Exploring english major students perspectives on the advantages of peer feedback in writing 3 module a case study of the banking academy of vietnam

BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGUES -🙞🙜🕮🙞🙜 - GRADUATION THESIS TOPIC: EXPLORING ENGLISH- MAJOR STUDENTS' PERSPECTIVES ON THE ADVANTAGES OF PEER FEEDBACK IN WRITING MODULE: A CASE STUDY OF THE BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM Student : Nguyen Khanh Huyen Class : K22ATCB Academic year: 2019 – 2023 Student ID : 22A7510017 Supervisor : Ms Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (M.A) i Tai ngay!!! Ban co the xoa dong chu nay!!! 17014126232441000000 DECLARATIONS As the author of this thesis entitled "Exploring English-major students’ perspectives on the advantages of peer feedback in Writing Module: A case study of the Banking Academy of Vietnam" I hereby declare that this research is entirely my original work and has not previously been submitted for any degree at the Banking Academy of Viet Nam or any other institution I acknowledge that failure to comply with the aforementioned declarations may lead to disciplinary measures from the Banking Academy, which may include the revocation of my degree Hanoi, May 8th, 2023 Signature Nguyen Khanh Huyen i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To begin with, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thi Thu Trang (M.A), for her unwavering support, invaluable guidance, and constructive feedback throughout the entire process of conducting this research Her expertise, patience, and encouragement have been crucial in shaping this thesis In addition, I am also grateful to the English Department at the Banking Academy for their cooperation and assistance in facilitating the data collection process I would like to extend my thanks to the faculty members who granted me permission to conduct this research and to the students who participated in the study Furthermore, I am indebted to my family and friends for their unrelenting support, encouragement, and motivation Their unwavering belief in me has been a constant source of inspiration and strength throughout this journey Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to all the researchers and scholars whose works I have referenced in this thesis Their insightful and pioneering research has provided the foundation for my own research and has been instrumental in shaping my understanding of the subject Thank you all for your contributions, encouragement, and support ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATIONS i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES vi ABSTRACT vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Objective of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Significance of this study 1.5 Scope and Limitations of the study 1.6 Structure of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Academic writing 2.1.1 Definition of academic writing 2.1.2 Importance of academic writing skills for English-major students 2.1.3 Challenges faced by English-major students in academic writing 2.2 Peer feedback in English writing 2.2.1 Definition of peer feedback 2.2.2 Peer feedback in ESL/EFL writing courses 2.2.3 The benefits of peer feedback activities in English writing 10 2.3 Previous research 14 2.4 Conceptual Framework 18 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 21 3.1 Research design 21 3.2 Participants 21 iii 3.3 Research instrument 22 3.4 Data collection procedure 24 3.5 Data processing method 24 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 25 4.1 Results 25 4.1.1 Background information on the participants 25 4.1.2 Measurement Reliability 26 4.1.3 Frequencies of PF activities in Writing 28 4.1.4 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their linguistic abilities in Academic English writing 29 4.1.5 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their emotions in academic English writing 31 4.1.6 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their critical thinking skills in Academic English writing 32 4.1.7 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their social interaction skills in academic English writing 34 4.2 Discussion 36 4.2.1 Linguistic abilities 37 4.2.2 Emotions 37 4.2.3 Critical thinking skills 38 4.2.4 Social interaction skills 38 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 40 5.1 Summary of the results 40 5.2 Pedagogical implications 41 5.3 Proposals for the future research 43 REFERENCES 45 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESL English as a Second Language EFL English as a Foreign Language L2 Second Language PF Peer Feedback SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences BAV Banking Academy of Vietnam LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Number of students by academic year Page 22 Page 25 Table 4.1 Respondent demographics Table 4.2 Cronbach's Alpha computed summary statistics Page 26 Page 28 Table 4.3 The applied scale of measurement v Table 4.4 Frequencies of PF activities in Writing Page 28 Page 30 Table 4.5 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their linguistic ability in academic English writing Page 32 Table 4.6 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their emotions in academic English writing Page 33 Table 4.7 Students' perception regarding PF's benefits for their critical thinking skills in academic English writing Page 35 Table 4.8 Students' perceptions regarding PF's benefits for their social interaction skills in academic English writing LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Writing process when applying peer feedback activities Page 10 Page 18 Figure 2.2 Benefits of Peer Feedback (adapted form the study of Liu and Hansen ( 2002)) vi ABSTRACT The title of the thesis: Exploring English-major students' perspectives on the advantages of peer feedback in Writing Module: A case study of the Banking Academy of Vietnam Author: Nguyen Khanh Huyen Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Thu Trang ( M.A) Keywords: writing skill, academic writing, feedback, peer feedback Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate English-major students' perspectives on the advantages of peer feedback in the Writing Module in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the Banking Academy of Vietnam The sample for this study consisted of 141 students who have completed academic writing classes and have been engaged in peer feedback activities in these classes A set of 23 Likert-scale items in an online questionnaire were administered to the students, and the quantitative data collected from the responses of the students was analysed descriptively by SPSS The research findings revealed that students generally have positive attitudes towards peer correction A large portion of students agreed that peer feedback aided them in improving their linguistic abilities, emotions, critical thinking skills, and social interaction skills Therefore, peer feedback activities should be utilized more often to help students become independent and responsible learners In addition, additional applications and recommendations for future research are proposed vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This first chapter provides comprehensive information about the context, research objectives, and research questions, as well as the significance and structure of the study It also emphasizes the investigation's scope and limitations 1.1 Background of the study It is well known that learning a second language is a gradual process in which it is normal to make errors at each stage Errors are a necessary component of the learning process, which both instructors and students must acknowledge (Davies and Pearse, 2002) Errors are viewed as indicators of what learners are struggling to comprehend, what they have misunderstood, and what requires additional effort (Lavery, 2001) Errors are therefore an indicator of language acquisition progress In the discipline of second language acquisition, researchers have shown considerable interest in error correction Teachers are expected to have a comprehensive understanding of the target language and a zero-tolerance policy regarding errors It is also considered the most taxing and time-consuming part of a teacher's job (Ferris, 2002) As a consequence, language teachers and researchers have taken a keen interest in learners' errors and feedback on those errors (Diab, 2005; Wang, 2010; Katayama, 2007) In the majority of studies, the importance of feedback, the methods of delivering and receiving feedback, and the effect of feedback on students' writing were deemed to be of the greatest significance (Lee, 2005; Noora, 2006) However, what has been overlooked in these studies are the learners' and teachers' attitudes towards error correction (Katayama, 2007) Numerous studies on language attitudes have highlighted the significance of language attitudes in the learning process and their contribution to language loss and retention Gardner (1985) discovered that positive language attitudes can lead to less language loss in the target language Learners with positive dispositions towards a second language are less likely to lose proficiency in that language It is undeniable that providing written feedback to students is critical in the process of learning a second language However, there are still issues about the most effective way to improve learners' writing skills and the approach that is most suited to the demands of certain learners There are numerous feedback methods used in language training, including instructor correction (with comments), error identification, commentary, teacher-student conferences, peer correction, and self-correction There has been a discussion of peer feedback in first-language settings (George, 1984; Jacobs, 1987; McKendy, 1990; Herrington and Cadman, 1991) Witbeck (1976) demonstrated the benefits of peer feedback and enumerated four peer correction techniques He concluded that peer feedback results in "greater concern for achieving accuracy in written expression among individual students and a more conducive classroom environment for teaching composition's corrective aspects" (p 325) All of the above arguments have been the driving force behind this study, which is being conducted under the title "Exploring English-major students' perspectives on the advantages of peer feedback in Writing Module: A Case Study of the Banking Academy of Vietnam." 1.2 Objective of the study The purpose of this study is to find out how students at the Banking Academy's Faculty of Foreign Languages perceive the benefits of peer feedback in academic writing classes Some suggestions would be given to enhance peer feedback's effectiveness In order to achieve this goal, current ATC students from different years are requested to evaluate the merit of various elements of peer feedback activities Another goal of the study is to help teachers and students decide if peer feedback should be used to raise the standard of teaching and learning activities 1.3 Research questions This study aims to investigate the perspectives of students on the advantages of