SELF-MONITORING AND PEER FEEDBACK STRATEGIES: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE EFL WRITING CLASS

Although learning paradigm has shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered for more than a decade, where students are encouraged to be left independent and able to learn writing collaboratively, the teaching and learning in the EFL writing context still poses many problems. The problems can be students’ lack of proper understanding of the writing skill; language knowledge limitation; ambiguity of feedback; and low self-efficacy for writing. These are factors that affect how students perform in their writing as well as on their ability to think critically. This study aimed to explore students’ attitudes toward the implementation of the self-monitoring and peer feedback strategies in the EFL essay writing class using a four-point Likert scale attitude questionnaire and semi-structured interview as instruments. Participants were 30 mixed-ability third-year undergraduate students majoring in English for International Communication at a university in the northeastern region of Thailand. Findings revealed that students had positive attitudes toward these two strategies, stating that it helped them to learn via social process and to gradually develop their critical thinking skills. This paper, based on the data, concluded that challenges in implementing the self-monitoring and peer feedback strategies in the writing class where the majority of students were in the low-intermediate level due to lack of proper understanding of the characteristics of the writing skill and of learning how to write; due to possible low self-efficacy for writing and collaborating with peers due to their limitation of language knowledge.