Peer feedback and its effect on speaking skills using Bubbly

Abstract

This study explores the role of peer feedback through a microblogging voice application, in the development of EFL students’ speaking skills. The name of the app is Bubbly and the sample involved 22 senior year students with a B1 level of English in a private high school in Guayaquil. Learners had to develop six speaking tasks about different topics, which they had to post in Bubbly and then they received peer feedback for each task in the same app. The instruments applied were a pre and post-test with a speaking rubric as well as students’ learning logs and interviews to analyze the quality of feedback and the students’ perspectives towards the innovation. The findings showed an increase in the mean between the pre-test and the post-test of 1.11 with a large effect size (1.90) and a p value of 0.00001. Furthermore, results show that students perceived peer feedback as a useful tool to enhance their speaking skills. The implications and challenges of using peer feedback as a strategy in EFL learning are discussed. Since peer feedback was found to be beneficial, EFL teachers may find the results and discussion of this research useful for its implementation in class.