Teachers' corrective feedback on the 11th form students' writing at Ngo Gia Tu high school Nghiên cứu thực trạng việc phản hồi chữa lỗi của giáo viên trên bài v

In an effort to investigate the reality of teachers’ corrective feedback on the 11th form student writing and students’ opinions on what they receive, the research was carried out with p

ABSTRACT

Although teachers’ response to student writing plays an important role in teaching writing, it

is usually neglected by teachers especially at high school level In an effort to investigate the reality of teachers’ corrective feedback on the 11th form student writing and students’ opinions on what they receive, the research was carried out with participation of 90 grade 11 students and 10 teachers at Ngo Gia Tu high school in Bac Ninh.This is a survey research with three main instruments The first one is the survey questionnaire for teachers and students which was employed to collect information about how teachers gave feedback on the student writing and students’ opinions on what they received The other two were the direct interview with two teachers and the document analysis of the teacher corrective feedback on students’ writing papers in practice This helped the researcher to get further information to justify the results of the survey questionnaire The findings of the study revealed that there existed a lot of problems concerning teachers’ responding methods, their feedback focus, their frequent types and forms as well as their help for students’ process of teachers’ feedback The results also showed the mismatch between what the teachers often give and what the students would like to get Furthermore, the study recommends several important directions with the hope to be able to improve the teacher’s feedback, to help the students process the feedback more effectively and thus to create a good cooperative working environment for teachers and students to teach and to learn writing more successfully

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III TABLE OF CONTENTS IV LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS……… VI

PART ONE : INTRODUCTION………1

I Rationale……… 1

II Aims of the study………2

III Research questions……….2

IV Method of the study……… 2

V Scope of the study……… 3

VI Significance of the study 3

VII Design of the study 3

PART TWO : DEVELOPMENT………4

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Theoretical backgrounds to the teaching writing 4

1.1.1 Definitions of writing 4

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing 5

1.1.2.1 The text-based approach 5

1.1.2.2 The genre-based approach 6

1.1.2.3 The process approach 6

1.2 Theoretical backgrounds to teachers’ feedback 7

1.2.1 Definitions of feedback 7

1.2.2 The benefits of teachers’ feedback to writing 8

1.2.3 Approaches to feedback giving 9

1.2.3.1 Single-draft approach 9

1.2.3.2 The multiple-draft approach 10

1.2.4 Types of teacher feedback 10

1.2.4.1 Formative feedback versus summative feedback 10

1.2.4.2 Negative feedback versus positive feedback……… 11

1.2.5 Focus of teacher feedback 11

1.2.6 Forms of teacher’s written feedback 12

1.2.7 Issues in the teachers' written feedback 13

1.2.7.1 Traditional “marking” 13

1.2.7.2 Appropriating students’ texts 13

1.2.7.3 Overlooking the students’ varying levels of writing ability 14

1.2.8 Principles of teachers’ written feedback 14

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 16

2.1 The context of the study……….16

2.2.The textbook 16

2.3.Participants 17

2.4 The instruments for data collection 18

2.5.Data collection procedures 19

2.6 Data analysis 20

2.6.1 Data analysis of questionnaire for teachers and direct interview…… 20

2.6.2 Document analysis of the teachers feedback……… 27

2.6.3 Data analysis of questionnaire for students……… 28

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 35

3.1 Findings 35

3.2 Discussion……… 36

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 39

I Conclusion 39

II Recommendations 39

III Suggestion for further study 41

REFERENCES 42

APPENDICES

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 2.1 Teachers’ purposes of giving feedback 21

Chart 2.1 Times of teacher feedback on each assignment 22

Table 2.2 Frequency of teacher feedback types……… 22

Table 2.3 Focus of teacher feedback………23

Table 2.4 Forms of teacher feedback……… 24

Chart 2.2 Teachers’ treatment with too many errors in the student writing………25

Chart 2.3 The importance of teacher feedback………29

Chart 2.4 Students’ expectation for frequency of teacher feedback on each assignment……29

Chart 2.5 Students’ reading of teacher feedback……….30

Table 2.5 Students’ expectation for teacher feedback types………30

Table 2.6 Students’ expectation for the focus of teacher feedback……… 31

Table 2.7 Usefulness of teacher feedback forms as perceived by students……….32

Table 2.8 Students’ expectation for teachers’ treatment with too many errors on writing… 33

PART ONE : INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Language educators have long used the concepts of four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Among such four skills, writing is considered as a productive skill in the written mode In classroom, teaching and learning writing also plays an important role Through writing, learners are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince other people We are able to discover and articulate ideas in the way that only writing makes possible Therefore, writing has always occupied a place in the language syllabus In addition, writing helps students learn It helps reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that students have taught They also have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learnt When writing, they necessarily become very involved in the new language, the effort to express ideas

With all the importance mentioned above, Developing second language (L2) writing proficiency

is now central to the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) However, how to improve students’ writing seems to be very difficult In many cases, students would need intervention from their teachers in terms of not only writing instructions but also their comments on the strengths and weeknesses, which will make students know how to go about improving themselves and become effective writers As Kroll (2003, p 115) notes, “second language writers often benefit most and make the most progress when teachers contribute to this goal through a variety of intervention strategies available in classroom settings” Thus, teachers’ feedback can be

considered as a pedagogical tool for the students’ writing improvement Good feedback gives students stimulation for revision and motivation to maintain their interest in writing

The use of teacher feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported as a 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 However, such information is not always clear out Many studies on this area so far have shown that there has been a lack of consensus over how teachers should respond to the students’ writing

Although teachers’ feedback plays such an essential part in teaching writing, most teachers especially high school ones do not pay much attention to this issue At Ngo Gia Tu high school, there have been few attempts to investigate feedback in general and teachers’ corrective feedback

in particular to explore which aspects of writing theory work in practice and which aspects teachers may need to adapt or modify in order to better serve their learners’ needs

The above reasons have urged the author, a teacher of English at Ngo Gia Tu high school, to carry out a study on teachers’ corrective feedback in an attempt to get truthful information on how teachers at this school give corrective feedback on students’ writing; their problems in responding to students’ writing as well as students’ attitudes towards this feedback It is hoped that the study will help to make recommendations for improving current teachers’ feedback, helping students to process the feedback they receive more effectively and thus to improve their writing skills

II Aims of the study

The study is aimed at :

- Investigating teachers’ corrective feedback given to 11th form students’ writings: their responding method, the feedback focus, feedback types and forms, as well as their problems in responding to the students' writing

- Investigating students’ attitudes towards their teachers’ feedback and their opinions of the feedback they receive

- Proposing some recommendations for teachers to improve their feedback giving practice in order to help students write more effectively

III Research Questions

In order to achieve the above- mentioned purposes, the following research questions were formulated and needed to be answered :

1 How do the teachers give feedback on the students’ writings ?

2 What are the students’ opinions on the feedback they receive ?

IV Method of the study

The study was carried out using survey research method Survey questionnaires for teachers and students were main instruments for data collection Besides, the interview with the teachers and document analysis of the teacher feedback on students’ writing papers were also used to gather

further information so that the research result would be more reliable Data gathered was normally largely qualitative, but it might also be quantitative

V Scope of the study

Feedback in writing is a broad topic including peer feedback, self- editing, teachers’ corrective feedback…However, within the limitation of research time and the length of a minor thesis, the study just focuses on teachers’ corrective feedback on 11th form students’ writings The subjects chosen for this study are 11th form students because they have been taught writing skills for one year at high school level and they are quite familiar with their teachers’ comment This will make the study more feasible Its results will be more applicable into the real classroom

VI Significance of the study

The present study was carried out with the hope that it would provide a general view of how teachers have actually give feedback to students’ writing and what are the students' attitudes towards the feedback they receive By collecting both teachers’ and students’ ideas about feedback giving practice, some suggestions for improving teachers' feedback may be stated so that students can utilize it more successfully in their revision

VII Design of the study

This study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion The introduction part briefly presents the rationale of the study, the aims, research questions, methods, scope, the significance and the design of the study The development part consists of three chapters Chapter one provides essential literature review relevant to the study including teaching writing in general and teacher feedback in particular Chapter two deals with the methodology underlying the research, which presents the context of the study, the textbook, the background information about the subjects of the study, the instruments and procedure for data collection as well as the detailed analysis of data collected Chapter three is devoted to presenting the findings

of the study and the discussion about it The thesis ends with the conclusion part which gives a summary of the main issues that have been discussed, some recommendations and suggestions for further research as well

PART TWO : DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the review of concepts that are the most relevant to the thesis’ topic It begins with some theoretical backgrounds to the teaching writing, which includes definitions of writing and approaches to teaching writing Next come some theoretical backgrounds to teachers’ feedback, which consists of definitions of feedback, purposes of giving feedback, approaches to giving feedback, forms, types and focus

1.1 Theoretical backgrounds to the teaching writing

1.1.1 Definitions of writing

What writing is and how it is developed has been a subject of discussion and debate for centuries, which shows a lack of consensus as to what it is and reflects the complexity of the writing process Traditionally, researchers focused mainly on form and the final product, while current research in composition emphasizes the composing process and strategies that are utilized by writers to attain the final product

Byrne (1991,p.01) defines writing as “the act of forming graphic symbols: making marks on a flat surface of some kind The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences, although again we can be said to

be “writing” if we are merely making lists of words, as in inventories of items such as shopping lists” Writing, however, is a far more complicated process than the production of graphic symbols It is “a process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a definite meaning… writing is a process of deliberate decision” (Lannon, 1989, p 9) Another way of viewing writing, called the cognitive view, is to see writing as decision - making (Flower & Hayes, 1981) When writing something, whether an email message, a letter, or an essay, the writer is engaged in making one decision after another He or she decides what to begin the text with, whether to include or to leave out an idea that comes to mind, whether to begin a new paragraph or continue the same one, what information to place in the beginning of a sentence, and so on Successful writing is the result of making the right decisions most of the time during the act of composing and revising If writing is

a mental activity of skillful decision-making, learning to write is defined as “learning to make

decisions appropriate for the situation (the purpose of the text, the writer’s objective, the reader’s

purpose in reading the text, the circumstances in which the writing and reading take place) and learning to recognize where inappropriate decision have been made, so that they can be put right before the text arrives at the reader’s desk” (Renandya & Richard, 2002, p.1) From the process approach view, writing is defined as a set of procedures which is inventive, complicated, repeated and which is the same with overall structure of writing in native and target language (Silva, 1990, p.15) Writing composes of a set of stages that require writers to follow carefully so that they can produce a good writing Ferris and Tribble share the same view with Silva Writing, from the language teachers' view point, is also "a language skill which is difficult to acquire" (Tribble,

1996, p.3) It is “a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take into account the sometimes extended period of thinking that precedes creating an initial draft” (Ferris, 1995, p 10) Tribble also stresses that writing “normally requires some forms of instruction” and that “it is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (1996, p.11)

The above definitions reflect unlike attitudes towards writing of the authors who are under the control of different theories However, in general, writing is a daunting task for students because

it requires the correctness of not only form but also meaning to get the best communicative goals

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing

The teaching of writing which is a vast and complex subject has long been a central element in all-educational systems Also a number of conflicting views of the best ways to teach writing have been presented Raimes (1992) identifies three principle ways of approaching the task; namely; the text-based approach, the genre based-approach and the process approach

1.1.2.1 The text-based approach

Teachers who focus on form often present model texts for students to imitate, so textbooks are usually used to provide a good range of models Teachers who adopt this approach normally put themselves in the role of an editor and proofreader who may not be especially interested in the quality of ideas or expressions but primarily concerned with formal linguistic accuracy This writing situation lacked audience and purpose White(1990: 6) states that the model plays a very important role in arranging ideas and using correct form because it is considered as the pattern for students to imitate in their writing The aim of this kind of writing is to produce a final text basing

on the product of others The problem is that the writer does not know what processes he has to follow in order to reach the final product It means that there is no emphasis on writing process Escholz (1980, p.24) viewed the imitation of models as being “stultifying and inhibiting writers

rather than empowering them or liberating them” This approach limits students’ ability to think and write critically, but it still seems to be suitable for teaching low proficiency students

1.1.2.2 The genre-based approach

This approach is “more socially oriented and focuses on the ways in which writers and texts need

to interact with reader” (Tribble, 1996) Writing in this approach is viewed as an essentially social activity in which successful communication is considered the main aim of texts This approach based on a systematic-functional model of language and suggests that a genre is a social process,

as it is used by members of a particular sociolinguistic community to achieve their communicative goals It is goal-oriented, that is the particular members of a social group that a genre is decided upon, and staged, because it involves a number of stages to be reached in order for the participants to achieve communication (Martin et al, 1987) The implementation of a genre-based approach can be translated into prescriptism, as “genre pedagogy is underpinned by the belief that learning is best accomplished through explicit awareness of language rather than through experiment and exploration” (Candlin & Hall, 2002: 22)

1.1.2.3 The process approach

Nowadays, the teaching of writing puts more emphasis on writing process than final product In process approach, students are trained to generate ideas for writing, to think of the aim and readers, and to write multiple drafts before reaching written products that communicate their ideas During their writing, they receive response from readers in order to improve the previous drafts to the final versions Therefore, in this approach, students “explore a topic through writing, showing the teacher and each other their drafts and using what they write to read over, think about and move them on to new ideas” Teachers’ role is to give students time to tray ideas, to give content feedback so that they can develop their writing (Raimes, 1983, p.10) This approach views that writing is a process which contains a number of distinct stages or activities the writers have to go through in order to produce a good piece of writing But this process is not a straightforward “plan- outline- write” process that many believe it to be; it is a “complex, recursive, and creative process whereby the writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they

attempt to approximate meaning” (Zamel, 1983, p.165)

The process approach seems to be underpinned by a completely different pedagogic philosophy,

as it views writing as a process and not as a product, and it implies that writing should be taught

in a completely different way, as “teachers are encouraged not to impose their views, give

models, or suggest response to topics beforehand” (Candlin & Hall, 2002, p 23) Eventhough supporters of the process approach claim that “the idea behind it is not really to dissociate writing entirely from the written product and to merely load students through the various stages of the writing process” (Seow, 2002: 315-316), it has been criticized for lacking focus on the actual product, especially for those learners that come from a different cultural background, “an emphasis on a process approach often disregards the importance of written forms… for the L2student, many writing conventions will remain a mystery… emphasizing the process to the exclusion of the product neglects direct instruction in certain text features” (Reppen, 2002: 321) The number of stages constituting writing process remains controversial As for Oshima and

Hogue (1991), the writing process includes three major stages, namely: pre-writing, planning (outlining), writing and revising drafts According to Hedge (1990), these embrace more stages

which are as follows:

Being motivated to write -> getting ideas together -> planning and outlining-> making notes -> making a first draft -> revising, re-planning, redrafting -> editing and getting ready for publication

It should be pointed out that the choice of the most appropriate approach should always be made

in relation to a particular group of learners and after a great deal of needs analysis, which means that in many cases the teacher might need to implement a teaching model that integrates principles of several approaches Reid (1993, p.30) states that such an approach enables “learners

to write their way into more precise, interpretive texts, while at the same time fostering greater attention to forms of the writing, to reflection on what is involved in the creation of a text and to adapting writing style to the audience and context of writing” Thus, the question “which theoretical strends are we going to adopt? Are we going to use the text-based approach, the genre-based approach or the process approach” are risen by Richards and Renandya (2002: 303) does not necessarily have a one-dimensional answer

1.2 Theoretical backgrounds to teachers’ feedback

1.2.1 Definitions of feedback

Up to the present, responding to the student writing, including giving feedback is one of the most controversial topics in second language instruction and theory There have been few attempts to

define the term “feedback” in teaching writing, researchers seem to have reached a consensus of

the nature and function of feedback Feedback as viewed by Furnborough and Truman (2009)

entails the existence of gaps between what has been learned and the target competence of the learners, and the efforts undertaken to bridge these gaps This feedback is provided to ask for further information, to give directions, suggestions, or requests for revision, to give students new information to revise, and to give positive feedback about what the students have done well (Ferris, 1997) According to Chaudron(1988, p.133), feedback unlike the narrower term of

“correction”, is an essential part in classroom interaction Teachers’ feedback is a major means to inform learners how accurate they have done of both their formal target language production and their classroom behavior and knowledge Similarly, Keh (1989, p 294) suggests that feedback is

“input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information for revision" From these points of view, teachers’ feedback can be regarded as an effective means to communicate to students about their writing In other words, it is a kind of information through which learners know how well they have done in their writing so that they can enhance their composition However, this information is much more useful if it is provided on preliminary and intermediate stage, rather than on the final one as Seow (2002) claims, “feedback is regarded as teacher’s quick initial reaction to the students’ drafts” Additionally, Renandya and Richards (2002) state that: “for students who write only one draft, which is then graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition comes too late" This means that feedback should be provided

in the “process of writing” rather than in the “single act of producing a text” Obviously, feedback

is very necessary for the success of the writing tasks and cooperation between teacher and student

is very much necessary for the successful implementation of feedback

1.2.2 The benefits of teachers’ feedback to writing

It is important to bear in mind that teaching and providing feedback on writing has close relationship with each other as feedback will be given in terms of the demands and expectations that are required by the teacher throughout instruction Penaflorida (2002) states that teachers should be careful when assigning a writing task, so they neither encourage their learners to solely imitate model compositions and thus impede their imagination, nor ask them to write a task without any preparatory exercise Lewis (2002) sums up the five benefits of giving feedback First, Feedback provides information for teachers and students It is a way for teachers to describe their learners’ language It is a form of evaluation on their learners’ knowledge and on their own teaching Penaflorida (2002, p.346) stresses the importance of feedback as “an integral feature of student writing, in as much as it enables students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses”

It means that highlighting strengths and weaknesses makes students know how to improve themselves and becoming more effective writers Comments can also give direct information about language, by stating a rule or by giving example Second, feedback provides students with advice about learning According to Ferris (2003, p.127), there is “evidence that learners do take seriously and thus utilize it in order to enhance their writing ability” Thus, feedback can be considered a pedagogical tool that teachers use in giving advice for the writing improvement purpose Third, feedback provides students with meaningful and individual language input It is important to extend students’ language by writing comments in language at a level slightly higher than the students’ own current language By this way, students can learn new vocabulary and structures in context Undoubtedly, feedback, in these cases, is given to" teach skills that help learners improve the language proficiency to the point where they are cognizant of what is expected of them as writers" (Williams, 2003, p.1) Fourth, feedback is a form of motivation Feedback further serves as a source of motivation since it enables learners to evaluate their progress, to understand the level of their competence, and to maintain their effort in striving to reach realistic goals (Riviere, 2000) Both hardworking and underworking students need encouragement but it needs to be given in different ways Finally, feedback can lead students towards autonomy One long-term purpose of feedback is to lead students to the point where they can find their own mistakes In many cases, teachers indicate the place and type of error without correcting or underlining They require students to find and correct the mistake themselves

1.2.3 Approaches to feedback giving

1.2.3.1 The single-draft approach

This approach is popularly used in traditional classes where teacher's written feedback seems straightforward The teacher returns their compositions with a grade and errors marked in red, and perhaps with few notes of students' performance Next, the students quickly switch to a new type

of writing lesson; they will write a new paper and repeat this process According to Sommers(1982), this kind of response is too general, too incentive, confusing, arbitrary, and idiosyncratic To support her view, Chenoweth( 1987) points out that such type of feedback only cracks the surface of the student writing, but does not “directly address the writers' main problems, which are more related to the way in which they accomplish a given writing task"(p.25) Keh (1989) also criticizes that one-shot commentary provides little information for the students to improve their papers in terms of coherence or content Their overall ideas suggest

that such practice does little or nothing to improve the student writing, either in the short or long term In other words, this approach proves to be ineffective to the student revision

1.2.3.2 The multiple-draft approach

The multiple-draft approach is applied in “process writing" classes where students may write several drafts which are read and commented on or edited by the teacher Then students are required to re-write, using the feedback offered by teacher Undoubtedly, the process approach to teaching writing not only leads students to write multiple drafts, but also encourages teacher to respond to student writing as a process The process approach to feedback giving is therefore better than asking students to submit the final piece for evaluation for the following reasons First,

it enables students to practice through several revision cycles Second, it gives writers more chances to develop and present their ideas, to improve both the form and content of their compositions effectively based on teachers’ feedback It sends the message to students that writing is the process of improving through revising based on teacher feedback, rather than a single act of producing one and also the final draft for grading

1.2.4 Types of teacher feedback

Teachers' feedback can be conducted in many ways: dialog journals, written comments on students' draft or student-teacher conferences However, the author of this study addresses some types of teacher's written feedback and how these types influence the student revision

1.2.4.1 Formative feedback versus summative feedback

Summative or external assessment is used to evaluate students’ writing ability through their final products It aims to judge how well students have finished the writing tasks but not to “shape students’ thinking or learning” In the meantime, formative or internal assessment is used to give feedback during student writing process It aims to help students to improve their writing and writing ability (Lippman, 2003: 203) Formative feedback is a kind of feedback that is often written in the margin or between sentence lines of the student’s paper On the one hand, detail and text-specific feedback allows students to act and commit to change On the other hand, summative/ general comments, while giving the teacher’s opinion on the overall content and flow

of the draft, encourage students to develop their own alternatives and give them a choice in forming plans to solve the problem (Ferris, 1997) This view is well supported by Fathman & Whalley’s (1990, p 186) that “general comments that do not refer to specifics within the text can

be effective… giving encouragements helped improve the students’ rewrites.” Therefore, both

types of feedback are applicable in helping students to improve the quality of their final products Statistics, however, show that general comments make less positive changes than text-specific ones The disadvantage of general feedback, lack of commitment to change, may be overcome if the teachers balance both text-specific and summary comments in the most effective way

1.2.4.2 Negative feedback versus positive feedback

There has been a lot of research into the effects of positive and negative comments on the student revision (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1994; Ferris, 1995) These researchers claim that the teacher should find some positive things to praise in learners’ writing They try to comment on some positive features of a text, and if possible avoid commenting on every single error that might burden and discourage learners This indicates that at least a minimum of positive comments on each writing is significant, as “students have better attitudes towards writing if they receive positive feedback” (Kroll, 2003, p.62) It helps motivate students to write

However, Ferris (1997) finds that “few of the positive comments led to any changes in the revision, nor were they apparently intended to” She also notes that the teacher’s critical comments is still of great help in improving their writing This result suggests that, although the students appear to enjoy and appreciate praise, negative feedback - criticisms shouldn’t be left out

or its role down played Therefore, a combination of praise plus criticism produces best effects in terms of student’s scores on both grammar and comprehension Researchers from these statements have stressed the role of teachers in balancing between these two kinds of feedback

1.2.5 Focus of teacher feedback

It is undeniable that teacher’s response has great influence on students’ approach to writing and their improvement Fathman & Whalley (1990: 178) state that “there is 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 teacher feedback should focus on form (e.g 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.129) It is generally accepted that teacher’s comments on grammatical errors will help students improve accuracy more effectively However, more evidence of progress and higher quality of the writing as a whole has been observed in groups of students who receive feedback on content only or combination of both content and grammar (Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998) This finding suggests that feedback needs to focus more on content

than on form, or a combination of both Similarly, Fathman & Whalley (1990: 186) come to the conclusion that students can develop their writing skills when teacher feedback focuses on both content and form at the same time Form feedback has no effect on developing ideas of writing Whereas, content feedback helps improve the content of the rewritten product Although there are different ideas about what, when and how to give feedback to students’ writing, the author does support Reid’s (1993) view that teacher’s feedback should allow the student to revise, see differently and be capable of transferring the change to other pieces of writing

1.2.6 Forms of teacher feedback

According to Ferris (1997), teacher feedback generally operates within four basic syntactic forms: question, statement, imperative, and exclamation, which present different pragmatic aims such as giving or asking for further information, making request for revision, giving positive feedback

It is true that the composition teachers can use these forms to provide feedback to their students However, they should be aware of the potential problems that each form presents In addition, Hendrickson (1976) suggests language teachers use various direct and indirect techniques when providing feedback to students’ writing Using marking systems is one of the indirect techniques (underlining all misspelled words and omitted or superfluous affixes; putting a question mark above a confusing phrase or structure; and inserting an arrow () to indicate a missing article or preposition) Generally, these indirect methods are used whenever it is assumed that students can correct their own errors Direct correction techniques which include underlining a word and providing a verbal tip such a “use conjunction”; crossing out superfluous words; and supplying the correct form or structure are also used as it is assumed that students are not able to correct these errors by themselves Allwright (1975), suggests that any error correction process includes some of the following general features: indication that an error was committed, identification of the type of error, selection of remedy, provision of a correct model, the furnishing of an opportunity for an attempt, indication of improvement (if applicable), and the offering of praise

In other words, 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

To facilitate error correction, many teachers use feedback codes which are useful for learners to minimize the chance to be confused, as mistakes are of different nature However, when using feedback codes, teachers should be sure that students also understand the meaning of the codes

٨ means “add” (put in)

( ) means “omit” (take out)

> means “indent” (go in 5 spaces to the right)

? means “mystery” (I can’t interpret this Rewrite or leave out)

| means “separate” (leave a space between these items)

be single-dimensional but include all aspects involved in writing

1.2.7.2 Appropriating students’ texts

Appropriating students’ text may occur when “teachers’ comments take students’ attention away from their own purpose in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers’ purpose in commenting” (Sommers, 1982, p.149) To put it simply, it is the case when teachers are being extremely authorative in their response, and resort to techniques such as deletion of whole parts of learners’ text or substitution of the learners’ ideas This technique does not guarantee students’ awareness of errors and their ability to reproduce those language items correctly in future writing Teachers should be careful not to over-correct since this does not get students involved in correcting their own work (Jordan, 1997) They are simply given the answers for their errors but the problem is no teacher can be sure if they read the correction or learn anything from it Teachers are also uncertain whether they understand the teachers’ correction or not Besides, some students may want to know why something is wrong more than the correction itself (Byrne, 1988) This is also important because knowing the cause will help students avoid

similar mistakes Moreover, students may lose their confidence if the teacher covers the paper with his/her correction of many or all errors, which is often the case in intermediate language classes Brannon and Knoblauch (1982, p.158-159) state that “This correcting also tends to show students that the teacher’s agenda is more important than their own, that they wanted to say is less relevant than the teacher’s impression of what they should have said One consequence is often a diminishing of students’ commitment to communicate ideas that they value and even a diminishing of the incentive to write” Thus, teachers’ response needs to be mild and appreciative

of the learners' own ideas, style and favorite techniques To fulfill this job, teachers are advised to

“serve as a sound board" to help writers clarify their intention, to “see confusions in their text and

to explore alternatives that they may not have considered” (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982, p.162)

1.2.7.3 Overlooking the students’ varying levels of writing ability

Another common problem in teachers' written response is that they often give the same feedback

to every students’ writing In fact, learners are different in terms of their language proficiency, competence, ability, creativity, meta-cognition, etc As a result, they are distinct in terms of writing ability as well as comprehension and desire to receive teacher feedback It has been shown that low-ability writers expect “to revise from a narrow outlook and make changes addressing the surface grammatical structure of composition, usually at the level of word, rather than deeper issues of content and organization” (Porte, 1999, p.19) High-ability students, however, "tend to concentrate on getting the content right first and leaves details like correcting spelling, punctuation and grammar until later” (Hedge, 1990, p.23)

Taking the students' varying levels of writing into consideration is, therefore, of great importance

as it enables teachers to choose the most effective way of giving feedback Additionally, accomplishing this task “gives information not only about individual learners but also the whole class's learning process” (Lewis, 2002, p.1) It leads teachers to see which of the language aspects being introduced are really absorbed into students' language use Ferris et al (1995) recommends that writing teachers should respond somewhat differently to students of varying ability levels

1.2.8 Principles of teachers’ written feedback

Even though over the past few years, there has been a widespread debate over the issue of feedback, there is “no clear set of universal guidelines that will guarantee such a supportive and positive experience for all students”, (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996: 377) because there is a great deal of diversity regarding language teaching, teachers, learners, topics and institutional constraints

This shift of paradigm and focus in the teaching and feedback on writing over the years that reflects a change in the theories of language is also observed by Richards and Renandya (2002) The current paradigm in feedback focuses on communication and process, as opposed to the traditional one that focused on language and product Ferris (2003) provides a list of considerations concerning teacher feedback which focuses on communication and process; the most important of which are the following:

+ Feedback should include all the aspects that relate to writing, such as content, structure and grammar This is of importance, as good writing theoretically and philosophically involves several parameters that relate to all the different kinds of competence that have been discussed in the previous subsection As with every other skill in language learning, learners should be expected to demonstrate a balanced combination of all these aspects that constitute good writing

+ Feedback should be comprehensible and non-appropriative In order for feedback to help the learners’ development, it must be clear and systematic, so that learners’ errors are made obvious in order to minimize ambiguity and vagueness

+ Feedback has to take into consideration contextual variable, especially in the case of L2learners Background knowledge and prior experience, will be reflected upon a learner’s text, meaning that there are particular cultural and linguistic norms in the target language that need to

be explained Unlike the first two that are a posteriori consideration, that is considerations to be made after the learners have submitted their writing, this third point can also be taken into account in the priori stage, which is the instruction The more prior experiences leading to particular deficiencies are taken into consideration in the instruction stage, the less there will be traces of incapability to deal with particular forms of writing

In summary, the chapter has so far touched upon issues relating to the topic of the study It has discussed issues concerning writing in general and teacher feedback in particular - approaches to teaching writing, the purposes, the focus, the types and the forms of feedback as well as some problems in teachers’ written response On the basis, the chapter has recommended principles of teacher’ written feedback following some well-known scholars The following chapters will display the methodology and the findings under the light of the above-discussed theoretical

background to the teaching writing and theoretical background to feedback

CHAPTER II : METHODOLOGY

This chapter is designed to give a brief description of research methods used during the process of doing the thesis It presents the information about the context of the study, the textbook, the respondents, instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis as well

2.1 The context of the study

The sudy was conducted at Ngo Gia Tu high school, Tu Son town, Bac Ninh province, which has been recognized as a standard national school The school has 40 classrooms, a multi-functioned room which is used for physical education activities and large meetings This year, the school has

1340 students, with an average of 45 students per class There are nine teachers of English and seventy others teaching different subjects Most of them are young and have B.A degree

Most of the school students come from the surrounding communes Their parents are farmers so their living condition is not really good After school, they have to help their mothers with housework and farming However, most of their parents devote to making their learning condition best With respect to English subject, each class receives three periods a week The teaching equipment includes the textbooks, some cassette players for listening and an audio-visual room The students are taught merely the content prescribed in nationally authorized textbooks They are poor at English Most of them said that they wanted to improve their English proficiency but they couldnot They only learnt English for exams So, they are mainly provided with grammatical structures, limited vocabulary and language skills which consist of speaking, listening, reading and writing Of the four skills, writing is considered one of the most boring and difficult to master The writers have to pay attention to skills of planning and organizing as well

as skills of spelling, punctuation, word choice and so on The difficulty becomes even more serious because the students’ language proficiency is weak

This study is conducted with the hope to help both teachers and students aware of the importance

of giving feedback and effective ways to give feedback on student writing

Each 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 45 minutes

As one of the three textbooks, “Tieng Anh 11” textbook consists of sixteen units, each of which is sub-divided into five sections The writing lesson which is the fourth in each unit introduced after reading, speaking and listening is designed in the light of theme-based and task-based approaches Each section consists of some tasks and activities with the aim of helping students improve their writing skills of different topics such as writing personal letters, invitation letters or describing information in a table 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 After that, students are required to produce texts of 120-130 words on familiar topics based on models or prompts for personal or basic communicative purposes All these activities are carried out in a period of 45 minutes Therefore, students do not have much chance for free writing practice 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 Furthermore, teachers do not have much time to give comments on the students’ writings or ask them to write multi drafts

2.3 Participants

The subjects of the study are the two groups of grade 11 with the total of 90 students and 8 teachers who are currently teaching English at the school These students were selected as a subset of the population by means of cluster random sampling This means that instead of randomly selecting individuals, the researcher randomly selected classes for investigation It is convenient for the investigator to observe the participants complete the questionnaires in class

Of the 90 students, 41 are male and 49 are female Most of these students have learnt Ennglish for eight or nine years Their ages range from 16 to 17 61% of these students assumed that their English writing performance was fair and 20% of them said that they were poor at writing Accordingly, the majority of the study subjects are not good at writing

The eight teachers participating in the study are teaching English in the school All of them are female teachers Their ages range from 30 to 35 years old All of them hold a B.A in English One has taught English for 6 years; the rest have more than ten years teaching experience They all have taught writing for 6 years since the writing section was separated from others in new English text books Most of them are willing to participate in the survey with the hope that the results will help them have better understanding on feedback giving

Access to the teachers and students would not be a problem as the researcher proposed to distribute the questionnaires to those who are learning and working within her own department

2.4 Instruments for Data Collection

In this study, in order to obtain adequate data for the study, three main instruments were used They were document analysis, questionnaire and follow-up interviews Data gathered was normally largely qualitative, but it might also be quantitative

2.4.1 Questionnaire for Students

This survey questionnaire was divided into two parts Part one was designed to get the sttudents’ personal information which includes their gender, their learning experience (the number of years they have been studying English) and their English writing performance (according their assessment) Part two elicits information concerning the students’ opinions about teachers’ feedback, factors affecting their comprehension of feedback, and their recommendations to improve it There are eleven questions, of which, likert scale was used for question 1, 3, 6 and question 11 was the only open-ended one

Question 1 examines what students think of the importance of their teachers’ written feedback Question 2 to question 8 and question 11 work out the students’ opinions on teachers responding practice in terms of the feedback types, feedback focus and the evaluation of the feedback forms Questions 9 and 10 are expected to find out factors affecting students’ comprehension of teachers’ feedback and what strategies students often use to solve the problem

The aim of the student questionnaire is to investigate what they really think of their teachers’ feedback, what their preferred feedback types and forms are, and what problems they have when handling the teachers' feedback On this basis, the researcher will give some suggestions to improve the currently used methods for the students’ benefit

2.4.2 Questionnaire for Teachers

This also consists of two main parts Part one is about teachers’ personal information such as their gender, their ages and their teaching experience Part two examines the teachers’ purposes of providing feedback, their preferred methods, the various types and forms of feedback they use as well as any strategies used to help the student process their comments effectively and their own problems in constructing and providing feedback The teacher questionnaire comprises 11 questions Question 3, 4, 5 were designed in the form of Likert scale arranged from (1) frequently, (2) sometimes, (3) never The last one is open-ended

Question 1 to question 6 aims at finding the teachers’ practice of giving feedback, the frequency

of teachers’ written feedback to each student’s composition, the frequency of using the forms as well as the types of feedback when responding to student writing and the focus of feedback Question 7 to question 9 are expected to find out how teachers help students process feedback effectively The purpose of these questions is to justify whether there is a problematic issue in teachers’ written feedback or not

Question 10 deals with the teachers’ problems in responding to the student writing Together with question 7, it is hoped to find out the causes of the current problems

Question 11 helps the teachers in general and the author in particular find out good recommendations to improve the current feedback at Ngo Gia Tu high achool and thus help the students to revise their papers more effectively

2.4.3 Follow-up Interview

A follow-up interview with two teachers was carried out after the teachers had finished answering the questionnaire It was implemented in Vietnamese in the form of conversation between the researcher and two teachers who are teaching English to the students chosen as respondents for this study The interview was semi-structured with a list of open-ended questions In fact, the questions in the interview were based on those in the questionnaire Each conversation lasted 15-

20 minutes during which the teachers could further explain their rationale for providing feedback and their current practice as well as the problems they encounter in giving feedback on student writing The data were recorded, transcribed, and then translated into English

2.4.4 Document analyses of teachers' written feedback

Writing samples with the two teachers’ written feedback were randomly collected and analyzed The teacher feedback provided by the two teachers include three writing tasks of unit 12, 14 and

15 of 11th form textbook These were carried out to describe current practice of feedback giving involving responding method, the feedback focus, feedback types and forms, as well as their problems in responding to the students’ writing Hopefully, this information will be used to confirm the results from other sources so that the result of this study will be more reliable

2.5 Data Collection Procedures

The whole process was divided into 3 steps: First, the questionnaires were handed out for both teachers and students Second, the interviews with two teachers were conducted Last, teachers’ written commentary on the students’ writing compositions were examined and analyzed

At the first step, the teacher questionnaire was handed out to the eight teachers While the teachers were completing the questions, the researcher also was there to give clarification if any confusion arose After that, 90 sheets of the questionnaires for the students were distributed to the students during the class time Before the questionnaire was completed, the researcher took time

to explain the purposes of the questionnaire, the requirements of the respondents Then they were constructed to complete the questionnaire They were also encouraged to raise any question if there was anything unclear in the survey questionnaire

After the teachers finished answering the teacher questionnaire, the researcher went on to make interviews with two teachers She had the discussion with them to understand more about their rationale of feedback giving and their current feedback giving practice

At the last step, from the second semester of the school year, the students’writing regarding teachers’ written feedback of the two classes were collected by the researcher The students were all willing to lend their writings after the researcher ensured them that their name would not be identified in the discussion of the data The copies of these writings contained handwritten commentary provided by the two teachers However, the researcher chose randomly some papers

to analyze because these papers were used as the sample of writings collected from the large number of documented students’ writings

In short, these instruments were used to get information of teacher’s feedback giving practice and the students’ reactions towards the feedback they received The respondents involved in the study were 90 11th form students and 8 English teachers at Ngo Gia Tu high school They were randomly selected to answer the questionnaire, to participate in the interview, and to provide documents for analysis The following part will reveal the analysis of the data collected

2.6 Data Analysis

2.6.1 Data analysis of questionnaire for teachers and direct interview

2.6.1.1 Teacher practice of giving feedback (question 1- question 6)

* Purpose of teacher feedback (question 1)

As can be seen from the table below, teachers might provide feedback to the student writing for several reasons 100% of the teachers agree that they give feedback so that their students can promote the writing Besides, 62% of them respond to the student writing in order to search and point out students’ strength and weakness Half of them use feedback as a means to enable

students to evaluate their progress Only a quarter of them believe that feedback is meant to justify the grade they give to the student writing Surprisingly, 3 in 8 teachers respond to the student writing to demonstrate that teachers are more knowledgeable than their learners Only one teacher uses feedback to enhance the relationship between teachers and students According to the information obtained from the survey, we conclude that most teachers in Ngo Gia Tu high school are in agreement that they give feedback so as to provide students with information and advice about their writing performance, which helps them to develop their writing ability

a to help students improve their writing 8 100

b to enable students to evaluate their progress 4 50

c to justify the grade you give to their writing 2 25

d to inform students that you are more knowledgeable than them 3 37

e to search and point out students' strength and weakness 5 62

f to enhance the relationship between you and students 1 12

Table 2.1 : Teachers’ purposes of giving feedback

Furthermore, when asked “Do you think giving feedback on the student writing is important?” in the interview, both of the teachers appreciate feedback for different reasons as follows :

+ Giving feedback to the student writing is very very important for two reasons Firstly, feedback enables students to realize what level they have achieved in writing and it shows students where they are wrong and how to get it right Secondly, feedback may motivate students

to write better

+ Feedback is really important It can be seen as a kind of evaluation, which shows my students at what level of competence they are Thanks to my feedback, students can realize whether their ideas, structures, vocabulary in their writing are correct and how to correct them

Obviously, both teachers are in agreement that the teacher feedback on the student writing plays a very important role in helping improve students’ writing skills

* Frequency of teacher feedback to each assignment(question 2)

The number of times the teachers give feedfack to each writing composition reveals the feedback approach they employ The figures below show that 7 in 8 teachers use one-shot commentary to

respond to the student writing, which means they respond once an assignment and grade it at the same time This approach is said to be used in traditional classes and there is doubt that responding in this way does not really help learners write better Of the 8 subjects, only one teacher seems to apply multiple drafts approach She comments on the first draft and then evaluates in the form of grading on the second draft This teacher may aware of the distinction between responding and evaluating She seems to realize the benefit of the process feedback, which leads students to write multiple drafts and to improve both the form and content of their compositions effectively based on teachers’ feedback

* Frequency of the teacher feedback types (question 3)

Table 2.2 : Frequency of teacher feedback types

According to the information from the table, 75% of the subjects in the survey use negative feedback frequently instead of positive one They tend to indicate the students’ problems rather than praise them for their strong points The same number of the teachers say that they utilize formative feedback rather than summative one, which means that they often intervene and act immediately to correct the errors in the students’ papers This might cause an unexpected

situation noticed by Ferris and Hedgcock (1998, p 29) that “excessive attention to word or

Chart 2.1 : Times of teacher feedback on each assignment

88%

Twice/ assignment three times/ assignment

sentence level concerns is premature and may even short - circuit the attention from macro level revision to micro level correction” To gather more information, the author has asked two

teachers about the types of feedback they use One of them said that she underlined the incorrect words or sentences and then wrote the correct ones next to the wrong sentences This means that she uses both negative and formative feedback The other said that she often pointed out the errors and types of those errors and asked students to correct themselves

To sum up, the majority of the teachers have tendency to utilize negative and specific feedback frequently because they feel that their students would appreciate the critical comments as it is of great help in improving the students’ writing but they do not realize that positive comments sometimes are used as a means to motivate students in their writing and revising Besides, the teachers also utilize formative comments, indicating and correcting mistakes at the same time This technique does not get students to involve in correcting their own work

* Focus of the teacher feedback (question 4)

Table 2.3 : Focus of teacher feedback

The data in the table show that teachers’ comments mainly focus on the form The content is paid little attention to 87% and 75% of the respondents frequently focus their feedback on grammar and vocabulary respectively meanwhile 50% of them sometimes focus their feedback on content, language use, cohesion and coherence of the writing In the interview, both of the teachers express their view that they put emphasis on responding to grammar, vocabulary, cohesion and

coherence because they explain that the writing lesson at high school level is a kind of guided writing The learners are provided with the model and sometimes the content of the writing Therefore, there is nothing to comment on the content Additionally, most of the teachers agree that the correction of language use is very necessary 50% of them frequently give feedback on these errors and other 50% sometimes utilize it They state that their students often make this type

of errors due to their poor vocabulary (repetition) or their translation (socio-cultural errors) Moreover, using correct words in a proper context and using correct structures in a sentence will make a composition valuable For other aspects namely mechanics, paragraph constructions and styles, the majority of the teachers (more than 50%) sometimes comment on these mistakes They say that most of their learners often make these errors because they are at poor grade in English

In sum, the teachers usually give feedback on their student writing , focusing mainly on form not

on content, which is not relevant to the effective feedback stated in the literature review

* Forms of the teacher feedback (question 5)

Marking errors, but not actually 0 5 (62%) 3 (38%)

Table 2.4 : Forms of teacher feedback

As can be seen from the table, feedback in the form of imperatives is frequently used by 5 teachers (62 %) The rest sometimes use it This indicates that most of the teachers find this form beneficial to their students because they give direct orders or request Besides, 50% of the respondents frequently use question form When being asked why they use this form, the two teachers in the interview state that question form is very useful for students as it may stimulate students’ thinking process, for example, students wonder why their sentences do not work or their

ideas should be changed As a result, it helps to improve their papers Likewise, “underlining errors and indicating the types of errors” is another form that the teachers also use (38 %

frequently; 62 % sometimes) This form is considered a helpful tool which provides instruction for the writers to correct their mistakes The other forms such as statements, exclamation or merely identifying the location of errors are sometimes employed by most teachers

* Treatment with too many errors in the student writing (question 6)

Chart 2.2 Teachers' treament with too many errors in the

c correct most but not necessary all of the major errors

d correct the errors that you consider the most important

e correct all repeated errors

f correct no errors, respond only to the ideas expressed

An issue should be raised when responding to the student writing is that if there are too many errors in the students’ papers, what the teachers should do When investigating this issue in the survey, the researcher has found the following results The information in the chart states that 62% of the respondents correct all the major errors, ignoring the minor ones When being asked what is the reason for doing this, they say that errors in grammar, vocabulary and language use are very important and should be corrected Meanwhile, the minor ones such as spelling, punctuation need not be corrected because the learners may make these errors by accident and they can correct by themselves Besides, 25% of the teachers correct all the errors both major and minor ones No teachers choose solution d,e,f

2.6.1.2 Teachers’ help for students’ process of feedback (question 7- question 9)

* Teachers’ consideration of students’ varying levels of writing ability when giving feedback

In terms of this issue, the author has received surprising results from the survey questionnaire 7 teachers (87%) take this matter into consideration They select suitable vocabulary and structures

to give feedback so that the learners can process the feedback effectively In general, the teachers usually utilize simple words and structures when giving feedback because it can be sure that all

the learners with different levels are able to understand the teacher comment Only one participant shows that she has never taken notice of this Simply, that question never occurs in her mind

* Teachers’ explanation of strategies used in giving feedback (question8)

When asked the next item in the questionnaire whether the teachers explain feedback strategies to the writers before using them, 100% of the respondents admit that they have never done this They assume that their students would understand their feedback strategies, but in practice, students usually get confused and they do not understand the implication in the feedback

* Students’ response to the teacher feedback they receive (question 9)

100 % of the teachers admit that they have never asked their students to tell what they think about the feedback they receive The teachers have missed an opportunity to get to know how the students address all the teachers’ comment and why they disregard some of them, as for the writers, especially for those who are shy, not self-confident, they would never have a chance to express their own feelings or opinions on the feedback they receive Additionally, the teachers in the interview argue that they have never asked their students such question because they do not have enough time to do so The writing lesson of lasts 45 minutes With such period of time, they only have enough time to guide students to write and let them some time finish their papers 2.6.1.3 Teachers’ obstacles and their recommendation (question 10- 11)

* Teachers’ obstacles in giving feedback on the student writing (question 10)

In this survey, 75% of the respondents complain that written comment is often time- consuming and that they spend more time correcting than their students spend looking at the correction as the learners are not interested in the teacher feedback The teachers do not have time to check and process the students’ revisions (the second or final draft) One instructor reveals that the learners often make mistakes again The teacher also adds one more problem as sometimes, the students are lazy and copy sample writing from reference books As a result, the writing papers of different students are the same and teachers give no comment on those writing papers

* Teachers’ recommendation to improve the current feedback (question 11)

With limited time of a writing period and a large class size as current situation, most teachers in this study say that they cannot evaluate how effective their feedback is Therefore, most of them expect that a writing lesson in each unit should be lasted at least two teaching periods so that the teaching writing will be carried out as a process and the teacher feedback on the writing will be

on multiple drafts Accordingly, their students will be more engaged in the teacher feedback

2.6.2 Document analysis of the teacher feedback

Due to the fact that each unit in textbook 11 consists of one writing period with one topic for writing, all the teachers state that they do not have enough time to ask students to write multiple drafts for each topic and they can not apply multiple drafts approach to feedback giving because it

is very time-consuming They always respond once an assignment Therefore, the researcher collected students’ writing papers of unit 12, 14 and unit 15 including three topics: Describing the preparations for the coming Asian Games; Describing a camping holiday and Writing a biography, using them to analyse the way in which the two teacher respondents provide feedback The results of this analysis will help the researcher to get further information to justify the points

of the teachers’ answers to the survey questionnaire on the student writing

2.6.2.1 The first teacher

As can be seen from the feedback provided by the first teacher in Appendix 3, it is immediately realized that all the errors and mistakes both major and minor such as punctuation, incorrect spelling are underlined by red ink and given immediate correction However, the literature suggests that not every single error should be corrected This is affirmed by Penaflorida (2002) that correcting every single error by red ink and providing brief marginal comments make learners focus on form and not on the actual substance of their writing

In terms of the focus of feedback, she almost gives comments on form, not on content She always gives comments on vocabulary, spelling, grammar, verb tense and form Feedback on paragraph construction is never given even when the students’ writing does not include concluding sentence (see paper1 in Appendix 3) She only puts a tick (√) at the end of the writing

In all the sample writings of the first teacher, she gives positive but general comment like “Good”

in the margin She does not refer to any specific point in the paragraph, which may make students confused what the teacher refers to, whether their ideas or their grammar is good She sometimes gives summative feedback at the end of the papers but all of them are negative The learners may

be offended and become worried about their writing ability

Another point worths mentioning is that she uses feedback forms that are not informative enough

to help learners understand their errors She responds in the form of incomplete sentences like

“too many errors on spelling, word choice, verbs…” (paper 3) or an exclamation (paper 1) These

forms of the teacher feedback do not help students to revise their papers successfully

One of the main weaknesses of the first teacher is that she responds and grades the paper at the same time (paper 3 and 4) She provides feedback once an assignment Obviously, She turns each paper into a mini test Receiving marks, students may not revise their papers

2.6.2.2 The second teacher

Regarding the feedback provided by the second teacher, she also concerns all errors like the first teacher She uses red ink to mark the errors and to make her correction She corrects all the errors but does not indicate their types Thus, the students can only revise that writing and the teacher can not be sure whether her students repeat these types of errors in their next writing or not

The second teacher’s comment focuses both on form and content like “Good idea organization ” (paper 3) or “No concluding sentence” (paper 2) Her comments on language use, word choice

and verb tense are very clear and specific Also, her response to idea organization, paragraph construction is rather informative, which enables students to fully develop their writing

Another point needed to be discussed is that she gives both formative and summative comments

to most students’ papers using different forms of feedback such as imperative and exclamation The teacher marks the errors and gives explicit explanation and correction Her end comments include both good points and bad points Basing on this feedback, students can not only rewrite their papers successfully but they also feel motivated with the teacher’s praise Thus, it is better if teachers strive for a balance, providing some praise for students’ efforts but not forgetting their crucial instructional role of helping students to improve what they have done badly

However, like the first teacher, she simultaneously responds and grades the writing She also only responds once to the student writing As with one- shot commenting and grading at the same time, she gives students no chance to develop and present their ideas more effectively and what is more, they may get the mark and toss their paper in the rubbish bin and forget it all

In conclusion, the results from the review of the way in which these two teachers respond to their students’ writing and the survey questionnaire show that there is mismatch between teachers’ practice and the theory provided by linguists Although linguistic theory can not be considered as overall, it is invaluable in that it helps teachers underpin their practice The teacher feedback on the student writing is one of the problematic issues in teaching writing at high school level

2.6.3 Data analysis of questionnaire for students

2.6.3.1 The importance of teacher feedback to the writing as perceived by students (Q 1)

2.6.3.2 The students’ expectation for teachers’ responding practice (question 2-8,11)

* Students’ expectation for frequency of teacher feedback on each paper (question 2)

Chart 2.4 : Students' expectation for frequency

of teacher feedback on each assignment

pleased with just one-shot commenting Perhaps, these students are lazy to revise their papers several times or they lack motivation in enhancing their writing skills

* Students’ attention to the teacher feedback (question 3)

* Students’ expectation for teacher feedback type (question 4)

Table 2.5 : Students’ expectation for teacher feedback types

As mentioned in the table, most of the students (72%) expect their teachers to give formative/ specific feedback This implies that these students may be at low level proficiency and can not revise their papers without teachers’ detailed feedback Additionally, 15% of the students want their teachers to give praise instead of criticism on their papers Some of them feel more motivated when receiving positive feedback A small number of respondents are in favor of negative and summative feedback As stated in the literature review, each type of feedback

reveals its benefit Therefore, when giving comments teachers should provide simultaneously positive and negative feedback, formative and summative comments to the student writing

* Students’ expectation for the focus of teacher feedback (question 5)

As can be seen from the table below, 82% of the students prefer their teachers to focus the feedback on grammar About the same number want the feedback to be focused on vocabulary It can be said that most informants prefer more feedback on form rather than on content (43%) for following reasons First, the writing lesson at grade 11 is a kind of guided writing The learners are provided with models, structures even content for writing The learners’ task is using suggested information to write a complete paragraph However, they do not realize that a good writing paper is not merely the combination of grammatically correct sentences but it also reveals the good language use, suitable organization (including coherence and cohesion) and the unity of topic sentence and supporting ideas Second, the figures in table 2.3 show that teachers frequently focus their feedback on grammar and vocabulary So, students only try to avoid these types of errors The statistics in table 2.6 also indicate that 48% of the students expect the teacher comment to be focused on language use; 42% on paragraph construction and 40% on idea organization

Focus of feedback Number of students Percentage

Table 2.6 : Students’ expectation for the focus of teacher feedback

* Usefulness of teacher feedback forms (question6)

The results presented in the table below show that among the forms used to provide feedback,

Questions and Marking errors but not actually correcting them are considered to be useless by

more than 50% of the students because this feedback form provides no suggestion or instruction for the learners to correct their mistakes, especially when the whole sentence is underlined

without any comment In contrast, such feedback forms as Imperatives, Statements, Exclamations

are assessed by the majority of students (statements: 78% of the students; imperatives: 82%; exclamations: 71%) as very useful and useful They express the view that imperative feedback form brings much benefit because the teachers give direct order which help them revise their writing more effectively They also feel satisfied with both exclamation and statement forms as they want their teachers to express the attitude towards their papers Besides, the learners feel

very pleased with the technique Underlining errors and indicating the types of errors Doing like

this, the teachers have supplied students with error types so that they can correct the errors by themselves when revising their drafts

Forms of feedback Very useful Useful Useless

Marking errors, but not actually… 3 (4%) 20 (22%) 67 (74%)

Underlining errors and indicating… 51 (56%) 36 (40%) 3 (4%)

Table 2.7 : Usefulness of teacher feedback forms as perceived by students

* Students’ expectation for teachers’ indication of errors in the writing (question 7)

When asked another item in the survey questionnaire “How do you want your teacher to indicate

an error in your written work?”, 45% of the students want their teachers to cross out what is incorrect and to give direct correction However, 51% of them prefer their teachers to indicate the errors and give clue about how to correct it These learners state that they can use the teacher comment as the instruction to correct their mistakes Thus, they can avoid making such mistakes again Only 4 students want their instructors to merely pay attention to the ideas expressed

* What the teacher should do if there are many errors in the writing (question 8)