Peer versus Self Corrections and the Pursuit of Grammatical Accuracy in FL Writing: Student Perceptions and Realities

The purpose of this study was to investigate peer and self corrections in the context of foreign language writing and, more specifically, any potential correlations between correction type and the ability to correct for grammatical accuracy. Correlations were also sought between correction type and student awareness of error tendencies. The present study also explored students’ perceptions of teacher, peer, and self corrections in writing, including preferences, validities, and the emotional (affective) responses. Ninety-six university students in their second year of German as a foreign language wrote a narrative essay. During the next class meeting, students either corrected their own essays or that of a peer as well as completed a post-corrections questionnaire. The peer correction group was found significantly more able to correct for grammatical accuracy, although they also made more extraneous corrections. Peer corrections were reported to be the preferred method between the two. On the whole, teacher corrections were perceived to be the most valid form of correction, followed by peer corrections and then self corrections. Additionally, the qualitative responses identifying student affective responses further reflect the variation of personalities within the same foreign language classroom.