Impact of the verbal feedback of peers in improvement in writing skills of fifth-grade French immersion students

This paper will report on the results of research conducted with 32 Grade 5 French immersion students to determine whether peer comments made during writing conferences were integrated into the writer's final draft and, if so, how these comments improved the quality of writing. Regarding the writing quality, the t-test for paired samples on the means of the number of words, holistic scores, and analytic scores showed a significant change between the first draft and the final copy of the three compositions. We also verified whether or not comments were integrated in texts by recording the interactions that occurred in peer response groups for eight of these students. As a rule, students revised their text by integrating 55% of the comments that occurred during the peer response groups. Seventeen per cent of the comments were positive feedback and did not lead to any change. Writers did not consider peer comments for 28% of the total interactions.