Integrating teacher-led and peer feedback on English Essay writing

Integrating teacher-led and peer feedback on English Essay writing

The aim of this course is to enrich students’ English essay writing by integrating teacher and peer-led feedback. The course will provide an insight on how the writing process is informed and adjusted by students in response to “integrated” feedback.

Teachers will be guided through feedback practices and modes, building up guidelines and tips to effectively use them within their own classroom context.

This formative initiative is related to a research project (“The Impact of Integrated Peer and Teacher-led Feedback on English Essay Writing Tasks”) carried out by the teacher trainer Anna Raneri- PhD student at CRELLA (Centre of Research in English Language Learning and Assessment- University of Bedfordshire- UK -) in cooperation with IPRASE (Ludowica Dal Lago).

The project is fully compliant with research ethics guidelines and procedures as established by the institute of research (CRELLA- UoB). As feedback strategies on English essay writing have not consistently been investigated within an upper secondary school context, this pilot project can be seen as a “pioneer” study in order to integrate and enhance feedback strategies while actively involving the teachers in the process.

Target teachers: 4th and 5th year English teachers at licei linguistici and upper secondary school interested in improving students' opinion essay writing and possibly already involved in IELTS Academic training

The course will be structured as follows:

1st phase:

• Focus group (2H) face-to-face session

Participants will give feedback on an opinion essay and engage in activities about essay writing procedures (an essay type suitable for “seconda prova” at licei linguistici and writing task 2 in IELTS Academic).

Further individual and collaborative activities and group discussions will follow to gather information on the state of the art and procedures in use on essay writing

Participants’ responses and opinions in the focus group will be recorded and analysed to help plan the 2nd phase workshop (see below). All the data collected in the focus group will be anonymised before analysis.

Participants will also receive information on GDPR compliance and sign a consent form to participate in the focus group and share practices and information.

FOCUS GROUP THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2024, 4 – 6 PM face-to-face session IPRASE

2nd phase:

• Training Workshop (3H) face-to-face session

Feedback mode/s and type/s to enhance students’ writing competences based on the focus group results and data, underpinned by IELTS official task 2 rubric indicators.

Sample opinion essay to provide feedback on using checklists and guidelines.

Strategies to promote and guide peer feedback on opinion essays.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2024, 4 – 6 PM face-to-face session IPRASE 

• Webinar - Coordination Meeting

The following topics will be covered:

• peer feedback provision
• how to pair students
• classroom intervention in a nutshell (on a voluntary basis): presentation and essay selection
• Individual Work: presentation of some tasks (on a voluntary basis) whose completion will correspond to max 10 accredited training hours: ("focus on peer feedback provision" to be added onto this padlet column -to be completed prior to our meeting-; create a set of comments to be included into a shared recurring comment bank; reflect and add a comment on the chosen student pairing option -details and information on how to pair students will be provided during the online session-; find and an insightful video/article on feedback provision and post it onto our padlet)

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2024, 6.15 – 7.15 PM online session Piattaforma E-learning IPRASE

• Individual Work maximum 10 hours (a timesheet will be provided to track work hours)

Strategies to promote and guide peer feedback on opinion essays. Task completion on a voluntary basis (max 10 hours) by uploading individual responses onto a shared area.

APRIL - MAY 2024

•  Wrap-up session open to all the teachers involved to collect reflections, takeaways and suggestions from the participants.

 WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 2024, 5.30 – 7.30 PM online session Piattaforma E-learning IPRASE

3rd phase:

• Implementing the training in your classes (2024-2025)

As student essays and integrated feedback (i.e., from teacher and peers) on them will be at the core of this stage, teachers will be supported while applying the feedback guidelines in their classroom context  (GDPR compliance, school-related permissions will be granted).

Data from a smaller number of teachers willing to be involved in the research panel - max 5- will be analysed and included in the research paper/documentation (further research ethic permissions, CRELLA and GDPR compliance will be required and obtained prior to entering this phase). All the data collected from teachers and students will be anonymised before analysis.

See course details embedded into the INFOGRAPHIC

NB: Iprase has promoted the initiative and acts as a gatekeeper while the researcher is responsible for the data treatment according to the University of Bedfordshire (CRELLA) research ethics protocols and approved ethics application.