Learners attitudes towards applying formative feedback in teaching english writing to non english major students m a

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS APPLYING FORMATIVE FEEDBACK IN TEACHING ENGLISH WRITING TO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of Master’s degree in TESOL By TRAN NGUYEN PHUONG KHANH Supervised by LE HOANG DUNG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2019 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP This is to certify that the thesis entitled “The learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in teaching English writing to non-English major students” is the original work carried out by Tran Nguyen Phuong Khanh under the supervision of Dr Le Hoang Dung, and assistance of lecturers and committees at Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities All sources used for this thesis are explicitly acknowledged This thesis also contains no materials previously published or written by others without due acknowledgement Ho Chi Minh City, 2019 Tran Nguyen Phuong Khanh RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I, Tran Nguyen Phuong Khanh, am a Master candidate in TESOL at Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities I hereby state that I agree with all requirements relating to the retention and use of master theses in the library of Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City I accept my original thesis deposited in the library can be accessed for the purposes of studies and I obtain all the copyright permissions for all copyrighted materials used in my thesis I agree to comply with the conditions established by the library for care, loan and reproduction of theses following the rules of library ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I worked on my thesis, I have received tremendous support from my supervisor, lecturers, colleagues, friends and family Not only they give me invaluable assistance but they strongly encourage and give me useful suggestions for my thesis completion I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my inspiring and dedicating advisor, Dr Le Hoang Dung for his support and encouragement This thesis would not have been completed without his assistance and suggestions He not only gave me expert knowledge to improve my thesis but invested his precious time in giving me insightful advice which brought this work to a successful completion I wish to thank Dr Le Nguyen Minh Tho, Dr Pho Phuong Dung and Dr Nguyen Thi Nhu Ngoc as the committee members of my proposal defense I am also incredibly thankful to Dr Nguyen Nha Tran, Dr Nguyen Duy Mong Ha, Dr Tran Quoc Thao, Dr Nguyen Truong Tram Anh and Dr Tran Thi Minh Phuong as the committee members of my oral defense They gave me the insightful comments, useful feedback and valuable suggestions which made the great contribution to my thesis I would like to give my sincere thanks to all lecturers and staffs in academic affairs at Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities; and all friends of TESOL15A and TESOL15B for their support and encouragement I highly appreciate the contributions of my colleagues at Center for Foreign Languages, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, who provide me with research facilities, workshops to help me conduct my thesis and improve my knowledge Finally, I extremely express my heartfelt thanks to my family for their love, support and encouragement during this research I would like to give my special thanks to my parents for always being my side and encouraging me to value education and try to complete this thesis as well as my sisters for their encouragement to keep on my thesis i TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii ABSTRACT ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.2 State of problems 1.3 Research aims 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 The scope of the study and limitations 10 1.7 Organization of the study 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 12 2.1 The theories related to assessment in teaching and learning 12 2.1.1 The definition of assessment 12 2.1.2 Types of assessment 13 2.1.3 Formative assessment in teaching and learning 13 2.1.3.1 Definition of formative assessment 13 2.1.3.2 The effect of formative assessment on teaching and learning 13 2.1.3.3 Three forms of formative assessment 14 2.2 The theories related to feedback in teaching English writing 15 2.2.1 The definition of feedback 15 2.2.2 The vital role of feedback in teaching writing 16 2.2.3 Factors affecting feedback 17 2.3 The theories related to attitudes towards giving and receiving feedback in English writing 17 2.3.1 The definition of attitudes 17 ii 2.3.2 The importance of attitudes in language learning 18 2.3.3 The learners’ attitudes towards feedback in writing 19 2.4 The theories related to formative feedback in teaching English writing 19 2.4.1 The definition of formative feedback 19 2.4.2 Three levels of formative feedback 20 2.4.3 The functions of formative feedback in teaching writing 21 2.4.4 The features of formative feedback in teaching writing 23 2.4.5 Factors affecting learners’ giving and receiving feedback 24 2.4.6 The benefits of applying formative feedback in teaching writing 26 2.4.7 The problems of applying formative feedback in teaching writing 27 2.5 Summaries of formative feedback 28 2.6 Conceptual framework 30 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 32 3.1 Research questions 32 3.2 Research design 32 3.3 Research site 33 3.4 Respondents 34 3.5 Research instruments 35 3.5.1 The pilot study 36 3.5.2 The main study 36 3.5.2.1 Questionnaire 36 3.5.2.2 Teaching diary 41 3.5.2.3 Interview 42 3.6 Data collection procedure 42 3.7 Data analysis procedure 46 3.7.1 Quantitative data analysis 46 3.7.1.1 Cronbach Alpha 46 3.7.1.2 Descriptive statistics 46 3.7.1.3 Independent sample t-test 47 3.7.1.4 ANOVA 47 3.7.2 Qualitative data analysis 48 iii CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 49 4.1 Analysis of data 49 4.1.1 The learners’ attitudes towards the teacher-researcher’s application of formative feedback in writing 49 4.1.2 Comparing the mean difference in the learners’ attitudes towards formative feedback in terms of gender 57 4.1.3 Comparing the mean difference in the learners’ attitudes towards formative feedback in terms of majors 60 4.1.4 Challenges encountered by the learners towards the application of formative feedback in teaching English paragraph writing 62 4.2 Discussion of results 71 4.2.1 The learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in teaching English writing 71 4.2.2 Comparing the mean difference in the learners’ attitudes towards formative feedback in terms of gender and majors 76 4.2.3 Challenges encountered by the learners towards the application of formative feedback for the learners 77 4.3 Summary of major findings 78 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 80 5.1 Conclusions 80 5.2 Implications 82 5.3 Limitations and recommendations 83 REFERENCES 84 APPENDICES 96 Appendix 1: Questionnaire in the survey 96 Appendix 2: Interview protocol (semi-structured interview) 101 Appendix 3: Consent form to participate in this study 102 Appendix 4: Example of content for lesson plan 103 Appendix 5: Example of lesson plan 106 Appendix 6: Example of teaching diary 108 iv Appendix 7: Challenges the learners met when formative feedback was applied in writing from semi-structured interview 110 Appendix 8: Suggestions for future improvement 115 Appendix 9: Coursebook 117 Appendix 10: Rubric 119 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS Abbreviation Explanation CFL-HCMC USSH Center for Foreign Languages – Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities HCMC USSH Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Participants’ demographic information 34 Table 3.2 Factor loadings for the learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in terms of teacher feedback 37 Table 3.3 Factor loadings for the learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in terms of peer feedback 38 Table 3.4 Factor loadings for the learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in terms of self-feedback 39 Table 3.5 Summary of content in questionnaire 40 Table 3.6 Writing task content 44 Table 4.1 The learners’ feeling when they were given formative feedback 49 Table 4.2 The learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in terms of teacher feedback 52 Table 4.3 The learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in terms of peer feedback 54 Table 4.4 The learners’ attitudes towards applying formative feedback in terms of selffeedback 55 Table 4.5 Levene’s test to check the homogeneity 58 Table 4.6 Independent t-test comparing the mean difference in the learners’ attitudes towards formative feedback in terms of gender 59 Table 4.7 Descriptives of the learners’ attitudes towards formative feedback in terms of gender 60 Table 4.8 One-way ANOVA comparing the mean difference in the learners’ attitudes towards formative feedback in terms of majors 61 Table 4.9 Challenges encountered by the learners towards the application of formative feedback in writing 62 Table 4.10 Challenges the learners encountered when formative feedback was applied from questionnaire 63 vii - Introduce - Teacher asks them to work in - Learners work in how to give group and uses yellow pen to group and follow and receive highlight the problems in teacher instruction feedback paragraph - - Learners are invited Teacher corrects and then to talk about the introduces them how to problems correct such as using some symbols like WC (word choice, G: grammar, S: spelling, etc) - Teacher gives them another - Learners work in piece of their friends’ writing group and identify and asks them to work in the mistakes group to identify the mistakes in it - - Teacher asks them some ways - Learners answer the to give feedback effectively questions and take Teacher gives feedback and notes instructs them how to give feedback and revise  Teacher acts as a facilitator in class (a consultant, an instructor and observer) Post-teaching - (5’) - Teacher gives some common comments on their writing and Review the asks them to revise their first lesson writing - Teacher asks them to write the second writing 107 - Learners follow teacher’s instruction Appendix 6: Example of teaching diary LESSON PLAN WEEK TOPIC Expectations Comment for learners Introduction + - Introduce how to write a - Understand the format unit 1: family paragraph: paragraph of one paragraph and and friends structure, conjunctions, some connectors and etc know how to write a - Introduce how to write a basic paragraph simple paragraph about - Know about feedback family - Introduce a little bit about feedback  Fully met Unit 2: Shops - Giving writing model, - Encounter difficulties correct their writing and in recognition of their help recognize friends’ mistakes and writing’s not know how to them their mistakes/errors correct  Partially met Unit 3: Eat - Recognize their - Recognize some writing’s mistakes/errors simply and know to give and and lexical mistakes receive feedback based and on the second writing learners are willing to  Partially met give peer feedback in grammatical one third of class Unit 4: Jobs - Correct their writing’s - Recognize more and mistakes/errors and more grammatical and practice and lexical mistakes and giving 108 receiving Revision and - feedback half of learners be based on third writing more willing to give  Met peer feedback Have a midterm test and correction midterm test Unit 5: Relax - Correct their writing and - Give guide them to facilitative Unit 6: Home directive give feedback and only one feedback third of learners can based on fourth writing give some  Partially met facilitative feedback - Correct their writing and - More simple learners can practice correction based give on facilitative feedback the writing for simple relaxing  Met Unit 7: Mind - Correct their writing and - More than half of and body Unit 8: - Getting there practice both forms of learners feedback directive  Met facilitative feedback Correct their writing - Give and practice can give and and receive feedback better  Fully met 10 + 11 Revision and - Correct their final - Have better VNU writing and summarize understanding correction the formative key points of of feedback formative feedback and know how to give  Fully met and receive it 109 Appendix 7: Challenges the learners met when formative feedback was applied in writing from semi-structured interview Participant role Challenges / How many learners encounter Participants’ comments Person giving - Spending much time on feedback peer correction: + Reread many times “… According to me, correcting peer to recognize mistakes writing is too demanding I have to (8) reread it many times before correcting it + Require check time to language: It took me a long time to finish giving feedback for my peer writing vocabularies, Sometimes, I have many things to and grammars, etc (6) it conflicts with my schedule and I + Require time cannot manage it on time ” (learner 1) conflicting with other “… When my peer writing has some academic works (5) difficult words, I had to read them over and over again to get the meaning and it is very time-consuming When I have many things to or other academic subjects to prepare, and requiring time conflict with my other demands…” (learner 6) - “… I think the correction for my peer writing requires my much time Sometimes, I am not sure whether I give feedback correctly or not, I have to spend too much time looking up dictionaries, or searching some academic websites from Internet to check it… ” (learner 2) 110 - “… When my peer writing has some difficult words, I had to read them over and over again to get the meaning and it is very time-consuming ” (learner 5) - “… Sometimes, I have the test or exams for other subjects, I need to prepare for it and I cannot spend much time on correcting my peer writing ” (learner 3) - Lack of capabilities for giving feedback (8) “… The most challenge to me is I not know how to correct my peer writing I am not self-efficacious to give feedback to my friends because I am not sure that I give them the correct suggestions…” (learner 4) - “… Sometimes, I have to look up dictionaries or go to academic websites to check again to ensure my feedback is correct….” (learner 7) - “… I am not confident when I give feedback to my friends I am afraid that it can be not correct…” (learner 5) - Unclear content in peer - “… Sometimes, although I read many writing (5) times, I not understand too much about what my friends wrote in their writing …” (learner 8) - “… The idea in my peer writing goes around, around and around, so I am quite confused with my peer writing I cannot catch what my friend wants to discuss ” (learner 3) 111 - “… Sometimes, I cannot catch the meaning of my friends’ writing The ideas are not clear enough to me…” (learner 8) - Too many mistakes in - “… My friend’s writing has a lot of peer writing (4) mistakes in grammar and vocabularies and I have to correct them many times, it makes me feel tired and bored ” (learner 1) - “… There are a lot of mistakes in my peer writing and these mistakes are repeated many times I felt so tired to correct them ” (learner 2) - “… My friend’s mistakes repeated many times and I am so tired to correct them…” (learner 7) - Not good handwriting - “… My friend has the bad handwriting (2) skill, sometimes I cannot read some words he wrote, so I cannot give him good feedback…” (learner 7) in - “… My friend sent her writing to my - Inconvenience printing feedback and giving back email I have to check it, give feedback to and send back to her Sometimes, I print receivers it and give her the paper with my feedback and it is not convenient too much…” (learner 8) - Person receiving - Spending much time on - “… After I get teacher and peer feedback, correction (8) I feedback spend much time reading their comments so that I can catch their real meaning… ” (learner 1) 112 - “… After receiving feedback, it took me a long time to understand what feedback means Sometimes, I need to ask teacher or my friend to help me explain it…” (learner 3) - “… Correction takes me a long time to finish I have to read the feedback many times to understand it and then revise my writing product Sometimes, it takes all - Lack of capabilities for my time to it…” (learner 6) correcting writing based - “… I not how to correct my writing on given feedback (6) based teacher’s suggestions although teacher explains it very clearly… ” (learner 5) - “… Sometimes, teacher uses some complex words and I have to ask teacher - A lot of grammatical, again to clarify it…” (learner 4) lexical mistakes, etc (4) - “… I feel so sad when I found my writing has a lot of mistakes, but later I try my best to correct them ” (learner 6) - “… I tried to check my writing first before giving to my friends, but when I receive, it still has a lot of mistakes ” - Negative feedback (3) (learner 7) - “… Besides some positive feedback, I also get some negative feedback from teacher and peers I am a little bit sad when I get negative feedback and sometimes, I ignore them ” (learner 3) - “… Sometimes, I receive negative feedback a lot but I am willing to receive 113 them because I know I will make progress from them…” (learner 5) - Technical problems (4) - “… Sometimes, I send my writing to my friend, but she does not get it, and I have to send again ” (learner 6) - “… The Internet connection in my area is not good, so sometimes I cannot get my peer feedback…” (learner 2) - Not good handwriting - “… I highly appreciate my peer feedback (2) but sometimes I cannot read some words my friend wrote, so I have to ask him again…” (learner 7) 114 Appendix 8: Suggestions for future improvement Participants’ comments Suggestions Improvement in giver - “… Feedback from giver will affect the receiver’s writing, and so it’s very effective if they can give the good suggestions receiver’s capabilities For both receiver and giver, I think they should learn more (8) about writing such as reading books or studying in some academic websites to imitate their writing styles to improve their ability I think it will help us have a better writing…” (learner 1) - “… From my viewpoint, the person receiving feedback should try to improve their abilities so that they can know how to revise their writing based on teacher and peer feedback Moreover, the giver also needs to improve skills so that they can give feedback more effectively ” (learner 3) - “… I think feedback can help me improve my writing skills, so I think all of us need to improve our abilities to give as well as understand feedback…” (learner 2) - “To understand feedback, it is a long process It takes us long me to accumulate our knowledge, so I think we should spend time practicing our writing When we practice more, we can realize our mistakes and we can know how to revise our writing product…” (learner 5) More opportunities for - “… Although teacher gives time for applying formative formative feedback in feedback, I think we still need more time to for training class (6) session so that we can give feedback well Therefore, there should be more time and class activities focusing on feedback in the class I believe they can help learners improve their writing capabilities… ” (learner 8) 115 and also their correction - “… In my viewpoint, formative feedback helped us a lot, so the class activities should be integrated with formative feedback The more activities, the more opportunities to enhance our writing progress…” (learner 7) - “… I not have much opportunities to practice writing as well as give feedback before, so I think there should be more activities in class for me to practice them…” (learner 2) Using web-based - writing tool (4) “… Sending writing to email is not convenient, so teacher can take advantages of some web-based learning tool such as Google doc Giver and receiver can see the feedback easily and faster compared to sending email or printing it…” (learner 2) - “… Some functions of Google doc are effective for giving feedback, so learners can easily keep up with teacher and peer feedback…” (learner 5) - “… Teacher can integrate feedback with learning tool so that we can give and receive feedback easily I think teacher can add function for audio feedback so that we can listen feedback again when we need ” (learner 6) 116 Appendix 9: Coursebook Coursebook Outcome Pre-intermediate by Dellar and Walkley (2016) 117 Supplementary book: Great writing 1: Great Sentences of great paragraph by Folse, Muchmore-Vokoun and Solomon (2009) 118 Appendix 10: Rubric adapted by Brown Value Topic Sentence 10 points points points