luận văn thạc sỹ tiếng anh STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT YEN THUAN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN TUYEN QUANG

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF PROJECT REPORT I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled Students’ Attitudes towards Teachers’ Corrective Feedback in Writing At Yen Thuan secondary school – Ham Yen Tuyen Quang in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my superior Do Xuan Khoi, M.A. for the support, guidance and valuable critical feedback. His help, stimulating suggestion and encouragement helped me a lot right from the beginning to the end of this study. I would like acknowledge my sincere thanks to the headmaster, the teachers of English Group and the students at Yen Thuan secondary school Ham Yen Tuyen Quang who helped me a lot and showed great willingness to take part in my survey. My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates for valuable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement. Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my wife, my parents and my children for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement. ABSTRACT Many language educators and researchers (e.g., Nunan; 1987; Horwitz, 1988; Schulz, 2001) claim that matching the expectations of teachers and students is important for successful language learning. Accordingly, it is beneficial for teachers to discover their students’ perceptions toward the feedback they received. This study investigates the students’ attitudes towards teachers’ corrective feedback at Yen Thuan secondary school Ham Yen Tuyen Quang. The participants included 4 teachers of English and 100 students from Grade 7 to 8. The data were collected from survey questionnaires for students, the direct interview with four teachers and teachers’ commentary on the students’ written work. The results show that there is a slight mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and students’ preferences for teacher corrective feedback regarding feedback types and forms, various features of writing, and error correction techniques. Also, it is important for teachers to be aware of the impact of their feedback practices on students’ expectations and attitudes. On this basis, the study recommends a number of directions for teachers to help them improve their feedback practices more effectively. TABLE OF CONTENTS Certification…………………………………………………………………...i Acknowledgements………………………………………………...………....ii Abstract………………………………………………………………….…...iii PART ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale of the study 1 1.2. Aims of the study. 3 1.3. Research questions 3 1.4. Scope of the study 4 1.5. Significance of the research 4 1.6. Methods of the study 4 1.7. Design of the study 5 Summary PART TWO. DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1. Theoretical backgrounds of feedback 1.1.1. Definitions of feedback 6 1.1.2. The importance of feedback in L2 writing 8 1.1.2. Types of feedback to students’ writing. 9 1.1.2.1. Selfediting 9 1.1.2.2. Peer feedback 10 1.1.2.3. Teacher’s feedback 11 1.2. The focus of teacher feedback 13 1.2.1. Types of teacher feedback 13 1.2.1.1. Marginal versus end feedback 13 1.2.1.2. Positive versus negative feedback 14 1.2.1.3. Text – specific versus general feedback 14 1.2.1.4. Feedback focus on form versus on content 15 1.2.2. Forms of teacher feedback 16 1.2.3. Major issues in giving teacher’s feedback 17 2.1. Context of the study 19 2.1.1. The setting of the study 19 2.1.2. The writing program 2.1.2.1. Overview of the textbooks 20 2.1.2.2. The teaching of writing skill. 21 2.2. The study 2.2.1. Methodology 22 2.2.2. Data analysis 24 2.2.3. Findings and discussion 37 Summary CHAPTER THREE: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS .........43 Summary PART THREE. CONCLUSIONS 45 3.1. Summary 45 3.2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies. 45 References Appendices PART ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale of the study Today English is considered one of the most important factors to the trend of globalization in all fields of life over the world. Thus, English as Second Language has been taught in many countries and the demand to use English fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essential among all students. As a result, methodology has been studied for years to find out the most effective ways of teaching and learning English. In Vietnam, secondary school students have to acquire four skills of English as reading, speaking, listening and writing when they study English. Among them, writing is considered the most difficult skill. Clearly, Vietnamese students are often much anxious about writing and afraid of making errors in writing classrooms . Nevertheless, they need to be encouraged to see it as a means of learning, rather than demonstrating learning. In order to do this, students need to be provided with opportunities to respond to constructive feedback on their work. A review of the literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback as revision: peer feedback, selfediting and teachers’ comments as feedback. Because of the importance of feedback, there have been a lot of studies that focus on all aspects relating to feedback. As clear, concise feedback matched to standards will promote students’ achievement, feedback plays a very important role in the teaching of any language. Through feedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled and confused the reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of development ideas, or something simple like inappropriate wordchoice or tense. In other words, the writers have opportunities to identify their errors and correct them to make better writing. Also, the use of teacher feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature review as a potentially valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodological benefits ( Merlin, (1986), Radecki and Swales (1988), Hedge (2000), Ferris and Roberts (2001)). They all believe that teacher feedback is very important and has a great influence on the success of teaching and learning writing. As a teacher of English at Yen Thuan secondary school, the researcher is constantly searching for ways to help his students become more confident and effective writers. During writing lessons, she finds that her students often make a lot of errors that increase students’ anxiety in writing lesson. With a view of language learning as a creative construction process, she shares an agreement with Hedge (2000) in the view that error is an inevitable and positive part of that process (p.15). Hedge also claimed that “learners progress faster with meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment and with an informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher” (p.15). This means teacherresponse is an essential step in the writing process as he stated “getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the class enables learners to test hypotheses and refine their developing knowledge of the language system” (p.13). That is why the researcher focuses on teacher corrective feedback, which she considers a complex troublesome, but important issue in writing classrooms. To have a quick view on this aspect, an observation on the writing lessons of four teachers of English in the researcher’s school was conducted within a month. The result showed that all the four teachers applied mostly teacher corrective feedback to respond to the students’ writings. She wondered if the teachers’ present feedback matched with students’ preferences and how students reacted to the feedback they received.

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

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT YEN THUAN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN TUYEN QUANG

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

TRONG MÔN VIẾT Ở TRƯỜNG THCS YÊN THUẬN - HÀM YÊN - TUYÊN QUANG

MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE 0780110

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF PROJECT REPORT

I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled

Students’ Attitudes towards Teachers’ Corrective Feedback in

Writing

At Yen Thuan secondary school – Ham Yen - Tuyen Quang

in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my superior DoXuan Khoi, M.A for the support, guidance and valuable critical feedback Hishelp, stimulating suggestion and encouragement helped me a lot right fromthe beginning to the end of this study.

I would like acknowledge my sincere thanks to the headmaster, theteachers of English Group and the students at Yen Thuan secondary schoolHam Yen - Tuyen Quang who helped me a lot and showed great willingness

to take part in my survey

My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates forvaluable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement

Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my wife, myparents and my children for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement

Many language educators and researchers (e.g., Nunan; 1987; Horwitz,1988; Schulz, 2001) claim that matching the expectations of teachers andstudents is important for successful language learning Accordingly, it isbeneficial for teachers to discover their students’ perceptions toward thefeedback they received This study investigates the students’ attitudes towardsteachers’ corrective feedback at Yen Thuan secondary school Ham Yen-Tuyen Quang The participants included 4 teachers of English and 100students from Grade 7 to 8 The data were collected from surveyquestionnaires for students, the direct interview with four teachers andteachers’ commentary on the students’ written work The results show thatthere is a slight mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and students’ preferencesfor teacher corrective feedback regarding feedback types and forms, variousfeatures of writing, and error correction techniques Also, it is important forteachers to be aware of the impact of their feedback practices on students’expectations and attitudes On this basis, the study recommends a number ofdirections for teachers to help them improve their feedback practices moreeffectively

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certification………

… i

Acknowledgements………

……… ii

Abstract………

… iii

PART ONE - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 4 1.5 Significance of the research 4

1.6 Methods of the study 4

1.7 Design of the study 5

Summary

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical backgrounds of feedback

1.1.1 Definitions of feedback6

1.1.2 The importance of feedback in L2 writing 81.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing.9

1.1.2.1 Self-editing9

1.1.2.2 Peer feedback10

1.1.2.3 Teacher’s feedback11

1.2 The focus of teacher feedback13

1.2.1 Types of teacher feedback13

1.2.1.1 Marginal versus end feedback13

1.2.1.2 Positive versus negative feedback14

1.2.1.3 Text – specific versus general feedback14

1.2.1.4 Feedback focus on form versus on content15

1.2.2 Forms of teacher feedback16

1.2.3 Major issues in giving teacher’s feedback17

2.1 Context of the study19

2.1.1 The setting of the study19

2.1.2 The writing program2.1.2.1 Overview of the textbooks20

2.1.2.2 The teaching of writing skill.21

2.2 The study

2.2.1 Methodology22

2.2.2 Data analysis24

2.2.3 Findings and discussion37

3.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 45References

Appendices

PART ONE - INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

Today English is considered one of the most important factors to thetrend of globalization in all fields of life over the world Thus, English asSecond Language has been taught in many countries and the demand to useEnglish fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essentialamong all students As a result, methodology has been studied for years tofind out the most effective ways of teaching and learning English

In Vietnam, secondary school students have to acquire four skills ofEnglish as reading, speaking, listening and writing when they study English.Among them, writing is considered the most difficult skill Clearly,Vietnamese students are often much anxious about writing and afraid ofmaking errors in writing classrooms Nevertheless, they need to beencouraged to see it as a means of learning, rather than demonstratinglearning In order to do this, students need to be provided with opportunities

to respond to constructive feedback on their work

A review of the literature on writing reveals three major areas offeedback as revision: peer feedback, self-editing and teachers’ comments asfeedback Because of the importance of feedback, there have been a lot ofstudies that focus on all aspects relating to feedback As clear, concisefeedback matched to standards will promote students’ achievement, feedbackplays a very important role in the teaching of any language Throughfeedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled and confused thereader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack ofdevelopment ideas, or something simple like inappropriate word-choice ortense In other words, the writers have opportunities to identify their errorsand correct them to make better writing Also, the use of teacher feedback in

writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature review as apotentially valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodologicalbenefits ( Merlin, (1986), Radecki and Swales (1988), Hedge (2000), Ferrisand Roberts (2001)) They all believe that teacher feedback is very importantand has a great influence on the success of teaching and learning writing

As a teacher of English at Yen Thuan secondary school, the researcher isconstantly searching for ways to help his students become more confident andeffective writers During writing lessons, she finds that her students oftenmake a lot of errors that increase students’ anxiety in writing lesson With aview of language learning as a creative construction process, she shares anagreement with Hedge (2000) in the view that error is an inevitable andpositive part of that process (p.15) Hedge also claimed that “learners progressfaster with meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment andwith an informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher” (p.15).This means teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process as hestated “getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the classenables learners to test hypotheses and refine their developing knowledge ofthe language system” (p.13) That is why the researcher focuses on teachercorrective feedback, which she considers a complex troublesome, butimportant issue in writing classrooms To have a quick view on this aspect, anobservation on the writing lessons of four teachers of English in theresearcher’s school was conducted within a month The result showed that allthe four teachers applied mostly teacher corrective feedback to respond to thestudents’ writings She wondered if the teachers’ present feedback matchedwith students’ preferences and how students reacted to the feedback theyreceived

All above encouraged the researcher to conduct a survey to explorestudents’ attitudes towards teacher corrective feedback and recommendteachers of English some suggested solutions to help their students gain moreachievement in writing skill.

1.2 Aims of the study.

This research is designed to explore students’ attitudes toward theirteachers’ corrective feedback at It is expected to achieve the three primaryaims:

(i) to investigate the teacher feedback-giving practice in writing classes:their responding methods, their feedback focus as well as the feedback typesand forms

(ii) to investigate the students’ perceptions of the feedback they receiveand their recommendations for improving it

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

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

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

1.3 Research questions

In order to achieve the mentioned aims above, the following researchquestions will be included in the study:

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

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

3 What are EFL students’ preferences for teachers’ corrective feedbacktechniques?

1.4 Scope of the study

Feedback in writing is such a broad topic that the researcher cannotdiscuss all the aspects related Therefore, within the framework of a minorthesis, this study focuses only on the teacher corrective feedback inresponding to the students’ writing at Yen Thuan secondary school Significance

of the research

The research is carried out with the hope that the results of the study willprovide significant insights into both what teachers have actually done as theyrespond and how the students react to these responses This may lead tosuggestions for improving teacher feedback and helping the students to utilize

it more successfully in their writing revision

1.5 Methods of the study

To realize the aims, the following methods for data collection wereemployed in the study

1.5.1 Data were collected by means of surveyquestionnaires for 100 students at Yen Thuan secondary school Thequestionnaires included closed-ended questions, open-endedquestions and Likert scales

1.5.2 Other sources for data collection came fromclassroom observation, an interview between the researcher and fourteachers, and collection of the teachers’ written comments on thestudents’ written work

Four sources to data collection will hopefully provide fresh insights intoteachers’ feedback giving practice and the students’ reactions towards thefeedback they received On this basis, some measures will be applied to

improve the teacher corrective feedback so that the teacher responds to thestudents’ writing more properly.

1.6 Design of the study

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

The introduction briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims,research questions, scope, methods, the significance and the design of thestudy

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

of literature on feedback in general and teacher feedback in particular.Chapter 2 contains the core part of the study including the context of thestudy, the methodology, the collection and analysis of the data for theresearch, the findings and implications Chapter 3 mentions the author’srecommendations and suggestions for improving teacher feedback in a waythat help students’ to have better writing

The conclusion at the end gives a summary of the main issues that havebeen discussed so far in the study and suggestions for further research

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

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

of feedback in general and the teacher feedback in particular Two main features will be concerned, namely, theoretical background of feedback and the focus on teacher feedback.

1.1 Theoretical backgrounds of feedback

1.1.1 Definitions of feedback

As far from now, responding to student writing, including givingfeedback, is one of the most controversial topics in second languageinstruction and theory As the importance of feedback, it is considered afundamental element of a process approach to writing Therefore, there havebeen attempts to define the term “feedback”

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

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

Similarly, Keh (1989) defined feedback as “any output from reader towriter that provides information for revision” (p.18) In other words, it is the

comments, questions, and suggestions a reader gives a writer to producereader-based prose as opposed to writer prose As the writers receive all these,they will discover that good writing involves “an interaction between theirideas, the expressions of the ideas, and their reader’s perceptions andreactions to the expression” (Chaudron, 1984 p.2) This definition can beseen as one of the most comprehensive as feedback is considered as aneffective means of teacher’s communication to the students about theirwriting in the final one Some researchers (Ferris, 2003; Leki, 1990) alsoshared an agreement when noting that feedback is most effective when it isdelivered at intermediate stages of the writing process.

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

is interestingly likened to a two-bullock cart His definition is based on afamous saying that “in order for the cart to move in the right direction, its twobullocks need to understand not only the purpose of their efforts but also eachother” (p.160) In other words, there should be a collaborative approach to themonitoring and processing of feedback between the teacher and the students

so that the teacher feedback becomes an effective tool for student revision

Seow’s (2002), in contrast, defined feedback as “the teacher’s quickinitial reaction to the student’s drafts” In this point of view, teacher responseshould be given at preliminary or intermediate drafts, not the final onebecause “things which are not clear or which could be improved upon can still

be changed” (p.317) This means students should have chances to rewritetheir drafts at least one more time If students write only one draft which isthen graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the compositioncomes too late Added to this, Raimes (1983, p.139) noted, “Responding tostudents’ writing is very much a part of the process of teaching writing” In

other words, feedback should be provided in the process of writing rather than

in single act of producing a text

1.1.2 The importance of feedback in L2 writing

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

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

so on Also, both Huntley (1992) and Truscott (1996), based on theirrespective reviews of the literature, stated that substantial research evidencesuggests that correction of surface level errors is futile and may not be worththe instructor’s time and effort Truscott even concluded that this type ofcorrection should be abandoned in second language writing classes because itcan have harmful effect This point of view is shared by other studies invarious second language contexts investigating the effect of different types offeedback on student writing skill in the case that explicit error correctionseems to be generally ineffective (Keper, 1991; Sheppard, 1992)

However, there have been number of the researchers who support to theimportance of feedback in teaching English as a second language Theybelieved in giving corrective feedback to students to improve their writtenaccuracy In Schulz (1996) students’ beliefs about what constitutes effectivefeedback on writing and their expectations regarding teacher paper-making

techniques may influence the effectiveness of such feedback Hedge (2000)shared an agreement in the case that “getting feedback from the teacher andfrom other students in the class enables learners to test hypothesis and refinetheir developing knowledge of the language system.” (p.13) In this case,good feedback not only stimulates students for revision but also motivatesthem to maintain their interest in writing In addition, provision of commentshelps individualize writing instructions in which students will be able to getindividual attention to have their own needs or problems rightfully addressed(Reid, 1993) In this way, feedback is an important step towards the learnercenteredness.

In conclusion, giving and receiving feedback helps students to developtheir sensitivity and their own writing style In other words, feedback is afundamental element of a writing approach when it pushes the studentsthrough the writing process on to the eventual end-product

1.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing.

A review of literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback asrevision They are self-editing, peer feedback, and teacher feedback

1.1.2.1 Self-editing

Self-editing is an important aspect of re-writing It is the last thing awriter does before sending the manuscript off to their agent or an editor.Raimes (1983) supported this when he stated that “What students really need,more than anything else, is to develop the ability to read their own writing and

to examine it critically, to learn how to express their meaning fluently,logically, and accurately” (p.149) This means students need to be able to findand correct their own mistakes Students’ attempt in language learning is one

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

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

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

In order to help students to have success in self-editing their writing,some techniques are designed to help them apply the same critical skills totheir own written products at the right stage in the process as all thetechniques of reading closely and analyzing the writing help with criticalreading In fact, students need to hold the critical skills in check as the ideasare forming at the beginning of the process They also have to know not onlyhow to edit their own writing but when is the right time to do it

However, self editing involves an ability to look at one’s work with animpersonal eye For some this can be difficult; the best thing to do is to letone’s completed manuscript sit for a month, then go back and do a final edit

In other words, self-editing is more time – consuming than the other types offeedback Also, it is unsuitable way for students with low English proficiency

to revise their writing

1.1.2.2 Peer feedback

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

on the same assignment together, peer feedback means exchanging drafts andcomments on each other’s drafts Peer feedback broadens learners’involvement by giving them the additional roles of reader and advisor to gowith that of writer This addition of roles, hopefully, increases learner’sinsight into the writing process A related benefit proposed for peer work isthat it helps learners become more autonomous, thus preparing them to writewithout teacher there to correct their errors Further, structuring face-to-face

discussion into the feedback process provides students the opportunity toengage in constructive controversy which may lead to insights and greatertask engagement (Johnson & Johnson, 1987).

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

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

be offered

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

1.1.2.3 Teacher’s feedback

Clearly, as the teachers are engaged in the process of responding response is considered “an essential step in the writing process” (Hyland,1990) He claimed that diligent marking provides students with an idea of the

teacher-criteria by which their work is judged Also, useful information that will helpstudents avoid similar errors in the future should be offered

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

in terms of the percentage of errors they could revise when they self-editedtheir texts across three feedback conditions: (1) errors marked with codes; (2)errors underlined with no codes and (3) no feedback at all Results showedlarge beneficial effects for feedback groups versus the non-feedback group.However, differences in terms of the proficiency level between the feedbackgroup and the non-feedback group might be a confounding factor in theirstudy Chandler (2003) examined whether teacher feedback in the form ofunderling errors could help East Asian college students improve their writingaccuracy and whether the effects would last over one semester The results ofthis study demonstrated that formal accuracy of student writing improvedsignificantly if the participants were required to correct their errors than ifthey were not Results also exhibited a gain in accuracy which was notaccompanied by a decline in fluency over the semester Findings of the studysignified the importance of student correction or revision, and it might bepossible that “if students did not revise their writing based on feedback abouterrors, having teachers mark errors was equivalent to giving no errorfeedback”

A number of researchers have also attempted to directly investigatedL2 students’ preferences and reactions to teacher making techniques and theirbeliefs about what constitutes effective feedback to writing Radecki and

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

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

Compared with this growing but far from the conclusion of studies onthe written feedback strategies of teachers, it seems that teacher feedback is aprominent aspect of responding to students’ works Since students’ beliefsabout feedback on writing may influence the degree of effectiveness ofteacher feedback, it is crucial to identify students’ attitudes towards errorcorrection and their expectations regarding teacher feedback on their writing

1.2 The focus of teacher feedback

1.2.1 Types of teacher feedback

In general, teacher feedback can be transmitted in a variety of ways: indialog journals, mini-conferences during class workshops, written comment

on student drafts and student-teacher conferences In the scope of the thesis,the author mentioned teacher corrective feedback only In this section, types

of teacher corrective feedback and how these types influence the studentrevision will be examined

1.2.1.1 Marginal versus end feedback

Marginal feedback is a kind of feedback that is written in the margin orbetween sentence lines of the student’s paper It refers to the teacher’simmediate intervention in discrete parts of the student’s draft By contrast,summary at the end of the paper called end feedback is normally an overview

of more consideration in an essay

In Ferris and Hedgcock’s view (1998), there is no conclusive evidencethat either marginal or end comments are preferable or more effective.However, in case teachers can only give one form of commentary givenoverwhelming number of papers and severe time constraints, a comprehensiveand clear endnote is strongly recommended When time permits, writingteachers should try to make a combination of both to give students morechance to revise their writing

1.2.1.2 Positive versus negative feedback

As far as teacher feedback is concerned, a lot of studies have been doneinto the effects of positive and negative comments on the student revision(Gee, 1972; Ferris, 1995) All the studies come to an agreement that thestudents remember and appreciate encouraging remarks made by theirteachers Gee has gone far to assert that the students would have betterattitudes towards writing if they receive positive feedback

However, Ferris noted that a significant majority of her participantsdescribed critical comments as being positive since they all helped themimprove their papers This result suggested that students expect to receiveconstructive criticism and are not necessarily offended by this although theyappear to enjoy and appreciate praises

1.2.1.3 Text – specific versus general feedback

Text-specific feedback is a kind of comment that directly relates to thetext at hand; whereas; general feedback can be attached to any paper.

Many prominent scholars in the field argued that teacher feedback ismore helpful if it is a text-specific (Hillocks, 1986; Reid, 1993; Seow, 2002).Reid (1993, p.225) stated that “feedback should be informative and detailedenough to help the students writers return to the task of writing but not sooverwhelming that they cannot form a revision plan As they write, receiveresponse, and revise, students should be able to feel good about what theyhave done well and realize that they can improve on what they have not doneeffectively,” Seow (2002, p.317) show his agreement that “text-specificresponses, rather than rubber-stamped comments by the teacher will helpstudents rediscover meanings and facilitate the revision of initial drafts”.However, Ferris (1997) argued that there is a role in teacher commentary forgeneral responses A general response of encouragement is no doubt betterthan none This view has been well supported by Fathman and Whalley’sperspective that “general comment that do not refer to specifics within a textcan be effective …giving encouragements helped improve the students’rewrites.” (1990, p 186)

1.2.1.4 Feedback focus on form versus on content

When responding to students’ written work, teachers often face with abig problem on choosing the best feedback to help their students improvetheir writing This is difficult because there is a little agreement amongteachers or researchers about how teachers should respond to student writing.Much of the conflict over teacher response to written work has been whetherteacher feedback should focus on form (e , grammar, mechanics) or oncontent (e.g., organization, amount of detail) Griffin (1982) has noted, “the

major question confronting any theory of responding to student writing iswhere we should focus our attention” (p.299).

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

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

However, some research findings have proved the teacher feedbackfocus on form Enginarlar (1993), based on a survey of 47 EFL students’attitudes towards the feedback procedure employed in their class, concludedthat these students perceive attention to linguistic errors as effective teacherfeedback Similarly, Ferris (1995) reached the same conclusion based on hisrespective surveys of students’ attitudes toward feedback in an EFL context.Schulz (1996) investigated Fl teacher and student beliefs about explicitgrammar instruction and error correction and also found that studentspreferred a focus on form

1.2.2 Forms of teacher feedback

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

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

to the students’ works However, despite their advantages, each form has thepotential problems which teacher should be aware of In terms of questions,Ferris warned that “questions sometimes confuse students although they maystimulate students’ thinking process and help teachers avoid appropriatingstudents’ texts”; statements which give information are “not necessarilyintended to lead to specific changes” because they do not explicitly ask or tellthe student what to do, although many do contain important information thatteachers want the students to review while revising ; in terms of requests,Ferris stated, “even though students appeared to understand from thecomment that something was required of them, they were less clear abouthow to incorporate the requested changed successfully” (p.331) Therefore,teachers should be careful in constructing their own feedback forms, inexplaining those feedback forms together with their pragmatic intents to thestudents, and most importantly, in helping the students process the commentsand revise their drafts effectively

1.2.3 Major issues in giving teacher’s feedback

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

of researchers have attempted to give an overview of issues involved inresponding to L2 writers’ works (see, Leki, 1992; Ferri, 2003; Reid’s,1993…) In their studies, major issues in responding to L1 writers seem to falllargely into three categories: class goals, teacher role(s), and strategies ofteacher feedback

In terms of class goals, Leki (1992) explored the problematic nature ofteacher feedback and then discussed how an ESL writing teacher’s goal forher students as writers might influence how, when, and what she respond to.She claimed that “we may resist the idea, our responses to the writing of ESL

students and our goals for them in our writing courses, are, in fact, laden withpolitical context” (p.125) With regard to teacher’s roles in Ls writing classes,Raimes (1984) discussed the difficulty of composing in a second languageand of how teacher response can shape and potentially get in the way of thatprocess The main purpose of the researcher is to suggest that ESL writingteachers need to pay more attention to the act of writing and less to ESL Sheclaimed that “one remedy for the aguish of composing is to concentrate on themaking of meaning, to concentrate on the act of composing instead ofperipherals” (p.92) She offered three areas in which teacher can do this:generating assignments for the class, giving feedback, and providing readings.

In terms of providing feedback, Raimes suggested that corrections are not theonly kind of feedback teacher can give and that working on developinggrammatical forms should be a parallel activity to composing

In regard to strategies of teacher feedback, Reid (1993) stated “inteachers’ attempt to evade the evils of appropriation taking over theirstudents’ work, many ESL writing teachers have stopped working with theirstudents’ texts altogether” (p.275) Though this withdrawal may stem fromthe best of intentions, Reid argued that teachers need to “accept theirresponsibilities as cultural informants and as facilitators for creating socialdiscourse community in the ESL classroom” (p.275)

Summary

In summary, this chapter has so far touched upon issues relating to the topic of the study It has mentioned the definition and the importance of feedback, types of feedback and the focuses on teacher feedback as well as major issues in giving teacher’s feedback in ESL writing classroom The following chapter will focus on the study - its methodology and findings – under the light of the above discussed theories.

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

This chapter focuses on the context of the study and the study The context includes information about the setting and the writing program The study concentrates on the methodology, data analysis, and findings and discussion

2.1 Context of the study

2.1.1 The setting of the study

The study was carried out Yen Thuan secondary school The school islocated in Tuyen Quang Town The purpose of the school is to train ethnicminority students as good people who will greatly contribute to thedevelopment of the province That is why the school is investigated largelyevery year with good equipment and good working condition

There are about five hundred ethnic minority students studying at schooleach year The total classes are fourteen and not very large size ones (about

30 – 35 students in each) There are thirty-eight teachers and most of them arewell-trained They are considered the most hard-working and enthusiasticteachers of all in the province There are five teachers of the English Group atthe school Most of them are not very high-educated, but experiencedteachers They spend a lot of their concerns about teaching and improvingstudents’ English level However, they lack appropriate teaching methods andtechniques, especially giving feedback They do not have an adequateknowledge about many fields of language teaching; in other words, they need

to be retrained

All the students are ethnic minorities groups They mostly come fromremote or mountainous areas of the province They are hard-working andwell-behaved students However, most of them have low ability in learning.Many of them have low English proficiency and their utterances are in words

or short prefabricated phrases Their grammar is mostly inaccurate and theirpronunciation requires concentrated listening As a result, they often have agreat anxiety in English classrooms Among four skills of English, they findwriting much more difficult than the others and often participate in writinglessons unsuccessfully Despite their low ability, many of them arecontinuously paying much more concerns about English as a core subject andhope that their English level will be improved by their great efforts Thus,they ask for help in writing skill

2.1.2 The writing program

2.1.2.1 Overview of the textbooks

The textbooks which are required to teach English in high schools areEnglish Basic 10, 11 and 12 They were developed based on the new national

curriculum The methodologies that the books follow are “learner-centeredapproach and the communicative approach with task-based teaching being thecentral teaching method” (English 10, Teacher’s Manual: 12)

Each book includes 16 teaching units and six review units Eachteaching unit covers a topic and is sub-divided into five sections: Reading,Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus Each part is supposed to

be taught in a period of 45 minutes

The Writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities thatguide students through the writing process such as model analysis, languagework, and guided writing In this part, students are required to producevarious text types such as personal and formal letters, narratives, chart, graphand table description, and expository essays The general and specificobjectives are set clearly in the books (Table 1, 2)

2.1.2.2 The teaching of writing skill.

Table 3: Distribution of writing activities

English7

English8

English

talS

B

WB

SB

WB

SB

WBPreparation

3 5 8

No of

activities

47

20

32

22

39

23

183

No of units 2

2

16

22

16

22

16

114

The types of the texts that students are taught and made to practice inthree books are quite varied, ranging from forms, postcards, letters, andannouncements to mini-biographies, narratives, table descriptions, andexpository essays A glance at this variety seems to guide students to followthe process of writing than the product However, according to Thuy Minh(20?, p.43) “the writing approached adopted in the books seems to beproduct-oriented in the nature emphasis seems to be placed on the end-result

of writing rather than the process of writing itself” She found that the writingsection “normally begins with some preparation work in which students arerequired to analyze task requirements, work on models, or generate ideas.Then, it may proceed with one or two controlled or / and guided writingactivities and end with a freer writing activities” (p 43) This fact leadsstudents to engage in imitating copying and transforming models of correctlanguage texts to the new writing task There seems to be no explicitemphasis on the process of planning, drafting, revision, and editing

Moreover, the textbooks do not offer much chance for free writingpractice As can be seen from the table 3, among the 183 writing activities, 66are for free writing practice, account for 36% In other words, there is anaverage of only 0.5 free writing activity per unit This is quite far from thegiven goal of teaching writing in CLT that is to enable learners to become

more independent and effective writers Also, Thuy Minh, based on a textbook evaluation, claimed that “writing involves more than putting ideas intosentences and without adequate prior preparation (e.g instruction aboutparagraph writing, working on models, controlled and guided practice…” (p.45) She concluded that writing task in the three textbooks would probably betoo challenging and perhaps even beyond students’ ability As a result, theteachers have to adapt writing tasks to match them with students’ ability.Also, the teachers should know students’ preferences for the feedback theyreceive to give good responses to their students’ written work

The 4 teachers are teaching English in the classes from which thestudents are chosen to be involved in the research They are both experiencedand inexperienced teachers of the Yen Thuan secondary school They arewilling to participate in the survey with the hope that the results of the study

will help them to have better understanding on students’ preferences forteacher feedback

2.2.1.2 The instruments:

Four instruments were used to collect the data for the study

Classroom observation was conducted within a month to get a quickview on teachers’ feedback-giving practice

A direct interview between the researcher and four teachers wasdesigned to examine more about the purpose of providing feedback, the typesand forms of feedback as well as the practice of error correction teachersoften use to give comments on the students’ writings The interview wasformed in semi-structured questions

A questionnaire for the students examined students’ attitudes towardtheir teacher corrective feedback, the problems they often face up with inwriting classes as well as their preferred feedback type and form It consists ofnine questions and is divided into three parts Part I includes some shortquestions on personal information of the participants Part II consists of close-ended questions, open-ended questions and 3 Likert scales to explorestudents’ opinions on the feedback they received Part III has three open-ended questions to examine students’ preferences for their teacher correctivefeedback on writing

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

a view to obtaining the most truthful information about the teachers’ currentpractice of giving feedback

2.2.1.3 Data collection methods

The whole process was divided into four stages

At the first stage, the researcher carried out an observation on writinglessons of four teachers The researcher attended eight periods of writinglesson She observed teachers’ feedback-giving practice carefully and tooknotes all necessary information for the study.

At the second stage, the researcher had a direct interview with each offour teachers She interviewed each of them one by one All the talks were inVietnamese During the interview, the researcher sat nearby the interviewers,taking notes all the information which was then transcribed into English

Then, the questionnaire was transcribed into Vietnamese anddistributed to 100 students The transcription of the questionnaire was done tomake sure that all the students understood all the questions The researcherwas also present to give any explanation if any confusion or problem arises asthe respondents are working on the questions

Finally, the writing drafts of the eight students on which there were theteacher comments were collected at the beginning and the end of the schoolyear and analyzed

2.2.2 Data analysis

This part of the thesis concerns with the treatment of all the datacollected from classroom observation, direct interview between the researcherand four teachers, the survey questionnaires conducted on 100 students, andthe analysis of the teacher commentary on the students’ sample drafts

2.2.2.1 Data analysis of classroom observation

As a teacher of English Group, the researcher often attended differentEnglish classes at her school To collect data for this study, the researcherattended totally eight writing classes of four teachers She observed the ways

four teachers gave feedback to their students She found that despite differentteaching experience, all teachers seemed to apply the same feedbacktechniques All of them seemed to use corrective feedback quite often Thismeans they tended to focus their feedback on pointing out and correctingerrors Besides, most of them used both oral and written comments to givefeedback Interestingly, they rarely collected all students’ papers They oftenshowed the students a sample in the end or applied teacher-student conferencewhen their students nearly finished their writing Three of them sometimescollected some papers to give written feedback at home, returning them to thestudents next period and asking the students to rewrite the drafts in exercisenotebook Obviously, all students are required to have an exercise notebook inwhich they write their homework Those notebooks will be collectedrandomly during the school year buy the teachers to assess students’ learningeffort Also, they tended to focus on correcting errors on form and spelling.Only one teacher paid her attention to the content and organization ofstudents’ papers Surprisingly, none of them applied other types of feedbacksuch as peer feedback or student self-monitoring in writing classes

2.2.2.2 Data analysis of direct interview between the researcher and four teachers

2.2.2.2.1 Teachers’ demographic information

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

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

2.2.2.2.2 Analysis of the interview

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

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

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

one teacher had a neutral view to the importance of feedback She said, “It is

not necessary to give feedback to student quite often The writing task is not very difficult for the students when they are asked to write something similar

to the sample” That is the reason why most of the teachers often respond to

students’ written work and only one of them sometimes gives feedback to herstudents

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

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

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

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

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

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

In terms of feedback types, teachers seemed to have different choices fordifferent types of feedback Most of the teachers tended to locate theircomments in the margin of students’ papers The same number of teacherssometimes gave comments at the end of the papers Regarding the teachers’provision of general or specific feedback, all the teachers utilized specificcomments than the general ones Moreover, teachers tended to use morepositive feedback to raise students’ strength Most of the teachers never gavenegative feedback to their students What they said are as follows: