feedback on esl writing teachers’ practices and students’ preferences = hoạt động thực tế của giảng viên và mong muốn của sinh viên đối với phản hồi trên bài viết tiếng anh

iii ABSTRACT This case study was conducted at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade to investigate teachers’ practices and students’ strategies for handling the feedback they

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr To Thi Thu Huong

HANOI - 2013

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ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Dr To Thi Thu Huong, for her invaluable support, useful guidance and comments I am truly grateful to her advice and suggestions right from the beginning when this study was only in its formative stage

I would also express my gratitude to all the teachers of English at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade for their constant support as well as suggestions for this paper

Especially, I am grateful to the students in the three classes which I am in charge for their actively taking part in completing the writing tasks and answering the survey questionnaires Without their help, this study could not have been completed

Finally, my special thanks go to my family and my friends who have been beside me and have encouraged me a lot to fulfill my study

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ABSTRACT

This case study was conducted at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade

to investigate teachers’ practices and students’ strategies for handling the feedback they received as well as students’ preferences for four different types of feedback Fifty seven students in three ESL classes were asked to fill out the questionnaires and three writing teachers were asked to participate in the interviews In addition, students’ paragraphs with teacher feedback were analyzed to see how teacher gave the feedback and how students responded to the feedback they received The results show that teachers used written feedback frequently, but in different ways; and students’ strategies for handling feedback varied depending on the types of feedback each teacher gave on their papers Besides, the study revealed that students preferred teacher feedback (teacher correction, teacher correction with comments, error identification) to non-teacher feedback such as self-feedback, peer-feedback or computer- directed feedback The findings of the study suggests that writing teachers should consider the fit between their practice and students’ preferences to choose the most suitable ways of feedback giving to help students

improve their writing

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The number of each type of teacher feedback on students’ first drafts 23

Table 2: Student strategies for handling feedback 28

Table 3: Student’s preferences for each types of feedback 31

Table 4: Attitudes of students in class A to different types of feedback 32

Table 5: Attitudes of students in class B to different types of feedback 34

Table 6: Attitudes of students in class C to different types of feedback 36

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Paragraph sample of the student in class A with teacher feedback 24

Figure 2: Paragraph sample of the student in class B with teacher feedback 25

Figure 3: Paragraph sample of the student in class C with teacher feedback 27

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Student questionnaire I Appendix 2: Interview questions IV

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS i

DECLARATION i

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES Error! Bookmark not defined LIST OF FIGURES Error! Bookmark not defined LIST OF APPENDICES Error! Bookmark not defined. Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 The rationale of the study 1

2 Purposes of the study and research questions 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Significance of the study 4

5 Research methods 4

6 Organization of the study 5

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1 Definitions of feedback 6

2 Roles of feedback in teaching ESL/EFL writing 7

3 Types of feedback 8

3.1 Teacher feedback 9

3.1.1 Student-teacher conferencing 9

3.1.2 Teacher written feedback 10

3.2 Peer feedback 12

3.3 Self-feedback 13

3.4 Computer- assisted feedback 13

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4 Teachers’ beliefs and practices of giving feedback on ESL writing 14

5 Students’ reactions and preferences for feedback 15

Chapter 3: THE STUDY 18

1 The current situation of teaching and learning English writing at CTET 18

2 Methodology 20

2.1 The participants 20

2.2 Methods and Instrumentation 20

2.2.1 Students’ compositions 20

2.2.2 Questionnaire and interview 21

2.3 Data collection procedure 21

2.4 Data analysis procedure 22

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 23

1 Teachers’ practices of giving feedback on ESL writing 23

2 Students’ reactions to the received teacher feedback 28

3 Students’ preferences for different types of feedback on ESL writing 31

4 Implications for teaching and learning 38

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 41

1 Summary 41

2 Limitations of the study 41

3 Suggestions for further studies 42

REFERENCES 43 APPENDICES I

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 The rationale of the study

Among the most important skills students of English as a second language (ESL) or a foreign language (EFL) need to develop is writing For many years, as many historical accounts have shown, writing won little interest from the learners’ side compared to other skills, especially speaking Learning to speak has been deemed a primary concern; learning to write has always been a secondary matter, a means of practicing, sustaining and reinforcing other skills However, foreign language proficiency demands a balance in mastery between different language skills Thus, ESL/EFL students have come to realize the importance of writing as an independent medium of communication which they need for a wide range of purposes in different contexts both inside and outside the classroom

The ESL learners at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade, who follow a three year course in English with Business English as major, by no means;

an exception The course program offers the learners not only knowledge about business in English but also chances to improve their four English skills Among the four macro skills, writing has recently been interested by both teachers and students Over the first semester of the first years, the students are introduced to some basic concepts in Grammar (parts of speech and word function), Syntax (phrases, clauses, and sentences), and Mechanics (capitalization and punctuation) It

is until the second semester that students are introduced to basic writing, ranging from writing informal letters/email to business letter, then writing paragraphs and essays for the third and the forth semester They are taught different forms of letters/email and techniques for paragraph and essay writing including writing topic sentence, introduction, developmental paragraphs and conclusion Besides, they are provided with insights into different patterns of essay development such as cause/effect, comparison/contrast or argumentation The third year is by far an

However, providing effective feedback is one of the many challenges that any writing teacher faces In ESL classroom, feedback practices can be even more challenging Teachers and students agree that teacher written feedback is a crucial part of the writing process (Cohen& Cavalcanti, 1990) Teachers want to give feedback that will encourage and challenge students to be better writers, but do not always know how the feedback that they are giving is perceived by students, or how effective it is Since reading students work and giving feedback is very time-consuming process, teachers may feel frustrated when the feedback they offer is not followed by the students Even when the teachers’ system for giving feedback is clear and consistent, sometimes teachers do not know whether students understand their practices Therefore, the study examines teachers’ practices of feedback and compared these with students’ preferences and reaction to feedback to see how the teachers’ practice matches students’ needs and to find the best approach to improve students’ writing skill Besides, through the study, some implications will be

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suggested for using feedback in teaching ESL writing In setting up the study, an attempt is made to replicate Saito’s (1994) study because Saito’s study used ESL students of Engineering and included Vietnamese background student which is quite similar to the context of the current study

2 Purposes of the study and research questions

The research reported in this thesis aims to study teachers’ practices of feedback giving, the students’ strategies for handling feedback they received and their preferences toward different types of feedback in teaching – learning English writing at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade (CTET) so that further improvement of students’ writing can be achieved

In order to achieve the aim, the research attempts to answer the following questions which are a modified version of Saito’s (1994) research questions:

1 How do English teachers at CTET usually give feedback on their students’ written work?

2 How do ESL students at CTET react to the teacher feedback they received?

3 What types of feedback do students prefer?

3 Scope of the study

1 The study was conducted with the participation of the second-year students in three CTA classes and 3 teachers of English in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, College of Technologies and Economics in Trade in the academic year

2013 These students study Business English as their major

2 The study focuses on four different types of feedback on students’ English writing The types of feedback used in the study are (1) Teacher feedback with four sub-types, (2) Peer feedback, (3) Self- feedback, and (4) Computer-assisted feedback

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3 The study investigated two issues Firstly, the real situation of teachers’ practices and students’ reactions to feedback on ESL writing was studied Secondly, the study investigates students’ preferences to four different types of feedback

4 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study proves teacher’s feedback to students’ writing is undeniably a key component and a crucial part of the process Feedback offers a number of advantages Indeed, it “helps students to improve their writing by communicating feedback detailed enough to allow students to act, to commit to change in their writing” (Reid, 1993) It also gives the teachers a better chance of closely following the progress of students, both in terms of the feedback offered and revision made

Practically, the study shows that using feedback not only helps students recognize and correct the mistakes to become more professional writers, but also give teachers chances to understand students’ needs and choose the most suitable approaches of writing teaching The study also offers teachers some implications to improve teaching writing

in which they handled the feedback or not

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Second, a questionnaire survey was done on the 57 students to find out the strategies they used when handling received feedback and their preferences for the four different types of feedback A semi-structured interview was also carried out with the participation of three ESL writing teachers to know more about their practices of giving feedback on student’s ESL writing and their perceptions about four different types of feedback

6 Organization of the study

The paper consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1- INTRODUCTION- briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims, research question, scope as well as the significance and organization of the study

Chapter 2- LITERATURE REVIEW- discuss the literature related to the feedback

in writing, different types and roles of feedback as well as teachers and students’ attitudes to feedback

Chapter 3- THE STUDY – describe the current situation of teaching and learning writing at CTET and the methodology which deals with the participants, instrumentation, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

Chapter 4 - RESULTS AND DISCUSSION- analyzes and discusses the data and then draws the implications for teaching and learning of writing using feedback Chapter 5 - CONCLUSION- summarizes the major findings of the study, acknowledges its limitations and provides suggestions for further study

form of revision, for example, Keh (1990) defines that feedback is “input from a

reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for revision” Hence, feedback is supposed to show learners what is right or wrong in

order for them to produce better texts in future Sharing the same opinion with Keh,

Phil (2007) says that “feedback is when you receive comments about your work, so

that you know how well your studies are going – and of course there’s the other side to this – so you know how badly your studies are going” So, through feedback,

the writers raise awareness of their strength and learn where they misled or confused to identify action to be taken to improve the next performance Besides,

“feedback is part of the overall dialogue or interaction between teacher and

learner, not a one-way communication” (Judy, 2007) It means feedback is a way of

interaction between teachers and learners, more broadly between readers and writers It can be an effective means to communicate to the students about their writing Through feedback, teachers can understand more about learners; and learners learn from the comments of the teachers Especially, feedback could be

“consider a motivator that increase a general behavior” (Kulhavy & Wager, 1993)

For example, positive feedback, such as praise, strengthens students’ motivation and self-confidence

Through the definitions reviewed, feedback is also an indispensable part of writing development Feedback in writing is the information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of writing, usually with the objective of improving this performance Feedback on ESL writing means advice, criticism or information about how good student’s writing is or what errors are in the student’s

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writing It can be provided by writers themselves, peers, and teachers or innovative computer programs

2 Roles of feedback in teaching ESL/EFL writing

The roles of feedback in English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as

a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning have been key issues in several studies in teaching writing Many scholars and researchers believe that feedback plays an important role in the writing process According to Simpson (2006), the feedback on the content and organization help the students to improve the quality of their writing Student writers who receive feedback will have information about which parts of their texts need to be corrected and improved Glover and Brown (2006) in their study also indicated that feedback is effective if students act on it to improve their future work and learning Sharing the same opinion, Carless (2006) confirms that students who receive feedback during the writing process have a clearer sense of how well they are performing and what they need to do to improve

In sum, feedback can provide assessment on how well the students perform their work or their accomplishment of a given task as feedback is meant for helping students narrow or close the gap between their actual ability and the desired performance (Brookhart, 2003)

Another role of feedback in writing is said to raise students’ awareness of the informational, rhetorical, linguistic expectations of the reader Williams (2005) suggests, feedback in writing can stimulate explicit knowledge of student writers

He describes explicit knowledge as the knowledge of language rules that students can articulate and provide reasons that certain rules should be applied Students who receive feedback will resort to their prior knowledge about language and writing rules that they have learned In writing, student writers will apply explicit knowledge as stimulated by the feedback on their writing

Additionally, feedback can increase students’ attention on the subject they are writing Students who receive feedback will pay more attention to what they

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have written that, beyond their knowledge or awareness, their work does not meet certain standards The feedback that they receive draws students’ attention to those aspects of their writing that need remediation, and by doing so, they learn how to improve their performance The increase of attention will lead to writing improvement which can be defined as a gain in accuracy in both form and content

of writing as indicated by Ashwell (2000)

Moreover, feedback plays an important role in improving the students’ motivation in language learning, especially in writing Ellis (2009) indicated that in both structural and communicative approaches to language teaching, feedback is considered as a way of inspiring learner motivation and increasing linguistic accuracy Nazifah & Shafiq (2012) also argues the roles of feedback that

“incorporating feedback in writing is an effective approach in writing lesson as it

can foster the students’ motivation, improve their language proficiency as well as promote their great achievement in writing performance.”

3 Types of feedback

In recent years, studies of language education have given considerable attention to the issue of how and who to provide feedback to students’ writing However, researchers still discuss the questions of what types of feedback would be the most effective one to improve students’ writing skill and fit the needs of particular students Through the literature reviewed, feedback has been categorized into various types of feedback based on feedback functions, media, focus, source, and strategy However, in the present study, the writer reviewed four main types of feedback: teacher feedback, peer feedback, self- feedback and computer-assisted feedback

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3.1 Teacher feedback

Teacher feedback is defined as “any input provided by the teacher to

students for revision” (Keh, 1990), and this includes both content and form In ESL

writing teaching and learning, teachers provides feedback on student writing to support students’ writing development and nurture their confidence as writers Teacher feedback is often divided into two forms: verbal feedback and written feedback Verbal feedback may be given as teacher circulates around the classroom while students are writing It may be also given in student-teacher conferences Written feedback may be given in many forms such as error identification, error correction and comment In the present study, the writer reviewed two main types

of teacher feedback: student-teacher conferencing as verbal feedback and teacher written feedback

3.1.1 Student-teacher conferencing

Student-teacher conferencing is defined as “the teacher and student discuss a

piece of student writing individually during the writing of a composition, and after

it is finished” (Saito, 1994) It has become increasingly popular tools in writing

instruction in L1 settings, and recently, this approach has started to become popular

in L2 situations as well (Carnicelli,1980; Zamel,1985; Bitchenere., 2005) In an L1 study, Carnicelli (1980) reviewed students' opinions towards writing conferences and found that two-way communication in a writing conference appeared more effective than written comments because it allowed students to explain their opinions and needs, and to understand the teacher's comments Besides, when considering second language learners, Zamel (1985) emphasized the importance of

writing conferences: "We should set up collaborative sessions and conferences

during which important discoveries can be made by both reader and writer"(p 97)

Discussing this type of feedback, recent researchers also suggested that teacher conference as a means of giving feedback to L2 learner can be beneficial For example, Bitchenere et al (2005) said that giving feedback through student-

student-10

teacher conferences may very well provide the opportunity for increasing the interaction between the teacher and the student, which helps students to clarify the confusion that they have, and maximize their achievements through the social interaction Supporting the effectiveness of student-teacher conferencing, Peterson

(2010) stated that “when there is a dialogue between student and teacher, the

student may ask for help in a particular area or ask what effect the writing has on the teacher-as-reader; the teacher may ask about the students’ goals, their impressions of the strongest parts of their writing and their thoughts on what they have learned through writing a particular composition.”

Though Bitchenere (2005) provided an evidence for the effectiveness of student-teacher conferencing as a way of providing feedback to students’ writing;

he also showed that there may be some disadvantages to it: “when the number of

students in a class is over forty, there may be difficulties in arranging a minute student-teacher conference for each student.” This means that teacher-

twenty-student conferencing seems to be suitable only to small classes with about 10 -15 students It also requires teachers much more time and energy to do this task

3.1.2 Teacher written feedback

Teacher written feedback is a primary method to respond to students’ writings to assist students’ writing development Surveys of students’ feedback preferences generally indicate that ESL students prefer teacher feedback to other forms such as peer feedback or self- feedback (Saito, 1994; Zhang, 1995) Most students see a teacher as the only source of authority value teacher revision highly than other methods because they have confidence in the teacher’s knowledge and skills in English In fact, teacher written feedback on students’ draft helps indicate students’ problems and make suggestions for improvement of future papers Besides, through feedback, teacher can help students compare their own performance with the ideal and to realize their own strengths and weaknesses

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Researchers have tried to find out what kinds of teacher feedback are the most effective Roberts (2001) examined the effectiveness of teacher written feedback with three types: errors marked with codes; errors underlined with no codes; and no error feedback at all Before that, when discussing the types of feedback, Saito (1994) categorized teacher written feedback into three main types as error correction, error identification, and commentary In this study, based on the category of Saito (1994), I discussed teacher written feedback in three main forms: error correction, error identification and teacher commentary

Error correction by teacher or error marked with codes is defined that “the

teacher corrects all the surface errors by crossing out perceived errors and providing correct answers” (Saito, 1994) It is direct feedback given by teachers

and considered the most common form of written feedback in ESL writing contexts Many researchers have indicated that L2 students benefit from teacher error correction Lee (1997) studied the performance of ESL college students in Hong Kong and found that the students corrected more errors when their errors were indicated with teachers’ codes Similarly, Ferris and Roberts (2001), studying the effects of teacher feedback among university ESL student writers, showed that error feedback groups significantly performed better than the no feedback control group

In the study of Saito (1994), he also found out that L2 students favored teacher error correction because it is easy for them to edit and improve their papers However, Truscott (1996) did not think that error correction had many benefits as other researchers said and argued that this kind of feedback is harmful to students’ fluency and their overall writing quality and should be abandoned

Error identification is indirect feedback, which is marked by teachers by means of an underline, circle, code, etc without any correction It may be the most widely-used technique for responding to the writing of L2 learners (Cumming, 1985) A number of researchers think that error identification is generally more appropriate and effective than error correction and brings more benefits to students’ long-term writing development (Frantzen, 1995; Ferris, 2002) It is because this

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way of giving feedback requires students to solve problems themselves It gives students opportunities to understand and fix their errors themselves and express their ideas more clearly in the next writing However, error identification from teacher is useful only when it incorporated with student self-revision Lower proficiency students may be unable to correct errors marked by teachers, so they prefer teachers to give all the corrections for their mistakes

Commentary, as defined by Saito (1994), is “when teacher provides feedback

by making written comments or questions on the margins or in between sentences without any error corrections made” As discussed in the literature on ESL

teaching, there are very few studies about teachers’ commentary as a means of feedback in teaching writing; and teachers seem less likely to use commentary on ESL students' writing In the research of Zamel (1985), he revealed that ESL teachers' comment tended to ignore the content or ideas in students' writing in favor

of attention to grammatical errors Besides, other researchers such as Cardelle & Como (1981).have suggested that positive written comments along with specific comments on errors may be an effective way to motivate students to improve their revisions of their writing

3.2 Peer feedback

Peer feedback is a useful assessment-for-learning tool that has been shown to support students’ writing development and contribute to students’ revisions to improve their writing (Peterson, 2013) As defined by Saito (1994), peer feedback is

that “students evaluate each other’s work in pairs or with a whole class” It benefits

not only the students who receive suggestions for improving the writing, but also the feedback providers, as they gains a greater awareness of qualities of good writing through assessing and commenting on peer’s writing Peer feedback also develops students’ self-assessment abilities, as they gain experience in using the criteria to read their own writing (Cho & MacArthur, 2010; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009) However, it is important for ESL teachers to teach students how to give

Discussing this type of feedback, Charles (1990) defines it that “students makes

annotations about any doubts ad concerns during their writing” He also claimed

that self-feedback makes students express their intentions and uncertainties much easier and encourages them to develop the critical and analytical writing skills Furthermore, it is beneficial to let students place themselves in the position of audience and receive feedback directly to their queries Similarly, Oscarson (2009), when studying self-assessment of writing in learning EFL, stated that students and teachers were positive to the incorporation of self-assessment activities in the EFL writing classroom The method was seen to be a practical way of helping students become more aware of their language skills and language levels However, in the study of students’ preferences towards various types of feedback, Saito (1994) showed that the students less favored self-feedback than other types of feedback

3.4 Computer- assisted feedback

The rapid development of computer technology together with the use of computers by linguistics and researchers, and the increasing importance of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and computer-assisted language instruction (CALI) has greatly influenced writing teaching in recent years Therefore, the terms of “computer-assisted feedback” or “computer-based feedback” appeared to support the giving feedback activity in writing teaching and learning “Computer-assisted feedback” means using the innovative computer programs to evaluate and score written feedback Nowadays, there are a number of computer applications which provide feedback to the writer, for example, Electronic Feedback software, MY Access The software has been developed to score

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students’ writing in a variety of genres and provide writers with immediate feedback on content and organization for revision (Lee, 2009) When comparing the reactions of students to handwritten and electronic feedback using Electronic Feedback, Denton (2008) stated that students rated the electronic feedback superior

for “mark scheme clarity, feedback legibility, information on deficient aspects, and

identification of those parts of the work where students did well” Many teachers

also like using the software because it saves their time and energy However, Matsumara (2004), who investigated the influence of computer-anxiety on the preferences of students for face-to-face teacher feedback, computer-based feedback, and peer feedback in EFL writing classes, showed that student’s attitudes toward computer-directed feedback varied depending on their level of computer anxiety

4 Teachers’ beliefs and practices of giving feedback on ESL writing

Teacher beliefs, which have been a common focus of previous studies in ESL education, are important aspects that influence teachers’ practice Borg (2001)

defines teacher belief as “a set of consciously or unconsciously held propositions

that serves as a reflection and a guide to the teacher’s thought and behaviors”

However, very few studies have investigated teacher beliefs and perceptions about feedback, and even fewer that explore the correspondence or difference between students’ preferences and teachers’ practices for feedback giving

In a recent study in an EFL context in Hong Kong, Lee (2003) compared teachers’ feedback beliefs with teachers’ feedback practices She found that although many teachers believe in giving selective error correction feedback, most teachers surveyed still mark papers comprehensively Lee (2004), also comparing teachers and students’ beliefs in Hong Kong, added the extra element of comparing teacher beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions to student beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions She found that both students and teachers in this context preferred comprehensive marking and that teachers use only limited strategies in their feedback practices Another research of Montgomery and Baker (2007) who

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surveyed 98 students and ten teachers showed that teachers’ perceptions of the amount of feedback that they give are generally lower than students’ perceptions In investigating the relationship between the teachers’ beliefs and actual feedback provided, Lee (2003) indicated that teachers may not have provided feedback in the way that they believed they should Another example of such a study was conducted

by Farahman (2011) who explored teachers’ perceptions in relation to their actual performance The finding also indicated that teachers’ stated beliefs do not always match what they actually do Perhaps one of the most noteworthy studies in teacher beliefs and practice was conducted by Lee (2009) outlining ten mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and practice regarding error correction- a type of teacher feedback

Further results from the studies indicate that teachers’ beliefs regarding feedback differ from the actual feedback that they provided to the respond to the students’ writing The mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and practices may come

from several problems of teachers such as “time constraint, teachers' heavy

workload, large class size, learners' lack of motivation, and mixed level class.”

(Moniruz & Abul, 2012)

5 Students’ reactions and preferences for feedback

Recent empirical work has investigated students’ reactions to feedback In general, most of the studies show that students find feedback helpful for them to improve their work For instance, according to the study of Lizzio & Wilson (2008), students value feedback that is fair, encouraging, and has a developmental focus Besides, Nazifah & Shafiq (2012), studying the reactions of students in Thailand, also argues that students became more motivated and have great enthusiasm to accomplish their goals in writing after getting feedback from their instructors on their writing, especially positive feedback as praise

Although most students value feedback on writing, the ways they handle the

feedback they received are different According to Saito (1994), “students'

strategies for handling feedback may depend on the type of feedback they receive in

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ESL classes” Usually, when students receive corrected feedback to their writing,

they may simply read through their corrected compositions instead of putting a lot

of effort into revising or rewriting However, if the feedback gives only clues for students to make corrections themselves, students are prompted to correct errors and revise their papers In the study of Shamshad & Faizah (2009), it can be seen that

students respond differently to different types of feedback “Some students might

respond positively to content-focused feedback because they might possess some writing skills as well as the content knowledge of the topic On the other hand, there are students who respond positively to form-focused feedback due to factors such as the instructional context itself and the perception of students themselves towards the meaning of a good essay.” For instance, to teachers’ commentary, the study showed

that “students use various strategies to respond to teachers’ commentary such as

following closely the corrections made by the teacher or avoiding the corrections altogether by not incorporating them in their revision process.”( Shamshad &

Faizah, 2009)

Recently, many studies have discussed students’ preferences to feedback on writing such as Radecki & Swales (1988), Cohen & Cavalcanti (1990), Leki (1991), Lee (2008), and April (2011) Generally, results from the studies show that both undergraduate and graduate students noted the importance of feedback that was clear, provided positive comments, and was constructive (April, 2011) Specifically, participants appreciated feedback that provided them information on the overall structure and approach of their essays and that focused on the key points of their work Positive comments were recognized as motivating, and students reported being receptive to a balance of positive and critical comments if the focus was improvement Besides, most students from the studies prefer all their mistakes to be corrected when they receive feedback from teachers or colleagues For instance, in a survey of 59 ESL students’ attitudes towards feedback on their written work, Radecki & Swales (1988) emphasized that ESL teachers might lose their credibility among their students if they do not correct all surface errors because findings

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revealed that students seem to need and expect correction of all errors Also, according to Cohen & Cavalcanti (1990) who investigated nine EFL Brazilian students’ responses to their teacher’s commentary, the students reported that the comments they usually received were mainly form-based focusing on grammar and mechanics, but they would prefer feedback on other aspects of writing such as content and organization of ideas In a similar survey of 100 ESL students’ preferences for error correction, Leki (1991) found that students equate good writing in English with error-free writing and that they expect and want all errors in their written work to be corrected

However, some studies about the preferences of learners also showed that the needs of students with different levels and learning contexts to feedback are not the same towards the different types of feedback For example, students in the study of Saito (1994) found teacher feedback such as teacher correction, error identification, teacher-student conferencing, more useful than peer correction or self correction Besides, Moniruz & Abul (2012) states that learners' preference for direct feedback might have been influenced by the reality of EFL context that learners lack enough proficiency and confidence in handling the target language forms In fact, in EFL/ESL context, those learners who have low proficiency in English may want to have direct feedback on specific items Otherwise, they may not understand the nature of the feedback and may be frustrated On the other hand, advanced level learners may want indirect feedback and due to their proficiency level in the target language, this type of feedback may be appropriate for them

In sum, previous research on student views of feedback has consistently shown that students treasure teacher feedback and are quite positive about receiving feedback on their writing However, learners of different ages, backgrounds, motivations and proficiency levels in different classroom contexts have different reactions and preferences to types of feedback

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Chapter 3: THE STUDY

1 The current situation of teaching and learning English writing at CTET

The study is conducted at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, CTET which has been recognized as one of the leading providers of skill-based diploma degree

in Vietnam The college has 8 faculties which train many subjects in technology and economy sectors Faculty of Foreign Languages is assigned to teach Basic English

to all students Besides, since 2008, Faculty of Foreign Languages has started a Business English program

The teachers of English at CTET

There are 30 teachers of English aged from 24 to 49 working at Faculty of Foreign Languages However, only 10 teachers have been teaching at the division

of Business English major Almost teachers are experienced ones with at least 5 years teaching English All of them have the degree of master in English teaching methodology

The English major students at CTET

Every year, about 60 to 80 students are admitted to be English major freshmen at CTET They mostly come from different provinces in the mountainous and rural areas Besides, most of the students got quite low English marks in the entrance exam and entered this college as their second choice For this reason, their background knowledge is not very good; and their motivations, interests, and objectives in studying English also differ

At high school, students mostly focused on grammar and reading skill Although communicative approach has recently become dominant in English teaching and learning in Vietnam, writing skills seems to be paid little attention at high school Students mainly study writing at sentence level such as making

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sentences, sentence transformation Therefore, writing is perceived as the most challenging skill for students to master at college and university

Description of the writing program

Writing, a productive skill, is always a primary concern in the training program for English majors at CTET Students are offered the training course during the five semesters The first- year program is designed to teach students some basic concepts in grammar, syntax, and mechanics in the first semester; then teach writing informal letters/ emails in the second semester In the second-year, students are taught preliminary steps to write a paragraph such as analyzing model paragraphs, brainstorming, expressing and organizing ideas, reviewing and revising

in the final paragraphs In the fourth and fifth semester, the program provides students with lessons about essay writing

The course objectives

The course objective is to help students recognize and produce the sorts of paragraph writing that will be expected in academic situations By the end of the course, the students will be able to write unified paragraphs coherently

The teaching materials

The course books used to teach writing skills to second-year students are Academic Writing 1 In the third semester, students are taught Academic Writing 1, which are designed to help students acquainted with aspects of paragraph writing

Assignment and assessment

As a requirement of the course to promote students’ autonomy, the assessment of portfolio in writing is used at the end of the semester Every week, students are assigned a new topic for the portfolio from third week onwards Students’ first drafts are checked by their teachers and revised for the second

2.2 Methods and Instrumentation

In this study which is motivated by Saito’s (1994) study, two main methods were used They were documental analysis of students’ compositions, and questionnaire survey for students, together with interview with teachers

2.2.1 Students’ compositions

Firstly, the author collected randomly 57 students’ paragraphs with feedback and their revised versions in one writing task The presentation and analysis of the feedback on students’ writing were carried out to obtain the most truthful information concerning teachers’ practice for feedback and see the reactions of students after receiving the feedback

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2.2.2 Questionnaire and interview

The questionnaire (see Appendix 1) were designed with two parts based on the frame of Saito (1994)’s questionnaire to elicit the information concerning students’ reactions to received feedback and their preferences towards different types of feedback However, some items in the questionnaire were modified to be suitable for the scope and the purposes of the study The first section was constructed to inquire about students’ attitudes toward the usefulness of four different kinds of feedback: teacher feedback, self-feedback, peer feedback and computer-directed feedback With teacher feedback, the author asked students to share opinions about five sub-types as teacher-student conferencing, teacher correction, and teacher commentary, teacher correction with comment, and teacher error identification Students were to rate each types of feedback on a 5 point-scale from very useless (1) to very useful (5) and to provide some brief comments The second section asked about the students’ strategies for handling feedback Some strategies used in the question were modified to make it easy for students to understand and more suitable for the performances of the students in real world as the author observed in her teaching career The questionnaire with two sections was given to all the students in three classes at the end of the course

Then, semi-structured interview with 6 questions was used with the participation of three teachers of writing to see their practices and opinions toward giving feedback on ESL writing

2.3 Data collection procedure

The study was carried out throughout the first term of second-year students

In the first stage, the samples of students’ compositions with feedback were taken in week 6 to analyze teachers’ practices and students’ reactions to feedback received

At the end of the course, the survey questionnaires were given to 57 students, and returned in full To make sure that all students understand the questions properly, the researcher was also present to administer and give further explanation if there

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was anything unclear or confusing Besides, three interviews with three teachers were carried out to get their answers for the interview questions

2.4 Data analysis procedure

Firstly, samples of students’ compositions were analyzed in order to investigate the current practices of teachers toward giving feedback on ESL writing Then, the author compared the results from the analysis with the answers of teachers in the interview to see the fit between their thoughts and their real practice

Secondly, the answers of students in three classes for the second item in the questionnaire were analyzed to find out the strategies students in each class used to deal with the feedback they received Besides, it is necessary to look at the changes

in students’ revised version to see whether students’ answers matched the reality in which they handled the feedback

Thirdly, to know about students’ preferences to different types of feedback, the author analyzed the results of questionnaire item 1 The means and standard deviations were calculated After that, the author compared the attitudes of students toward types of feedback with the perceptions of teachers from the interview