Students' attitudes towards teachers' corrective feedback in writing at the Boarding High school for Ethnic Minority students in Tuyen Quang = Thái độ của học s

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BAN THI KIM THANH STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTI

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

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BAN THI KIM THANH

STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’

CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT THE

BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC MINORITY

STUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG

THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI THÔNG TIN CHỮA LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

TRONG MÔN VIẾT Ở TRƯỜNG THPT DÂN TỘC

NỘI TRÚ TUYÊN QUANG

MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE 601401

HA NOI - 2010

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

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BAN THI KIM THANH

STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT THE BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC

MINORITYSTUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG

THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI THÔNG TIN CHỮA LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG MÔN VIẾT Ở TRƯỜNG THPT DÂN TỘC

NỘI TRÚ TUYÊN QUANG

MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY SUPERVISOR: HOANG THI HONG HAI, MA

HA NOI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certification……… i

Acknowledgements……… ……… ii

Abstract……….… iii

PART ONE - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 8

1.2 Aims of the study 10

1.3 Research questions 10

1.4 Scope of the study 10

1.5 Significance of the research 11

1.6 Methods of the study 11

1.7 Design of the study 11

Summary PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical backgrounds of feedback 1.1.1 Definitions of feedback 13

1.1.2 The importance of feedback in L2 writing 14

1.1.2 Types of feedback to students‟ writing 15

1.1.2.1 Self-editing 16

1.1.2.2 Peer feedback 16

1.1.2.3 Teacher‟s feedback 18

1.2 The focus of teacher feedback 19

1.2.1 Types of teacher feedback 19

1.2.1.1 Marginal versus end feedback 20

1.2.1.2 Positive versus negative feedback 20

1.2.1.3 Text – specific versus general feedback 21

1.2.1.4 Feedback focus on form versus on content 21

1.2.2 Forms of teacher feedback 22

1.2.3 Major issues in giving teacher‟s feedback 23

2.1 Context of the study 25

2.1.1 The setting of the study 25

2.1.2 The writing program 2.1.2.1 Overview of the textbooks 26

2.1.2.2 The teaching of writing skill 27

2.2 The study 2.2.1 Methodology 28

2.2.2 Data analysis 30

2.2.3 Findings and discussion 43

Summary CHAPTER THREE: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS 43

Summary PART THREE CONCLUSIONS 50

3.1 Summary 50

3.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 51 References

Appendices

PART ONE - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

Today English is considered one of the most important factors to the

trend of globalization in all fields of life over the world Thus, English as

Second Language has been taught in many countries and the demand to use

English fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essential

among all students As a result, methodology has been studied for years to

find out the most effective ways of teaching and learning English

In Vietnam, high school students have to acquire four skills of English

as reading, speaking, listening and writing when they study English Among

them, writing is considered the most difficult skill Clearly, Vietnamese

students are often much anxious about writing and afraid of making errors in

writing classrooms Nevertheless, they need to be encouraged to see it as a

means of learning, rather than demonstrating learning In order to do this,

students need to be provided with opportunities to respond to constructive

feedback on their work

A review of the literature on writing reveals three major areas of

feedback as revision: peer feedback, self-editing and teachers‟ comments as

feedback Because of the importance of feedback, there have been a lot of

studies that focus on all aspects relating to feedback As clear, concise

feedback matched to standards will promote students‟ achievement, feedback

plays a very important role in the teaching of any language Through

feedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled and confused the

reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of

development ideas, or something simple like inappropriate word-choice or

tense In other words, the writers have opportunities to identify their errors

and correct them to make better writing Also, the use of teacher feedback in

writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature review as a

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words?

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potentially valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodological

benefits ( Merlin, (1986), Radecki and Swales (1988), Hedge (2000), Ferris

and Roberts (2001)) They all believe that teacher feedback is very important

and has a great influence on the success of teaching and learning writing

As a teacher of English at the Boarding High School for Ethnic

Minority Students in Tuyen Quang, the researcher is constantly searching for

ways to help her students become more confident and effective writers

During writing lessons, she finds that her students often make a lot of errors

that increase students‟ anxiety in writing lesson With a view of language

learning as a creative construction process, she shares an agreement with

Hedge (2000) in the view that error is an inevitable and positive part of that

process (p.15) Hedge also claimed that “learners progress faster with

meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment and with an

informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher” (p.15) This

means teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process as he stated

“getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the class

enables learners to test hypotheses and refine their developing knowledge of

the language system” (p.13) That is why the researcher focuses on teacher

corrective feedback, which she considers a complex troublesome, but

important issue in writing classrooms To have a quick view on this aspect, an

observation on the writing lessons of four teachers of English in the

researcher‟s school was conducted within a month The result showed that all

the four teachers applied mostly teacher corrective feedback to respond to the

students‟ writings She wondered if the teachers‟ present feedback matched

with students‟ preferences and how students reacted to the feedback they

received

All above encouraged the researcher to conduct a survey to explore

students‟ attitudes towards teacher corrective feedback and recommend

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Comment [P5]: Reacted to??

teachers of English some suggested solutions to help their students gain more

achievement in writing skill

1.2 Aims of the study

This research is designed to explore students‟ attitudes toward their

teachers‟ corrective feedback at The Boarding High School for Ethnic

Minority Students in Tuyen Quang It is expected to achieve the three primary

aims:

(i) to investigate the teacher feedback-giving practice in writing classes:

their responding methods, their feedback focus as well as the feedback types

and forms

(ii) to investigate the students‟ perceptions of the feedback they receive

and their recommendations for improving it

(iii) to find out students‟ preferences for teachers‟ corrective feedback

as well as to propose some recommendations and suggestions for the teachers

to improve their practice in order to respond to the students writing more

effectively

1.3 Research questions

In order to achieve the mentioned aims above, the following research

questions will be included in the study:

1 How do the teachers respond to the students‟ writing?

2 What are the students‟ opinions on the feedback they received?

3 What are EFL students‟ preferences for teachers‟ corrective feedback

techniques?

1.4 Scope of the study

Feedback in writing is such a broad topic that the researcher cannot

discuss all the aspects related Therefore, within the framework of a minor

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thesis, this study focuses only on the teacher corrective feedback in

responding to the students‟ writing at the Boarding High School for Ethnic

Minority Students in Tuyen Quang

Significance of the research

The research is carried out with the hope that the results of the study will

provide significant insights into both what teachers have actually done as they

respond and how the students react to these responses This may lead to

suggestions for improving teacher feedback and helping the students to utilize

it more successfully in their writing revision

Methods of the study

To realize the aims, the following methods for data collection were

employed in the study

Data were collected by means of survey questionnaires for 100 students at

The Boarding High School for Ethnic Minority Students in Tuyen Quang The

questionnaires included closed-ended questions, open-ended questions and

Likert scales

Other sources for data collection came from classroom observation, an

interview between the researcher and four teachers, and collection of the

teachers‟ written comments on the students‟ written work

Four sources to data collection will hopefully provide fresh insights into

teachers‟ feedback giving practice and the students‟ reactions towards the

feedback they received On this basis, some measures will be applied to

improve the teacher corrective feedback so that the teacher responds to the

students‟ writing more properly

Design of the study

This study has three main parts: introduction, development, and

conclusion Comment [P8]: a comma betwween development

& and

The introduction briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims,

research questions, scope, methods, the significance and the design of the

study

The development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 provides a review

of literature on feedback in general and teacher feedback in particular

Chapter 2 contains the core part of the study including the context of the

study, the methodology, the collection and analysis of the data for the

research, the findings and implications Chapter 3 mentions the author‟s

recommendations and suggestions for improving teacher feedback in a way

that help students‟ to have better writing

The conclusion at the end gives a summary of the main issues that have

been discussed so far in the study and suggestions for further research

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter focuses on some of the most important issues in the theories

of feedback in general and the teacher feedback in particular Two main

features will be concerned, namely, theoretical background of feedback and

the focus on teacher feedback

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size

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1.1 Theoretical backgrounds of feedback

1.1.1 Definitions of feedback

As far from now, responding to student writing, including giving feedback, is one of the most controversial topics in second language instruction and theory As the importance of feedback, it is considered a fundamental element of a process approach to writing Therefore, there have been attempts to define the term “feedback”

According to Ur (1996) “feedback is information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance” (p.242) He also distinctly pointed out two main distinguishable components of feedback: assessment and correction This significant definition mentions feedback as an essential step

in teaching with an obvious aim at helping students to have better achievement in learning

Similarly, Keh (1989) defined feedback as “any output from reader to writer that provides information for revision” (p.18) In other words, it is the comments, questions, and suggestions a reader gives a writer to produce reader-based prose as opposed to writer prose As the writers receive all these, they will discover that good writing involves “an interaction between their ideas, the expressions of the ideas, and their reader‟s perceptions and reactions to the expression” (Chaudron, 1984 p.2) This definition can be seen as one of the most comprehensive as feedback is considered as an effective means of teacher‟s communication to the students about their writing in the final one Some researchers (Ferris, 2003; Leki, 1990) also shared an agreement when noting that feedback is most effective when it is delivered at intermediate stages of the writing process

Dreham (1995) also had the same point of view in the case that

feedback is interestingly likened to a two-bullock cart His definition is based

on a famous saying that “in order for the cart to move in the right direction, its two bullocks need to understand not only the purpose of their efforts but also each other” (p.160) In other words, there should be a collaborative approach

to the monitoring and processing of feedback between the teacher and the students so that the teacher feedback becomes an effective tool for student revision

Seow‟s (2002), in contrast, defined feedback as “the teacher‟s quick initial reaction to the student‟s drafts” In this point of view, teacher response should be given at preliminary or intermediate drafts, not the final one because “things which are not clear or which could be improved upon can still

be changed” (p.317) This means students should have chances to rewrite their drafts at least one more time If students write only one draft which is then graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition comes too late Added to this, Raimes (1983, p.139) noted, “Responding to students‟ writing is very much a part of the process of teaching writing” In other words, feedback should be provided in the process of writing rather than

in single act of producing a text

1.1.2 The importance of feedback in L2 writing

Just as importantly, a great number of studies on this aspect have been done and a debate about the value of providing feedback on L2 writing has been prominent in recent years

According to Taylor (1997) “feedback is an area which causes students considerable anxiety” (p.65) and there is a need for great care to be taken in relation to issues as as timing, location, participation, attitudes, outcomes and

so on Also, both Huntley (1992) and Truscott (1996), based on their

respective reviews of the literature, stated that substantial research evidence

suggests that correction of surface level errors is futile and may not be worth

the instructor‟s time and effort Truscott even concluded that this type of

correction should be abandoned in second language writing classes because it

can have harmful effect This point of view is shared by other studies in

various second language contexts investigating the effect of different types of

feedback on student writing skill in the case that explicit error correction

seems to be generally ineffective (Keper, 1991; Sheppard, 1992)

However, there have been number of the researchers who support to the

importance of feedback in teaching English as a second language They

believed in giving corrective feedback to students to improve their written

accuracy In Schulz (1996) students‟ beliefs about what constitutes effective

feedback on writing and their expectations regarding teacher paper-making

techniques may influence the effectiveness of such feedback Hedge (2000)

shared an agreement in the case that “getting feedback from the teacher and

from other students in the class enables learners to test hypothesis and refine

their developing knowledge of the language system.” (p.13) In this case,

good feedback not only stimulates students for revision but also motivates

them to maintain their interest in writing In addition, provision of comments

helps individualize writing instructions in which students will be able to get

individual attention to have their own needs or problems rightfully addressed

(Reid, 1993) In this way, feedback is an important step towards the learner

centeredness

In conclusion, giving and receiving feedback helps students to develop

their sensitivity and their own writing style In other words, feedback is a

fundamental element of a writing approach when it pushes the students

through the writing process on to the eventual end-product

1.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing

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style

A review of literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback

as revision They are self-editing, peer feedback, and teacher feedback

1.1.2.1 Self-editing

Self-editing is an important aspect of re-writing It is the last thing a

writer does before sending the manuscript off to their agent or an editor

Raimes (1983) supported this when he stated that “What students really need,

more than anything else, is to develop the ability to read their own writing and

to examine it critically, to learn how to express their meaning fluently,

logically, and accurately” (p.149) This means students need to be able to find

and correct their own mistakes Students‟ attempt in language learning is one

of the crucial factors towards their success If a learner was aware of

self-editing and tried to learn from his own failure, he would receive more chances

of overcoming difficulties in learning than others who did not care why they

failed

In order to help students to have success in self-editing their writing,

some techniques are designed to help them apply the same critical skills to

their own written products at the right stage in the process as all the

techniques of reading closely and analyzing the writing help with critical

reading In fact, students need to hold the critical skills in check as the ideas

are forming at the beginning of the process They also have to know not only

how to edit their own writing but when is the right time to do it

However, self editing involves an ability to look at one‟s work with an

impersonal eye For some this can be difficult; the best thing to do is to let

one‟s completed manuscript sit for a month, then go back and do a final edit

In other words, self-editing is more time – consuming than the other types of

feedback Also, it is unsuitable way for students with low English proficiency

to revise their writing

Peer feedback is a part of larger category of educational activities in which students work together in groups According to Bartels (2004), peer feedback means feedback from your fellow students If students are working

on the same assignment together, peer feedback means exchanging drafts and comments on each other‟s drafts Peer feedback broadens learners‟ involvement by giving them the additional roles of reader and advisor to go with that of writer This addition of roles, hopefully, increases learner‟s insight into the writing process A related benefit proposed for peer work is that it helps learners become more autonomous, thus preparing them to write without teacher there to correct their errors Further, structuring face-to-face discussion into the feedback process provides students the opportunity to engage in constructive controversy which may lead to insights and greater task engagement (Johnson & Johnson, 1987)

Peer feedback on student writing has been advocated for second language learners Jacobs (1987) discussed the benefits for learners of interaction with others when pointing out that such interaction can be the source of cognitive conflict which can lead learners to reexamine and adjust the frameworks through which they view the word In addition, Rollinson (2005) found that peer feedback gives both readers and writers more time for collaboration, consideration, and reflection

In deed, calls for the use of peer feedback may become more common for two reasons First, the growing popularity of teaching writing as a process with several dimensions has made peer feedback more appropriate because there is more emphasis on revision Second, these dimensions of the writing process – creating ideas, sharing those ideas into a piece of writing, and then fixing the form of that writing – provide more points at which feedback can

be offered

However, some teachers and students, particularly in L2, are worried about the using peer feedback in writing class because they fear students‟ comments will cause as many problems as they solve, due to students‟ lack of language ability (Jacobs, 1987)

1.1.2.3 Teacher’s feedback

Clearly, as the teachers are engaged in the process of responding response is considered “an essential step in the writing process” (Hyland, 1990) He claimed that diligent marking provides students with an idea of the criteria by which their work is judged Also, useful information that will help students avoid similar errors in the future should be offered

teacher-An increasing number of studies have suggested a positive role of indirect teacher feedback, when it incorporated with student self-revision 1, in facilitating accuracy in L2 wiring Ferris and Roberts (2001) examined the differential effect of teacher feedback among university ESL student writers

in terms of the percentage of errors they could revise when they self-edited their texts across three feedback conditions: (1) errors marked with codes; (2) errors underlined with no codes and (3) no feedback at all Results showed large beneficial effects for feedback groups versus the non-feedback group However, differences in terms of the proficiency level between the feedback group and the non-feedback group might be a confounding factor in their study Chandler (2003) examined whether teacher feedback in the form of underling errors could help East Asian college students improve their writing accuracy and whether the effects would last over one semester The results of this study demonstrated that formal accuracy of student writing improved significantly if the participants were required to correct their errors than if they were not Results also exhibited a gain in accuracy which was not accompanied by a decline in fluency over the semester Findings of the study signified the importance of student correction or revision, and it might be

possible that “if students did not revise their writing based on feedback about errors, having teachers mark errors was equivalent to giving no error feedback”

A number of researchers have also attempted to directly investigated L2 students‟ preferences and reactions to teacher making techniques and their beliefs about what constitutes effective feedback to writing Radecki and

Swales (1988), based on a survey of 59 ESL students‟ attitude towards

feedback on their written work, conclude that ESL teachers might lose their credibility among their students if they do not correct all surface errors since findings revealed that students seem to need and expect correction of all errors Nugrahenny, (2007) carried out a study to explore Indonesian students' attitudes toward teacher feedback The findings show thatgenerally teachers and students have a marked preference for teacher feedback The high preference for teacher feedback was mainly the result of the respondents' positive attitudes towardsteacher feedback Interestingly, student preferences for teacherfeedback also stemmed from their awareness that teachers controlgrades Students also show a high preferencefor feedback which focused on language Moreover, the interview data illustrated that teacher feedbackcontributed greatly to students' emotional states particularly their motivation and attitudes towards writing

Compared with this growing but far from the conclusion of studies on the written feedback strategies of teachers, it seems that teacher feedback is a prominent aspect of responding to students‟ works Since students‟ beliefs about feedback on writing may influence the degree of effectiveness of teacher feedback, it is crucial to identify students‟ attitudes towards error correction and their expectations regarding teacher feedback on their writing

1.2 The focus of teacher feedback

1.2.1 Types of teacher feedback

In general, teacher feedback can be transmitted in a variety of ways: in

dialog journals, mini-conferences during class workshops, written comment

on student drafts and student-teacher conferences In the scope of the thesis,

the author mentioned teacher corrective feedback only In this section, types

of teacher corrective feedback and how these types influence the student

revision will be examined

1.2.1.1 Marginal versus end feedback

Marginal feedback is a kind of feedback that is written in the margin or

between sentence lines of the student‟s paper It refers to the teacher‟s

immediate intervention in discrete parts of the student‟s draft By contrast,

summary at the end of the paper called end feedback is normally an overview

of more consideration in an essay

In Ferris and Hedgcock‟s view (1998), there is no conclusive evidence

that either marginal or end comments are preferable or more effective

However, in case teachers can only give one form of commentary given

overwhelming number of papers and severe time constraints, a comprehensive

and clear endnote is strongly recommended When time permits, writing

teachers should try to make a combination of both to give students more

chance to revise their writing

1.2.1.2 Positive versus negative feedback

As far as teacher feedback is concerned, a lot of studies have been done

into the effects of positive and negative comments on the student revision

(Gee, 1972; Ferris, 1995) All the studies come to an agreement that the

students remember and appreciate encouraging remarks made by their

teachers Gee has gone far to assert that the students would have better

attitudes towards writing if they receive positive feedback

However, Ferris noted that a significant majority of her participants

described critical comments as being positive since they all helped them

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improve their papers This result suggested that students expect to receive

constructive criticism and are not necessarily offended by this although they

appear to enjoy and appreciate praises

1.2.1.3 Text – specific versus general feedback

Text-specific feedback is a kind of comment that directly relates to the

text at hand; whereas; general feedback can be attached to any paper

Many prominent scholars in the field argued that teacher feedback is

more helpful if it is a text-specific (Hillocks, 1986; Reid, 1993; Seow, 2002)

Reid (1993, p.225) stated that “feedback should be informative and detailed

enough to help the students writers return to the task of writing but not so

overwhelming that they cannot form a revision plan As they write, receive

response, and revise, students should be able to feel good about what they

have done well and realize that they can improve on what they have not done

effectively,” Seow (2002, p.317) show his agreement that “text-specific

responses, rather than rubber-stamped comments by the teacher will help

students rediscover meanings and facilitate the revision of initial drafts”

However, Ferris (1997) argued that there is a role in teacher commentary for

general responses A general response of encouragement is no doubt better

than none This view has been well supported by Fathman and Whalley‟s

perspective that “general comment that do not refer to specifics within a text

can be effective …giving encouragements helped improve the students‟

rewrites.” (1990, p 186)

1.2.1.4 Feedback focus on form versus on content

When responding to students‟ written work, teachers often face with a

big problem on choosing the best feedback to help their students improve

their writing This is difficult because there is a little agreement among

teachers or researchers about how teachers should respond to student writing

Much of the conflict over teacher response to written work has been whether

Comment [P16]: Check punctuation

Comment [P17]: Fathman and Whalley co mot

bai bao rat hay ve chu de nay day!

teacher feedback should focus on form (e , grammar, mechanics) or on content (e.g., organization, amount of detail) Griffin (1982) has noted, “the major question confronting any theory of responding to student writing is where we should focus our attention” (p.299)

A small number of studies have focused on content alone Hillocks (1986) concluded that “focused feedback can have an effect on certain aspects

of writing” (p.166) Additionally, Huntley (1992) maintained that feedback on content should be provided to students while feedback on form should be avoided, and she recommended that L2 teachers incorporate peer reviews and student-teacher conferences in their teaching as two valuable alternative feedback methods to traditional error correction These views led to the suggestion that teachers should focus on content more than form and provide content feedback between initial and final drafts of papers

However, some research findings have proved the teacher feedback focus

on form Enginarlar (1993), based on a survey of 47 EFL students‟ attitudes towards the feedback procedure employed in their class, concluded that these students perceive attention to linguistic errors as effective teacher feedback Similarly, Ferris (1995) reached the same conclusion based on his respective surveys of students‟ attitudes toward feedback in an EFL context Schulz (1996) investigated Fl teacher and student beliefs about explicit grammar instruction and error correction and also found that students preferred a focus

on form

1.2.2 Forms of teacher feedback

Ferris (1997) claimed that teacher feedback generally includes four basic syntactic forms: question, statement, imperative, and exclamation They have different pragmatic aims such as giving or asking for further information, making requests for revision, giving positive feedback about what the students has done well

In EFL writing classrooms, these forms can be used to provide feedback

to the students‟ works However, despite their advantages, each form has the

potential problems which teacher should be aware of In terms of questions,

Ferris warned that “questions sometimes confuse students although they may

stimulate students‟ thinking process and help teachers avoid appropriating

students‟ texts”; statements which give information are “not necessarily

intended to lead to specific changes” because they do not explicitly ask or tell

the student what to do, although many do contain important information that

teachers want the students to review while revising ; in terms of requests,

Ferris stated, “even though students appeared to understand from the

comment that something was required of them, they were less clear about

how to incorporate the requested changed successfully” (p.331) Therefore,

teachers should be careful in constructing their own feedback forms, in

explaining those feedback forms together with their pragmatic intents to the

students, and most importantly, in helping the students process the comments

and revise their drafts effectively

1.2.3 Major issues in giving teacher’s feedback

As far as teacher feedback in L2 writing classes is concerned, a number

of researchers have attempted to give an overview of issues involved in

responding to L2 writers‟ works (see, Leki, 1992; Ferri, 2003; Reid‟s,

1993…) In their studies, major issues in responding to L1 writers seem to fall

largely into three categories: class goals, teacher role(s), and strategies of

teacher feedback

In terms of class goals, Leki (1992) explored the problematic nature of

teacher feedback and then discussed how an ESL writing teacher‟s goal for

her students as writers might influence how, when, and what she respond to

She claimed that “we may resist the idea, our responses to the writing of ESL

students and our goals for them in our writing courses, are, in fact, laden with

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political context” (p.125) With regard to teacher‟s roles in Ls writing classes,

Raimes (1984) discussed the difficulty of composing in a second language

and of how teacher response can shape and potentially get in the way of that

process The main purpose of the researcher is to suggest that ESL writing

teachers need to pay more attention to the act of writing and less to ESL She

claimed that “one remedy for the aguish of composing is to concentrate on the

making of meaning, to concentrate on the act of composing instead of

peripherals” (p.92) She offered three areas in which teacher can do this:

generating assignments for the class, giving feedback, and providing readings

In terms of providing feedback, Raimes suggested that corrections are not the

only kind of feedback teacher can give and that working on developing

grammatical forms should be a parallel activity to composing

In regard to strategies of teacher feedback, Reid (1993) stated “in

teachers‟ attempt to evade the evils of appropriation taking over their

students‟ work, many ESL writing teachers have stopped working with their

students‟ texts altogether” (p.275) Though this withdrawal may stem from

the best of intentions, Reid argued that teachers need to “accept their

responsibilities as cultural informants and as facilitators for creating social

discourse community in the ESL classroom” (p.275)

Summary

In summary, this chapter has so far touched upon issues relating to the

topic of the study It has mentioned the definition and the importance of

feedback, types of feedback and the focuses on teacher feedback as well as

major issues in giving teacher’s feedback in ESL writing classroom The

following chapter will focus on the study - its methodology and findings –

under the light of the above discussed theories

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CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

This chapter focuses on the context of the study and the study The context

includes information about the setting and the writing program The study

concentrates on the methodology, data analysis, and findings and discussion

2.1 Context of the study

2.1.1 The setting of the study

The study was carried out at the Boarding and High school for Ethnic

Minority Students in Tuyen Quang The school is located in Tuyen Quang

Town It was founded 50 years ago and is for ethnic minority students from

all parts of Tuyen Quang Province The purpose of the school is to train

ethnic minority students as good people who will greatly contribute to the

development of the province That is why the school is investigated largely

every year with good equipment and good working condition

There are about five hundred ethnic minority students studying at

school each year The total classes are fourteen and not very large size ones

(about 30 – 35 students in each) There are thirty-eight teachers and most of

them are well-trained They are considered the most hard-working and

enthusiastic teachers of all in the province There are five teachers of the

English Group at the school Most of them are not very high-educated, but

Comment [P20]: thirty-eight

Comment [P21]: high-educated

experienced teachers They spend a lot of their concerns about teaching and

improving students‟ English level However, they lack appropriate teaching

methods and techniques, especially giving feedback They do not have an

adequate knowledge about many fields of language teaching; in other words,

they need to be retrained

All the students are ethnic minorities groups They mostly come from

remote or mountainous areas of the province They are hard-working and

well-behaved students However, most of them have low ability in learning

Many of them have low English proficiency and their utterances are in words

or short prefabricated phrases Their grammar is mostly inaccurate and their

pronunciation requires concentrated listening As a result, they often have a

great anxiety in English classrooms Among four skills of English, they find

writing much more difficult than the others and often participate in writing

lessons unsuccessfully Despite their low ability, many of them are

continuously paying much more concerns about English as a core subject and

hope that their English level will be improved by their great efforts Thus,

they ask for help in writing skill

2.1.2 The writing program

2.1.2.1 Overview of the textbooks

The textbooks which are required to teach English in high schools are

English Basic 10, 11 and 12 They were developed based on the new national

curriculum The methodologies that the books follow are “learner-centered

approach and the communicative approach with task-based teaching being the

central teaching method” (English 10, Teacher‟s Manual: 12)

Each book includes 16 teaching units and six review units Each

teaching unit covers a topic and is sub-divided into five sections: Reading,

Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus Each part is supposed to

be taught in a period of 45 minutes

Comment [P22]: much more difficult

Comment [P23]: check the meaning!!!

The Writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities

that guide students through the writing process such as model analysis,

language work, and guided writing In this part, students are required to

produce various text types such as personal and formal letters, narratives,

chart, graph and table description, and expository essays The general and

specific objectives are set clearly in the books (Table 1, 2)

2.1.2.2 The teaching of writing skill

Table 3: Distribution of writing activities

English 10 English 11 English 12

Total

SB WB SB WB SB WB Preparation work 20 1 9 2 16 0 48

The types of the texts that students are taught and made to practice in

three books are quite varied, ranging from forms, postcards, letters, and

announcements to mini-biographies, narratives, table descriptions, and

expository essays A glance at this variety seems to guide students to follow

the process of writing than the product However, according to Thuy Minh

(20?, p.43) “the writing approached adopted in the books seems to be

product-oriented in the nature emphasis seems to be placed on the end-result of

writing rather than the process of writing itself” She found that the writing

section “normally begins with some preparation work in which students are

Comment [P24]: end-result

required to analyze task requirements, work on models, or generate ideas

Then, it may proceed with one or two controlled or / and guided writing

activities and end with a freer writing activities” (p 43) This fact leads

students to engage in imitating copying and transforming models of correct

language texts to the new writing task There seems to be no explicit emphasis

on the process of planning, drafting, revision, and editing

Moreover, the textbooks do not offer much chance for free writing

practice As can be seen from the table 3, among the 183 writing activities, 66

are for free writing practice, account for 36% In other words, there is an

average of only 0.5 free writing activity per unit This is quite far from the

given goal of teaching writing in CLT that is to enable learners to become

more independent and effective writers Also, Thuy Minh, based on a text

book evaluation, claimed that “writing involves more than putting ideas into

sentences and without adequate prior preparation (e.g instruction about

paragraph writing, working on models, controlled and guided practice…” (p

45) She concluded that writing task in the three textbooks would probably be

too challenging and perhaps even beyond students‟ ability As a result, the

teachers have to adapt writing tasks to match them with students‟ ability

Also, the teachers should know students‟ preferences for the feedback they

receive to give good responses to their students‟ written work

2.2 The study

2.2.1 Methodology

2.2.1.1 The subjects

The subjects involved in the study include 100 students and 4 teachers

from the Boarding High School for Ethnic Minority Students in Tuyen

Quang It may be very difficult to select a random sample of individuals due

to a large number of the students in the department (more than 500 students)

Comment [P25]: Check the format of this!!!

In this case, instead of randomly selecting individuals, the researcher

randomly selects classes or groups for investigation This method is

convenient for the investigator to observe the participants complete the

questionnaires in class Moreover, these classes have been assigned with a

relative equal proportion of good, average, and poor English proficiency

students by the Department of English in each high school and there were

both males and females in each class

The 4 teachers are teaching English in the classes from which the

students are chosen to be involved in the research They are both experienced

and inexperienced teachers of the Boarding High School for Ethnic Minority

Students They are willing to participate in the survey with the hope that the

results of the study will help them to have better understanding on students‟

preferences for teacher feedback

2.2.1.2 The instruments:

Four instruments were used to collect the data for the study

Classroom observation was conducted within a month to get a quick

view on teachers‟ feedback-giving practice

A direct interview between the researcher and four teachers was

designed to examine more about the purpose of providing feedback, the types

and forms of feedback as well as the practice of error correction teachers

often use to give comments on the students‟ writings The interview was

formed in semi-structured questions

A questionnaire for the students examined students‟ attitudes toward

their teacher corrective feedback, the problems they often face up with in

writing classes as well as their preferred feedback type and form It consists of

nine questions and is divided into three parts Part I includes some short

questions on personal information of the participants Part II consists of

close-ended questions, open-close-ended questions and 3 Likert scales to explore

Comment [P26]: males Comment [P27]: females

students‟ opinions on the feedback they received Part III has three

open-ended questions to examine students‟ preferences for their teacher corrective

feedback on writing

The teachers‟ written comments on the students‟ drafts were done with

a view to obtaining the most truthful information about the teachers‟ current

practice of giving feedback

2.2.1.3 Data collection methods

The whole process was divided into four stages

At the first stage, the researcher carried out an observation on writing

lessons of four teachers The researcher attended eight periods of writing

lesson She observed teachers‟ feedback-giving practice carefully and took

notes all necessary information for the study

At the second stage, the researcher had a direct interview with each of

four teachers She interviewed each of them one by one All the talks were in

Vietnamese During the interview, the researcher sat nearby the interviewers,

taking notes all the information which was then transcribed into English

Then, the questionnaire was transcribed into Vietnamese and

distributed to 100 students The transcription of the questionnaire was done to

make sure that all the students understood all the questions The researcher

was also present to give any explanation if any confusion or problem arises as

the respondents are working on the questions

Finally, the writing drafts of the eight students on which there were the

teacher comments were collected at the beginning and the end of the school

year and analyzed

2.2.2 Data analysis

This part of the thesis concerns with the treatment of all the data

collected from classroom observation, direct interview between the researcher

Comment [P28]: obtaining

and four teachers, the survey questionnaires conducted on 100 students, and the analysis of the teacher commentary on the students‟ sample drafts

2.2.2.1 Data analysis of classroom observation

As a teacher of English Group, the researcher often attended different English classes at her school To collect data for this study, the researcher attended totally eight writing classes of four teachers She observed the ways four teachers gave feedback to their students She found that despite different teaching experience, all teachers seemed to apply the same feedback techniques All of them seemed to use corrective feedback quite often This means they tended to focus their feedback on pointing out and correcting errors Besides, most of them used both oral and written comments to give feedback Interestingly, they rarely collected all students‟ papers They often showed the students a sample in the end or applied teacher-student conference when their students nearly finished their writing Three of them sometimes collected some papers to give written feedback at home, returning them to the students next period and asking the students to rewrite the drafts in exercise notebook Obviously, all students are required to have an exercise notebook in which they write their homework Those notebooks will be collected randomly during the school year buy the teachers to assess students‟ learning effort Also, they tended to focus on correcting errors on form and spelling Only one teacher paid her attention to the content and organization of students‟ papers Surprisingly, none of them applied other types of feedback such as peer feedback or student self-monitoring in writing classes

2.2.2.2 Data analysis of direct interview between the researcher and

four teachers

2.2.2.2.1 Teachers’ demographic information

There were only one male and three female teachers taking part in the study The teacher‟s ages ranged from 28 to 50 Their experience in teaching English quite varied from 5 years to 28 years during which they all have spent

4 years teaching writing to high school students since the writing section was separated from others in new English text books

2.2.2.2.2 Analysis of the interview

Firstly, all teachers were asked about their beliefs on the importance of feedback to teaching and learning writing skill Most of them agreed that

feedback played a very important role in writing lesson when stating that “We

cannot ignore feedback when teaching writing because it is necessary to show out students’ errors so that they can improve their papers.” However, one

teacher had a neutral view to the importance of feedback She said, “It is not

necessary to give feedback to student quite often The writing task is not very difficult for the students when they are asked to write something similar to the sample” That is the reason why most of the teachers often respond to

students‟ written work and only one of them sometimes gives feedback to her students

When being asked about purpose of giving feedback, all of the teachers

said that they wanted to help the students to improve their writing “I want my

students to have a positive attitude towards writing and that is why I try to give feedback as clearly as possible so that they will not make the same mistake again and rewrite better paper”, one of them said Also, the majority

considered feedback as a good way to justify the grade given students‟

writing They stated that “we often give mark to students’ paper so that they

will know how they write and what level they are in”

In terms of feedback types, teachers seemed to have different choices for different types of feedback Most of the teachers tended to locate their comments in the margin of students‟ papers The same number of teachers

sometimes gave comments at the end of the papers Regarding the teachers‟ provision of general or specific feedback, all the teachers utilized specific comments than the general ones Moreover, teachers tended to use more positive feedback to raise students‟ strength Most of the teachers never gave negative feedback to their students What they said are as follows:

“I like to write my comments in the margin of students’ paper because I want to show specific comments to my students.”

“Students will be confused a lot if we write our comment in general at the end of the paper.”

“Writing comments at the end of the paper takes a lot of time when we have to overview all the errors and categorize them.”

“I often write such comments “Quite good, very good or try harder” in

my students’ paper because I want to encourage them to write more and more”

“I avoid giving negative comment to my students because they are ethnic minority students who feel embarrassed quite easily When they are not encouraged, they will keep silence and write something invaluable That’s too bad.”

In terms of feedback forms, all teachers said that they often used statement and imperative when responding to students‟ papers They thought

it was easy for them to write short, clear comments with such feedback forms

They said, “My students do not like to receive a question or an exclamation in

their paper They want some things in detail How can I write something clear enough with a question?”

When being asked about the focus of teacher feedback on different features of writing such as grammar, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary choice, the organization, and the ideas expressed in the paper… teachers seemed to highly concentrate on pointing out errors in grammar and