Text Types of Writing

C. Peer Assessment 1. Definition of Peer- Assessment

Assessment is an ongoing process of measure students’ progress in learning. As state by Brown, Assessment is an ongoing process that covers a wider aspect. 23 Whenever students give comment, answer the question, so at that time the teacher make an assessment of it. The use of peer-assessment is widely used with self-assessment. As in the work of Sadler , the use of self-assessment was applied unsuccessfully at the first time. Then, Sadler use peer assessment as a complement for the self-assessment. In the other word, the use of peer-assessment can be used as an important complement in any chance. 24 Thus, learning to assess students’ peers is invaluable in the process of learning interpersonal skills. 25 In short, peer-assessment is a medium of the process students’ reflection on their work by looking at their peer’s work. According to Brown, peer-assessment is simply one arm of a plethora of tasks and procedures within the domain of learner-centered and collaborative education. 26 Peer assessment appeals to similar principles, the most of obvious of which is cooperative learning. Students may go through the education from kindergarten to graduate degree but they still did not appreciate a value of cooperative learning. Peer-assessment is usually doing by students in evaluating the other friends’ work or performance. O’Malley stated peer-assessment is an evaluation which is involves students in evaluating their friends’ writing 27 . Student is doing his right to give some comment onto their friends’ work. Furthermore, Boud and 23 H. Douglas Brown., Language Assessment: principles and classroom practices, New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004, p. 4. 24 Paul Balck et al., Assessment for Learning: Putting It into Practice,New York: Open University Press, 2003, pp. 49—50. 25 Julie Cotton, The Complete Guide to Learning and Assessment – Assessment, New Delhi: Crest Publishing House, 2004, p. 137. 26 H. Douglas Brown, op. cit., p. 270. 27 O’ Malley and Pierce, op.cit., p. 156. the whole day having a talk. We talked about many things like my school, my childhood and my grandmother’s youth. Re-orientation It was an impressive visit. I will always miss my grandmother. Falchikov opine that peer-assessment is assessment which is involve students in case of give a grade or comment to their friends’ work or performance based on the criteria that decided by them before doing assessment or by teacher’s guidance. 28 Moreover, peer assessment can be used summative and collect it as the overall assessment picture during a semester. Student peer-assessment can be anonymous, with assessors randomly chosen by teacher so the friendship factor is likely less intrude the result. 29 The criteria alike of self-assessment make it easy to be taken by the student onto their hand to grading or giving some comments. As the statement above, it can be conclude that peer assessment is one of authentic assessment which involves student in assessing other students’ work based on the criteria-given by the teacher in order to help they are increase their understanding in some materials. As Matsuno’s opinion, peer-assessments tend to being more stable, although they seem to be more tolerance than assessments made by teachers 30 .

2. The Advantages of Peer-Assessment

Peer-assessment has given some evidentially positive effect on the students’ achievement in learning. As the utterance of some experts, there were some valuable benefits while applied peer-assessment in the classroom. As peer assessment has served a writing scale instrument, it allows the students to see, analyze and rate their peer’s work. It helps the students to learn through performance criteria. It also gives the students a comparison substance to his or her work and also it leads the students to discuss with their friends about their peer’s work. 31 Furthermore, there are several reason of peer-assessment applied in the classroom. First, peer-assessment will improve the motivation of the students to work carefully. It is believed that any comments or scoring from other students may give the chance to discuss about their work and they often try to give the best for the next task. Second, the students will take the criticism of their peers more 28 Boud, D. Falchikov, N. Rethinking assessment in higher education. London: Kogan Page, 2007, p. 52. 29 Phill Race. Assessment Series no. 9. LTSN Generic Centre, 2011, p. 4. 30 Glenn Fulcher, Practical Language Testing, Great Britain: Hodder Education, 2010, p. 71. 31 Peter W. Airasian, Assessment in the Classroom: A Concise Approach, Sydney: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2000, 2 nd Edition, p. 169.