International Journal of Educational Science and Research (IJESR) ISSN 2249-6947 Vol. 2 Issue 3 Dec - 2012 45-52 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.,
EFFECT OF PEER CORRECTION ON STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN ORAL ENGLISH MBAH EVELYN. E & AYEGBA MONDAY Department of Linguistics, Igbo and other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to find out if peer correction has any effect on students’ performance in Oral English. Forty-nine (49) SS1 students of Government Secondary School, Ugwolawo, Kogi State, Nigeria were used for the study. Twenty-five (25) of them were male while twenty-four (24) were female. All the students attended Oral English classes at regular intervals. After the mid-term test, two different discussion classes on Oral English were organized for the students: a discussion class between the teacher and the students, and another discussion class for the students alone. The students were grouped into seven (7) with one group made up of seven (7) students. After the discussion class between the students and their teacher, a test was conducted. Another test was conducted after the discussion class organized for the students alone. Each of the two tests was divided into four (4) sections: English consonants, vowels, stress and intonation. The results of the tests show that students’ performance after the discussion class organized for them alone supersedes their performance after the discussion class which involved their teacher. This means that peer correction has a palpable effect on students’ performance in Oral English.
KEY WORDS: Peer Correction, Oral English, Organized, Ugwolawo, Kogi State, Nigeria INTRODUCTION Learning at all levels requires interactive efforts of the instructor and learners. It is a moment of exchange of ideas and/or opinions between the teacher and his/her students. Piaget (1970) says that social interaction promotes learning. In the words of Buckholdt and Wodarski (1978), students learn easily in interactive groups because peers can simply code one another’s language without stress. Peer feedback is very important in learning process because peer disagreement readily yield social and cognitive conflicts which make peers to become aware of views other than theirs. This allows them to reassess the validity of their own point of view, and learn to justify their own opinions and communicate them to others (DiPardo and Freedman, 1988). Piagetian and Vygotskian frameworks view learning from different but related angles. While Piaget (1970) asserts that although social interaction plays a great role in learning process, it is only but secondary to development; Vygotsky (1978) argues that social environment is central to learning process. In Piaget’s view, development leads learning but in Vygotsky’s, learning leads development through the mechanism of social interaction. Damon (1984) observes that Piagetian and Vygostkian approaches to peer instructional interaction might appear contradictory but they are actually mutually complementary to each other. In the same vein, formal instructional approach to teaching whereby a teacher does almost all the tasks and peer group approach that involves students’ interactive efforts are complementary to each other. In as much as teachers’ instructions in learning process cannot be ruled out, it is important to note that response group comprising peers, in the modern pedagogy, is veritable. A peer based interaction is, therefore, significant to pedagogical activities because students