Abstract

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools in the Philippines, especially in Mindanao were forced to shift the mode of curriculum instruction from face-to-face, to Radio-Based Instruction and Television-Based Instruction, among others. This mode of delivery posed challenges to teachers who are handling technical subjects which need to have hands on instruction. For students under the Science, Technology, and Engineering Program, academic writing is a skill they need to master. They are required investigatory projects, essays, etc. However, students’ writing deficiencies are evident. The purpose of this classroom action research was to determine if there is an improvement in their writing quality when peer editing is applied. There were 20 students participating in the peer editing activity and in the key informant interviews. Findings showed that the most common writing problems or errors of the students were capitalization, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, tenses, irrelevant materials, order, vocabulary use, and run-on sentences with the latter as the most predominant. Results showed that, after applying peer editing, errors significantly decreased. Findings further showed that not only the technical aspect was enhanced but also the personal, and social dimensions were addressed during the peer editing activity. Students who got bored due to lockdowns have found something worthwhile to do. This in turn, enhances their self-esteem as well as their empathy and sense of respect to their classmates. It can be argued that peer editing as intervention strategy was able to improve not only the writing quality of students but also their humanity.