the types of feedback used by teachers of english at vietnam university of commerce and their effectiveness on improving oral presentation skills of the second year – english major students

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ HƢƠNG THE TYPES OF FEEDBACK USED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AT VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS ON IMPROVING ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH – MAJOR STUDENTS (CÁC LOẠI PHẢN HỒI TỪ GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI VÀ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA CHÚNG ĐẾN VIỆC HOÀN THIỆN KỸ NĂNG THUYẾT TRÌNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Hanoi, 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ HƢƠNG THE TYPES OF FEEDBACK USED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AT VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS ON IMPROVING ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH – MAJOR STUDENTS (CÁC LOẠI PHẢN HỒI TỪ GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI VÀ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA CHÚNG ĐẾN VIỆC HOÀN THIỆN KỸ NĂNG THUYẾT TRÌNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Nguyễn Hƣơng Giang, M.A Hanoi, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Certification……………………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………… ii Abstract………………………………………………………………… ………………iii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale……………………………………………………………………… ………1 Aims of the study……………………………………………………………… …… Scope of the study…………………………………………………… ……………… Method of the study…………………………………………………………………… Design of the study…………………………………………………………………… PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Oral presentation 1.1.1 Definitions and characteristics…………………………………… ……….………4 1.1.2 Oral presentation organization………………………………… ………….………5 1.1.3 Teaching oral presentation skills…………………………………………… ……6 1.2 Feedback 1.2.1 Definitions of feedback…………………………………………………………… 1.2.2 Types of teacher feedback on oral presentation………………………………… 10 1.3 Effects of teacher feedback on improving students’ oral presentation skills…….….12 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Situation analysis 2.1.1 Context of the study…………………………………………….…………… … 16 2.1.2 Subjects of the study…………………………………………….……… ……….17 2.2 Data collection instruments………………………………………………………….17 2.3 Data analysis…………………………………………………… …………………19 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Findings 3.1.1 Teachers’ use of feedback on students’ oral presentation.………… … ……….20 iv 3.1.2 Effectiveness of teacher feedback on students’ oral presentation skills……… 23 3.2 Discussions 3.2.1 Students’ attitude toward oral presentation skills and teacher feedback……… 27 3.2.2 Teachers’ feedback and its effectiveness on improving students’ oral presentation skills…………………………………………………………….…………………… …29 3.2.2.1 Strategic feedback…………………………………….………………… …… 30 3.2.2.2 Corrective feedback………………………………….……………… ……… 30 3.2.2.3 Evaluative feedback………………………………….……………… ……… 31 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study…………………………………………………………… … 33 Recommendations…………………………… …………………………………… 34 Limitations and suggestions……………………… …………………………………35 REFERENCES………………………………………………….……………………… 37 APPENDIX 1…………………………………………………………………………… I APPENDIX 2…………………………………………………………………………….IV v PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale There is a considerable amount of research which confirms that presentation skills are essential skills that need to be taught to students because of their popularity in most working places Morley (2006) points out that oral presentation skills are essential for employability and true academic study as they lead students to enter into debate and sustained reasoning Oral presentation tasks enable students to fully participate in their learning, show their persuasiveness, their influence on whatever they want to in the future and help them develop competency in a vital area of their work Furthermore, Powell (2003) states that through the process of presenting, individuals not only become fully effective in organization, management and expression of ideas and arguments but also have many advantages when they write a report or an essay However, giving oral presentation is one of the most difficult skills for students because it not only requires them to produce the language most of the time, spontaneously or without enough time to construct the appropriate and correct utterances but also calls for all aspects of language to be involved Due to a lack of English exposure in non-English speaking countries, most Vietnamese learners not have sufficient opportunity to improve their oral proficiency in English Therefore, language teachers play important roles in helping students to improve their oral presentation skills Current tendencies in education, especially teaching foreign languages, are more student-centered than teacher-centered In student-centered pedagogy, the teacher moves from the traditional role as an authoritative expert to the new role of a facilitator in students’ learning This new trend requires teachers to create a supportive learning atmosphere, acquire interaction skills, develop cooperative learning skills and know how to apply technology in improving effectiveness of their teaching Furthermore, working with students on oral presentation is a challenging job for teachers since it not only requires teachers’ skill and knowledge about speech communication and public speaking but also calls for more time and effort in lesson planning and teaching strategies (King, 2002) Moreover, due to students’ lack of chances to communicate with English native speakers, teacher feedback to students’ speech is of great importance Orsmond et al (2005) suppose that students use feedback to enhance motivation and learning, to encourage reflection and clarify understanding In addition, while good feedback can have an impact on students’ motivation and autonomy, bad feedback, on the other hand, can become a demotivating factor to their learning process Therefore, the kind of feedback and the way feedback should be given to the students so that it fosters their learning and improves their oral presentation skills is quite frustrating – the problem that most teachers of English in Vietnam encounter in their speaking classes As a result, teaching oral presentation skills at Vietnam University of Commerce (VCU) causes certain difficulties for teachers With the hope of contributing to a more effective oral presentation teaching and learning in VCU, a minor study was carried out to find out how teacher feedback can help to improve oral presentation skills of the second year English – major students at this university Aims of the study This study examines the types of feedback which are mainly used by teachers of English at VCU when their second year English – major students give oral presentations; thenceforth, finds out how effectively each type of feedback contributes to enhancing students’ oral presentation skills as perceived by students With a view to achieving the aims of the study, the research questions will be addressed as follows: What types of feedback are mainly used by teachers of English at VCU when their second year English – major students make oral presentations? How those types of feedback contribute to the improvement of oral presentation skills of the second year English – major students as perceived by students? Scope of the study Due to the framework of this minor thesis, limited time and experience, the researcher cannot discuss all the aspects related to the broad topic of teacher feedback The research just focuses on finding the types of feedback teachers at VCU give to their English major students when they deliver their speech Moreover, the researcher hopes to provide significant insights into what teachers to respond to students’ oral presentation and effectiveness of some certain kinds of feedback in promoting students’ presenting skills which leads to some suggestions for improving teacher feedback and helping students to make the best use of teacher feedback to enhance their oral presentation skills Method of the study In order to realize the aims, this study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods: A survey questionnaire was done on 126 second year English-major students at Vietnam University of Commerce to collect their opinions on the types of teachers’ feedback they received and the effectiveness of these types of feedback on improving students’ oral presentation skills Interviews were conducted with 10 students in order to explore further issues being investigated Design of the study This study has three parts: Part A – Introduction, Part B – Development including literature review, methodology, findings and discussions and Part C – Conclusion The introduction part presents the rationale, aims and scope of the study, method of the study and organization of the study The literature review chapter conceptualizes the framework of the study through the discussions of issues and ideas on theories of oral presentation and feedback The methodology chapter includes situation analysis, data collection instruments and data analysis The findings and discussions chapter indicates the results of the study, from which major findings and some discussions are revealed The conclusion part 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 B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Oral presentation 1.1.1 Definition and characteristics An oral presentation, according to the learning centre of New South Wales University, is “a short talk on a set topic given to a tutorial or seminar group”, in which one or more students present views on a topic based on their readings or research From this view, we can see that oral presentation is the practice of showing or explaining the content of a topic to audience(s), so that it can come in nearly as many forms as there are in life situations Ohio Wesleyan University, in their “Guidelines for Oral Presentation” shares the opinion that oral presentations are “brief discussions of a focused topic delivered to a group of listeners in order to impart knowledge or to stimulate discussion” Mentioning characteristics of oral presentation, Clark supposes that both presentations and reports are “ways of communicating ideas and information to a group”, however, a presentation not only allows immediate and direct interaction between participants but also carries the speakers’ personality better than a report does As far as he is concerned, a good presentation has at least for elements Firstly, it has content which contains information people need, yet, it depends on the amount of information that the audience can absorb at certain time Next, an oral presentation has structure which requires a logical beginning, middle and end so that the audience can understand it During the process of wandering among different parts of the presentation, the presenter must keep to hold the floor and not to loose the audience Another important element is packaging, it means that the presentation must be well – prepared for the audience is at the mercy of the speaker Last but not least, a good presentation has human in it which makes it better to remember and differentiates it from a report To be more detailed, Comfort (as cited in Ha, Nguyen Thi Van, 2007:11) identifies the criteria which can be used to evaluate an effective oral presentation: Over all: - awareness of the audience - clear objectives System: - planning – have a clear structure and a sense of timing - organization – have clear connections between the different parts of ideas - information – make sure that it is interesting and relevant to your audience - impact – make sure to have strong introduction and conclusions Delivery: - clear, simple, and fluent - use of natural spoken language - use of pauses for emphasis Body language: - use of strong, clear gestures for emphasis - good eye contact with the audience - positive, confident, and relaxed manner - no distracting gestures Visual aids: - clear and simple messages - efficient, professional use of equipment 1.1.2 Oral presentation organization A number of researchers on oral presentation share the opinion that an oral presentation consists of three main parts: the introduction, body and conclusion (see Comfort: 1995; Dwyer: 2000; Emden & Backer: 2004) In which the introduction aims to state the topic and get the audience’s attention The learning centre of New South Wales University mentions that “An introduction is like a road map that tells your audience the direction your presentation will take” Because it gives the audience a preview of the presentation, it is necessary to capture their attention and stimulate them at this stage Although an introduction is advised to be short and briefly informative, it should include greeting the audience, introducing the name of the presenter; stating the topic and the purpose of the presentation; providing an outline of the main points and necessary background or some definition of terms Lewis & Reinders (2003:95) adds that at this stage, it is necessary to mention when the audience may ask questions, either to interrupt the presenter during his speech or at the end of the presentation Once your audience has a clear idea of what is going to come next, you can start developing the body where the main points, examples and evidence are presented These main points need to be arranged in a way that is clear and easy to understand for both presenter and audiences The information in the body should be well – structured, based on a certain organizing principle; it can be chronological order, theme or order of importance, and so on Also in this part, it is the presenter’s duty to informs, persuades or entertains the audience, so an interesting and lively presentation is determining factor To achieve this, the presenter should use personal experience, examples, facts, illustrations or visual aids, and a very important element – humor Gigliotti (1995) supposes that it will not matter how important the content of a presentation is if it is not heard due to lack of interest Graphic illustrations and visual aids can help to clarify the message, add color to attract your audience and help them easy to memorize your presentation as “A picture is worth a thousand words” The last part of a presentation is the conclusion The conclusion is usually a summary of the main points made in the body of the talk and leave the audience with a final impression of the subject In this part, you should not introduce any new information but take the opportunity to show that you have covered all the points given in the introduction “The ending needs to be dynamic too so that the presentation leaves a lasting impression on the audience and the key points are remembered” (Lewis & Reinders, 2003:95) In this part, the presenter is also suggested to give some remarks or recommendations for the audience to take away as significance or further consideration 1.1.3 Teaching oral presentation skills This literature review presents the ideas of some scholars, researchers, and educators who have contributed so much to the literature on teaching presentation skills and whose theories are highly appreciated 3.2.2.1 Strategic feedback It is quite surprising that strategic feedback is used with the highest frequency and is regarded by students at VCU as the most effective kind of teacher feedback on their oral presentation The findings of this study show that strategic feedback is an important factor which helps the second year English major students to better their presentation skills Interestingly, these findings are different from those in Gattullo’s study (as cited in Al-Fahdi, H.M.) which indicates that evaluative feedback is dominant in second and foreign language classrooms Although strategic feedback is considered as the one which both has the highest frequency of the teacher’s use and the highest effectiveness of the three kinds of feedback (according to the classification of Gattullo and Harmer), here exists a gap between the frequency of the teachers’ strategic feedback and its effect on improving students’ oral presentation skills 89.2% of the respondents suppose that guiding students specifically and giving them advice on particular situations, especially after their presentation is a useful way to enhance their speaking skills because they are given chances to understand their shortcomings deeply and thoroughly However, only 54.8% of the participants agree that their teachers often and always aim at helping students to overcome mistakes by themselves or give advice on what they should to improve their performance If the percentage of strategic feedback using cannot meet the needs of the students, it is because this kind of feedback requires a lot of time and the teachers’ enthusiasm Despite the fact that it will be difficult and take teachers a lot of time to use strategic feedback, it is the most effective feedback which helps to perfect students’ oral presentation skill; hence teachers of English at VCU should take this feedback into consideration and adapt their teaching methods to achieve the desired effect 3.2.2.2 Corrective feedback It is discovered that 72.6% of the participants think that their teacher’s corrective feedback is effective and very effective With this kind of feedback, teachers indicate learners to errors which can take the forms of implicit or explicit correction, and/ or 30 provides students the correct target language form or information about the nature of errors Most of the students mention that corrective feedback has great influence on their oral presentation improvement because the teachers’ focus on making the learners notice and correcting errors helps them a lot with accuracy Some students who are interviewed say that although they put much attention on fluency, accuracy is also the second important factor of a good presenter Surprisingly, only 29.2% say that they are often and always given this feedback for their oral presentation This shows a really big gap between the frequency of corrective feedback and its effectiveness on perfecting students’ oral presentation skills The reason for this low percentage of teachers’ use of corrective feedback, according to the researcher, originates from the teachers’ fear of discouraging students by correcting their mistakes This is understandable because there have been few studies indicating that students have positive attitude towards teacher correction whereas, most researchers have found out that students often feel discouraged or losing face when teacher corrects their mistakes Nevertheless, interviews with some students show that most of students at VCU neither have chances of practicing speaking nor know what oral presentation is at their high school Entering university, they are all conscious of how important oral presentation is to their future job; as a result, teachers’ correction is a rapid and effective way to help them master this difficult skill 3.2.2.3 Evaluative feedback The results from questionnaire indicate that evaluative feedback is regarded by the second year English major students as the least effective of all 67.8% of the respondents find it effective and very effective when teachers provide a judgment on their performance or give mark on their presentation Interviews with students point out that although they are really concerned about the grade, they hope to receive the mark with the comments of the teacher in which the strength and weakness of their presentation are included However, most of them claim that sometimes the teachers just give mark to evaluate students’ ability without explanations or remarks on their performance, this makes them dissatisfied and regard that teacher as lacking responsibility Moreover, only 39.9% of the participants say that teachers frequently use words or phrases to indicate the 31 extent to which their performance is good or not While most students not appreciate the teacher’s criticisms on their oral presentation as they find it embarrassing and discouraging, they highly evaluate the teacher’s comments and judgments which help them to improve their oral presentation skills 32 PART C: CONCLUSION In this part, the summary, recommendations, limitations and suggestions for further study will be discussed Summary of the study The study indicates that the second-year English major students at VCU had positive attitude towards oral presentation skills and fully assessed the role and necessity of mastering this skill for their future jobs Furthermore, most of them highly appreciated the teacher feedback to their oral presentation; they felt encouraged and motivated when receiving teacher feedback The research also explores that of the three kinds of teacher feedback namely corrective feedback, evaluative feedback and strategic feedback, it was quite surprising that teachers used the strategic one with the highest frequency Strategic feedback amounted for 54.8% of the teachers’ feedback, followed by evaluative feedback (39.9%) and corrective feedback one (29.2%) The teachers’ strategic feedback was also considered as the most effective ways of improving and enhancing students’ oral presentation skills since, according to students, teachers’ advice and suggestions could help them a lot in their self-study and encouraged their speaking In terms of corrective feedback, it ranked second in effectiveness of improving students’ oral presentation skills, yet, teachers of English at VCU used it with the lowest level of frequency As far as evaluative feedback was concerned, teachers employed it more frequently than corrective feedback; whereas, the second-year English majors at VCU did not think that it was useful for improving their oral presentation skills Not many of the participants regarded teachers’ evaluative feedback as effective and very effective in helping them make better oral presentations On the whole, there was a mismatch between the proportion of teachers’ using the three kinds of feedback and their effect on improving students’ oral presentation skills The number of teachers who frequently exploited the feedback was much lower than the number of students who expected to receive it; as a result, the 33 teachers had not taken full advantage of the teacher feedback and their effectiveness on bettering students’ oral presentation competence Recommendations The investigation has found out that the second-year English majors at VCU had positive attitude towards teacher feedback and were fully aware of the important role of oral presentation skills for the professional jobs in the future Most students found the teacher feedback encouraging and beneficial for enhancing their presentation competence However, the findings showed that teacher feedback did not seem to meet the needs and expectations of the students Therefore, the teachers should balance the frequency of using these three kinds of feedback during the speaking lessons based on the effects of each kind on oral presentation skills in order to get satisfactory results Noticeably, students highly appreciated strategic feedback; it meant that they would like the teachers to focus on giving advice and strategies and let students correct mistakes themselves This study revealed that most of the second-year English majors at VCU found the teachers’ correction important for their improvement in speaking However, the teacher should not correct all the mistakes students made and should not interrupt their speech to point out errors as this not only made students discouraged and stressful but also hindered communication Instead, teachers should keep recording or taking notes during the students’ oral presentation, and dealing with mistakes later; it is also a good idea for teachers to focus on errors without indicating who made them and asking students to rectify the errors Furthermore, the teachers often used evaluative feedback with some negative commentary while the second-year English majors at VCU regarded it as ineffective and hoped to receive encouraging remarks This situation leads to an important suggestion that teachers should comment on both strength and weakness of the students’ presentation followed by the principle that strong points and some compliments would be given before teachers discussed the weak points of the students’ performance The teacher’s compliments will show students what they have done well so as for them to keep upholding whereas the teacher’s criticism will indicate where they have gone wrong and 34 what they should take into consideration to raise their presentation competence Additionally, most interviewees said that lack of confidence was one of the major problems that led to their oral presentation failures Hence, teachers need to be more encouraging and helpful, especially in their feedback This can be done simply by a nod of the head or a friendly smile while students are making presentations or by giving students more praise, compliments and encouragements than criticism when teachers make comments on students’ performance It is also suggested that when teaching presentations, teachers use a prepared observation feedback form which is divided into sections such as body language, sign posting, and audience rapport After students’ presentations, teachers are highly recommended to give feedback verbally and/or in writing This is due to the fact that students may forget their teachers’ comments right after their performance if they only hear it once Teachers’ feedback in the form of writing gives students chances of thinking twice about the mistakes when they go home It is also necessary for teachers to help students improve both linguistic and nonlinguistic skills as postures and body language such as eye contact, facial expressions are essential factors of making a persuasive and attractive presenter What is more, together with teacher feedback, teacher should make use of peer feedback When being given the chances to assess other students’ oral presentations, they take them more seriously and will learn from their friends’ experience Students merely watching each other presentations tend to get bored while taking part in peer evaluation activities, they gain a firm knowledge of the form and process of making an effective presentation Limitations and suggestions for further study Due to time constraint and lack of experience of the researcher, limitations are unavoidable Firstly, in this study, the researcher focused on the survey questionnaire and interview of the students, so the results from this research reflected the view of students to teacher feedback only If the researcher spent time to work with teachers, to get teacher feedback from teachers’ view as well as the teachers’ conception of feedback, the results 35 would be more objective Secondly, among 150 students who participated in the survey, 126 of them returned the questionnaire to the researcher If there were more respondents, the results of the study would be more worthwhile and reflect the situation more clearly Thirdly, there are a lot of theories for classification of teacher feedback and each type has certain characteristics However, the researcher focused on the theory of Gattullo and Harmer which divided teacher feedback into three types namely corrective feedback, evaluative feedback and strategic feedback; this also restricted the results of the research After doing this research, the writer is tempted to find out the effects of teacher feedback on improving writing skills of the students of English at VCU, especially the teacher feedback that can motivate revision of drafts in writing classes Therefore, in the future, if having chances, the researcher will take this into consideration 36 REFERENCES Al-Fahdi, H.M “English Language Teachers’ Use of Oral Feedback”, Dakhiliya Region: Oman retrieved from www.moe.gov.om/Portal/sitebuilder/sites/ /Ch7.pdf Ayoun, D (2001) “The Role of Negative and Positive Feedback in the Second Language Acquisition of the Passé Compose and Imparfait”, The Modern Language Journal, 85, 226-238 Book, C.L (1983) Providing 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(1996) A Course in Language Teaching, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 50 Van Emden, J & Becker, L (2004) Presentation Skills for Students, Palgrave Macmillan 51 Vo, G (1994) New Ways in Teaching Speaking, “Speaking time”, In Baley, K.M & Savage, L (Eds), 276-277 52 Nguyen Thi Bich Van (2009) Investigating how to improve oral presentation skills for the second-year English majors of the department of foreign languages at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education, University of Language and International Studies, Hanoi 53 Weaver, M.R (2006) “Do Students Value Feedback? Student Perception of Tutors’ Written Responses”, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 31, 3, 379-394 54 Ypsilanddis, G (2002) “Feedback in Distance Education”, Computer assisted language learning, 15, 2, 167-181 40 APPENDIX Questionnaire for students This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into the effects of teacher feedback on improving oral presentation skills Your assistance in responding to the survey is highly appreciated and you will not be identified in any discussion of the data I In completing these questions, please choose the answer by circling the letter next to your choice or expressing your ideas in the blanks How necessary you think it is to learn oral presentation skills in your speaking class? A Very necessary B Necessary C Quite necessary D Not necessary at all What you think is the reason for that necessity? (You can choose more than one) A Making oral presentations is one of the requirements in the university’s syllabus for speaking B Speaking skill is well – practiced through doing oral presentations C It’s a good way to evaluate one’s ability in speaking D It is for us to prepare for our professional ways of working in the future E Others (please specify)……………………………………………………………….……… In what way you find delivering a presentation difficult? (You can choose more than one) A I cannot make a good voice variation (with stress & intonation) B I am not good at using body language such as eye contact, facial expression, and hand gestures C I feel nervous in front of the audience D I not know how to handle with the audience’s questions E Others (please specify)………………………………………………………………….…… What you think are the reasons for such difficulties? (You can choose more than one) A Our English proficiency is quite low B Giving oral presentations is new to us C We are low – motivated D It’s our teacher that fails to teach us what a good oral presentation should be E Others (please specify)……………………………………………………………… …… … In what way you like your teacher to give feedback on your oral presentations? A Teacher interrupts students’ speeches to point out errors B Teacher waits until students finish their presentation, points out the errors and corrects them I C Teacher waits until students finish their presentation, points out the errors and asks students to correct them D Teacher gives a mark along without any comments or feedback E Others (please specify)……………………………………………………….….…………… How you assess your teacher feedback on your oral presentations? A effective and sufficient B effective but insufficient C ineffective D Others (Please specify)…………………………………………………………….………… What would you like your teacher to comment on your oral presentations? A The content of your presentations B The design of your presentations C Accuracy of your language D Your manner of delivery (hand gestures, posture, facial expression, eye contact, volume…) E Others (Please specify)………………………………………………………….……….…… How you feel when your teacher gives feedback to your oral presentations? A feel encouraged B feel discouraged C feel ashamed because teacher feedback makes you lose face D Others (please specify)……………………………………………………… ……………… II The following table is types of feedback that your teachers may use to respond to your presentations in English lessons Please put a tick (v) in the column to give your opinion Never Seldom Sometimes Often No Types of teachers’ feedback Your teacher helps you notice and correct mistakes yourself Your teacher directly corrects your mistakes Your teacher clarifies your utterance by asking questions like “what you mean by…?” or “Excuse me?” Your teacher draws your attention to mistakes by repeating your mistakes with a change in intonation Your teacher criticizes you when you make mistakes Your teacher gives comments/explanation for her mark on your presentation II Always 5 10 Your teacher compliments on your good performance Your teacher indicates to what extent your performance is good or not Your teacher gives you advice on how to improve your performance Your teacher suggests ways to help you overcome mistakes yourself III How effective is your teachers’ feedback on oral presentation skills? Please put a tick (v) in the column to give your opinion No 10 Very effective Teachers’ feedback Effective Your teacher helps you notice and correct mistakes yourself Your teacher directly corrects your mistakes Your teacher clarifies your utterance by asking questions like “what you mean by…?” or “Excuse me?” Your teacher draws your attention to mistakes by repeating your mistakes with a change in intonation Your teacher criticizes you when you make mistakes Your teacher gives comments/explanation for her mark on your presentation Your teacher compliments on your good performance Your teacher indicates to what extent your performance is good or not Your teacher gives you advice on how to improve your performance Your teacher suggests ways to help you overcome mistakes yourself Thank you for your cooperation! III Not Effective APPENDIX Interview Questions for Students Do you think that oral presentations are important skills? Why? What is the most difficult factor you encounter when making oral presentations? (content, accuracy, fluency, gestures, body language, audience questions…) Does your teacher have any comments on your presentations? General or detailed comments? Compliments or criticism? What you think about your teacher’s feedback on your oral presentations? Effective or ineffective? Is it sufficient and clear enough to understand? How you feel when receiving teacher’s feedback on your oral presentations? Encouraged or embarrassed/ discouraged? What you think your teacher should when giving feedback in order to help students improve oral presentation skills? IV [...]... FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS This chapter answers the research question proposed at the beginning of the study, so the types of feedback are mainly used by teachers of English when their second year English – major students make oral presentations and the influence of each type of feedback on students improvement of oral presentation skill will be in focus The results are reflected through the data collection... Teachers feedback and its effectiveness on improving students oral presentation skills The results of the questionnaire and interviews indicate that teachers feedback have a great influence on fostering and improving students presentation skills The findings of this research reveal that the teacher’s strategic feedback has the greatest effect on students improvement in presentation skills, followed by. .. means that this study will examine the feedback VCU teachers give to students oral presentation under three types: corrective, evaluative and strategic and then investigate the effectiveness of each type of feedback on the development of students oral presentation skills Therefore, in the next part, the researcher will discuss the effects of teacher feedback on students oral presentation skills 1.3... action as irresponsible and unenthusiastic In summary, most students are aware of the necessity and importance of oral presentation skills and have positive attitude towards oral presentation as well as positive attitude towards teacher feedback Most of them understand the role of teachers feedback on their learning improvement in general and on their oral presentation skills in particular 3.2.2 Teachers ... recognize the errors by asking some suggesting questions more frequently.” (S7) Effectiveness of teachers evaluative feedback on improving students oral presentation skills Table 3 illustrates the effectiveness of teacher’s evaluative feedback on students oral presentation skills The results show that this type of feedback has the lowest percentage of effectiveness of the three types of feedback. .. level of frequency Only 29.2% of respondents say that their teachers often and always give corrective feedback Of which the percentage of teachers helping students notice and correct mistakes themselves is the highest at 50% While 35.5% of students suppose that their teachers directly correct their mistakes, only 7.1% of the participants claim that their teachers draw their attention to mistakes by repeating... frequency of the teacher’s use and the highest effectiveness of the three kinds of feedback (according to the classification of Gattullo and Harmer), here exists a gap between the frequency of the teachers strategic feedback and its effect on improving students oral presentation skills 89.2% of the respondents suppose that guiding students specifically and giving them advice on particular situations,... compliments on their good performance; only 19.1% of them share that teachers criticize them when they make mistakes; 42.9% of the students find that their teachers indicate to what extent their performance is good or not Specially, 50% of participants say that the teacher often and always gives comments/ explanation for her mark on their presentation, making the highest proportion among teachers ways of giving... that they are often and always given this feedback for their oral presentation This shows a really big gap between the frequency of corrective feedback and its effectiveness on perfecting students oral presentation skills The reason for this low percentage of teachers use of corrective feedback, according to the researcher, originates from the teachers fear of discouraging students by correcting their. .. discussions and presentations, 18 for self-study and 3 periods for revision with 50 minutes per periods 2.1.2 Subjects of the study Although English is taught to both English- major students and non -English- major students, the researcher focuses on English major ones who are the target population of this study The subjects of this study include 126 second year English- major students who are studying at the ... mainly used by teachers of English at VCU when their second year English – major students make oral presentations? How those types of feedback contribute to the improvement of oral presentation skills. .. collect their opinions on the types of teachers feedback they received and the effectiveness of these types of feedback on improving students oral presentation skills Interviews were conducted... general and on their oral presentation skills in particular 3.2.2 Teachers feedback and its effectiveness on improving students oral presentation skills The results of the questionnaire and interviews