Chapter 5. Examining the role of peer collaborative feedback processing and task repetition in task-based L2 writing

Grounded in research on task-based and collaborative L2 writing, this quasi-experimental study examined the impact of collaborative processing of instructor feedback during the revision process. Forty-six intermediate learners of German in two intact classes at a U.S. university completed two written summary tasks, producing a draft and a revision for each, following feedback from the instructor in-between. The two groups processed this feedback individually and collaboratively, in a counterbalanced design. All texts were analyzed for syntactic complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexical sophistication (i.e., lexical accuracy, choice, richness). The results indicate that processing the instructor’s feedback collaboratively with a peer primarily improved the lexical domain, whereas the revision process itself led to improvements on all linguistic features in diverse ways. The results offer implications for research, methodology and pedagogy.