The Benefits of Peer Feedback Based on Interview Discussion

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b. The Benefits of Peer Feedback Based on Interview

In order to gain more data on the benefits of peer feedback, the researcher conducted interviews. The researcher asked the participants the benefits they got after implementing peer feedback in their writing class. The benefits got by the participants were varied. Mostly, they stated that peer feedback could improve their cooperative skill as they got to work cooperatively with their peers. Students A and E stated that peer feedback could help them in understanding how to write correct sentences in writing report texts. Student B argued that peer feedback helped him or her to be more careful in writing report texts. Meanwhile, student C admitted that peer feedback helped him or her in understanding grammar and how to write correct sentences in report texts. Moreover, students D and F stated that they became more responsible when giving feedback to their peers’ report texts. They were afraid of giving wrong feedback to their peers. “Saya jadi lebih bertanggung jawab pas ngasih komen ke teman. Soalnya, saya takut ngasih komen yang salah ke teman.” Student F I become more responsible when giving comments to my peers. I am afraid that I will give wrong comments to my peers.

c. Discussion

Concerning the results from questionnaire and interviews, the researcher revealed that there were some benefits of the implementation of peer feedback in writing report texts. Based on the findings from the questionnaire and interviews, the researcher concluded that the benefits of peer feedback were improving the students’ writing skill, encouraging the students to work cooperatively with their peers, and helping the students in revising their report texts. 60 The implementation of peer feedback in writing report texts helped the participants in improving their writing skill. Based on the questionnaire, there were 91.42 of the participants who had positive perception on this statement. In addition, the interview results also supported this finding. There were two of the participants who stated that peer feedback helped them in improving their writing skill. They argued that they had understood how to write correct sentences in report texts. This finding is in line with the theory of writing skill proposed by Raimes 1983. One of the advantages of writing in EFL classes is the students become very involved in the new language Raimes, 1993. The participants improved their writing skill as they became very involved in English. Related to writing skill, majority of the participants also agreed that peer feedback helped them in improving their grammar and understanding their strengths and weaknesses in writing report texts. There were 94.27 of the participants who had positive perception that peer feedback helped them in improving their grammar. There were also 91.42 of the participants who had positive perception that peer feedback helped them in understanding their strengths and weaknesses in writing report texts. In the interview sessions, there was also a participant, namely Student C, who admitted that peer feedback helped him or her in understanding grammar and how to write correct sentences in report texts. Improving students’ writing skill, as one of the benefits of the implementation of peer feedback in writing report texts, is in line with the theory of peer feedback proposed by Hyland 2003. Hyland 2003 mentions eight 61 advantages of implementing peer feedback in writing class. One of the advantages proposed by Hyland 2003 is that peer feedback makes use of authentic communicative context that can help the students a lot in learning materials. As the authentic communicative context was used in peer feedback, the students could improve their writing skill. Therefore, one of the benefits of implementing peer feedback in writing report texts is improving students’ writing skill. The second benefit of implementing peer feedback in writing report texts was encouraging the students to work cooperatively with their peers. There were 87.13 of the participants who had positive perception on this statement in the questionnaire. In addition, there were also 91.42 of the participants who had positive perception that by commenting on their peers’ writing, they also learnt how to write report texts correctly. Majority of the participants also agreed with this statement during the interview sessions. There were three participants, namely students B, C and E, argued that peer feedback encouraged them to work cooperatively with their peers. As they had to work cooperatively with their peers, they argued that they became more responsible in giving feedback since they did not want to give wrong feedback to their peers. This finding is in line with the theory of peer feedback proposed by Hyland 2003 and Mcgroarty 1989, in Kessler, 1992. Hyland 2003 states that peer feedback creates an authentic social context for interaction and learning. The students interacted and learnt together with their peers during the implementation of peer feedback in writing report texts. In addition, Mcgroarty 1989, as cited in Kessler, 1992 argues that peer feedback in writing class can give opportunities to 62 act as sources for each other, hence assuming a more active role in their learning. Therefore, encouraging the students to work cooperatively with their peers was considered as one of the benefits of implementing peer feedback in writing report texts. The last benefit of implementing peer feedback in writing report texts was that peer feedback helped the students in revising their report texts. Based on the questionnaire results, there were 90 of the participants who had positive perception on this statement. It was interesting to discover that there were 10 of the participants who had negative perception on this statement. They argued that they still needed their teacher’s feedback in revising their report texts as it was more accurate rather than peer feedback. However, as there were 90 of the participants who agreed, it could be concluded the participants had positive perception on this statement. This finding is in line with the theory of peer feedback proposed by Zhang 1995, as cited in Hyland, 2003. Zhang 1995, as cited in Hyland, 2003 states that peer feedback not only develops students’ critical reading skill, but also gains students’ skill necessary to critically revise their own writing. After receiving feedback from their peers, the students would have to critically revise their report texts. In addition, Lewis 2002 also states that students can save their time revising their writing based on the feedback from their peers, as a teacher usually spends more time giving feedback. Therefore, another benefit of implementing peer feedback in writing report texts was helping the students in revising their report texts. 63

C. Students’ Perception on the Limitations of the Implementation of Peer

Feedback in Writing Report Texts This section answers the third research problem in the problem formulation. To discover the limitations of the implementation of peer feedback in writing report texts, the researcher employed the open-ended questions in the questionnaire. The researcher considered that the participants’ perception on these statements was derived from their thoughts and opinions.

a. The Limitations of Peer Feedback Based on Questionnaire