In this set of case studies, I chose three students who seemed to display low levels of willingness to communicate (WTC) in the early lessons of the semester, and attempted to improve their performance using paired assessment.This involved partnering the student under observation with the strongest member of the class and encouraging them to work together.They completed a selfcheck sheet together, which involved analyzing their performances in the first discussion and setting goals for the second discussion, and were encouraged to help each other to meet their goals.The performance of all three students showed improvement from the earlier lessons, which was reflected in their discussion test scores.However, it would be disingenuous to claim that the paired assessment was responsible for any improvement that was shown, as there are myriad factors at work in each individual student, and also with the other members of their EDC cohort. INTRODUCTIONThe research into feedback in second language acquisition (SLA) literature paints a complex picture with conflicting results and inconsistent patterns (Shute, 2007).Despite this confusion, feedback is a crucial part of every English Discussion Class (EDC) at Rikkyo University, and plays a key part in the philosophy of the course.According to Hurling (2012), EDC lessons are designed to adhere to the five levels of Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain, which consist of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis.Feedback activities are included in the analysis stage of the taxonomy, whereby students are encouraged to examine the appropriateness of their output.Feedback in the EDC context can take a variety of forms, including but not limited to teacher-fronted feedback, student-centered feedback, group-focused feedback, individually tailored feedback, and self-assessment.Self-assessment in the EDC context has been researched in several papers.Davies (2012) suggested that quantitative self-assessment might be more useful for EDC students than qualitative self-assessment, although he conceded that his students might have lacked sufficient understanding and training to successfully self-assess qualitatively.Ragsdale (2012Ragsdale ( , 2013) ) reported that self-check sheets developed learner autonomy and motivation, and also suggested that there might be more benefits for students who complete self-check sheets individually than for students who complete them in pairs.Singh (2014) detailed that students viewed self-check sheets as useful but insufficient unless there was also an element of teacher feedback.Lesley (2015) agreed that self-check sheets were useful but insufficient, and also suggested that their use should be restricted to lessons where new functions are introduced.In the EDC context, a function is a formulaic act of speech that enables a speaker to initiate or participate in interactions, with the goal of performing an academic discussion.Examples of functions taught in EDC include asking for and giving opinions, asking for and giving reasons, joining a discussion, and comparing ideas, amongst others.Each semester, six sets of functions are introduced to students along with four sets of communication skills, which consist of reactions, agreeing and disagreeing, follow-up questions, and checking understanding.The restriction of self-check sheets to lessons with new functions was advocated to avoid the fatigue effect (Drnyei, 2003), whereby students can become bored by repetition of the same activity every lesson.Lesley also intimated that self-assessment may have a debilitating effect on the quality of student contribution to a discussion as the focus could be potentially shifted towards the prioritization of self-assessment at the expense of quality
Nicklin Christopher (Sun,) studied this question.