Time flies fast. It comes to the end of this course already. When I look back, I have to say I had a new experience with English learning.
In the past, teachers just asked me to write essays or do homework and then gave a final score. There were some comments but most of them were general comments like "good structure" or "need to improve your grammar". There was very little detail suggestions. However, things changed in ES1102.
To be honest, I was not very comfortable when I first heard about the blog. I did not what everyone to judge my work. Knowing that other people would comment my work stopped me from being lazy and careless. I had to work harder and be more careful so that my work would not be the worst one. Now I think the peer pressure may be one of the reasons of my progress. After some time, I saw both tutor and classmates' comments. Their comments covered many aspects, from grammar to organization. I started to like these comments. Because when I write, my mind is sometimes blocked and I may ignore some aspects related to the topic. Looking at comments and other's work helped me to be more comprehensive about the topic. Also, classmates would point out every single mistake and I learnt from these mistakes. Another different thing is that I know how my essays are graded so that I work on those areas specifically, like organization, language and content.
As for the future, I hope there would still be peer review when I write academic essays. They can not only help me check grammar mistakes but also enlighten me with the topic. Also, peer review creates peer pressure which is also a motivation for me to improve.
Thank you, Zhenda, for this concise, well focused reflection. You keep the discussion centered on peer and tutor feedback, and you express your opinions on the various aspects with good clarity. It’s interesting to me that you (like many other students) had doubts initially about sharing your work on the blog. This is normal, of course, since you are all developing writers. For that reason what is most important in the process seems to be your idea that “To be honest, I was not very comfortable when I first heard about the blog. I did not what(want) everyone to judge my work. Knowing that other people would comment my work stopped me from being lazy and careless. I had to work harder and be more careful so that my work would not be the worst one.Now I think the peer pressure may be one of the reasons of my progress.” This is are a very good insight.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate you giving attention to how this feedback process might be transferable to your writing processes in the future. However, will that be practical? How can you make it work?
Good luck with that, Zhenda, and the best of luck as you continue your learning journey! …”