity ü More times in correcting, focus more on complicated grammatical structures ü More attention to syntactic complexity, focus less on grammatical accuracy & lexical density, and vice versa ü Exchanging with peers at least 4 times might have a greater overall improvement on writing performance 16

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