Lợi ích từ việc giảng viên nhận xét tương tác vào bài viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên

Bài viết phân tích tác động của phản hồi tương tác của giảng viên đối với chất lượng bài viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên Việt Nam học tiếng Anh như một ngôn ngữ thứ 2. Chúng tôi thu thập trên 30 bài viết về 15 chủ đề của 03 sinh viên đại học người Việt trong 24 tuần. Tác động của phản hồi tương tác được phân tích theo chuẩn của Ferris, chất lượng bài viết được phân tích định tính theo chuẩn Viết Phân tích của Hoa Kỳ, so sánh kết quả sử dụng phương pháp ANOVA (định lượng).

v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI LỢI ÍCH TỪ VIỆC GIẢNG VIÊN NHẬN XÉT TƯƠNG TÁC VÀO BÀI VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN TRƯƠNG ANH TUẤN*; LANNIN AMY**; NGÔ Q CHUNG*** * Trung tâm gìn giữ hòa bình Việt Nam - BQP, ✉ tuanpkc@yahoo.com ** Đại học Tổng hợp Missouri, Hoa Kỳ *** Học viện Khoa học Quân sự, ✉ cuaquychung@yahoo.com TĨM TẮT Trong q trình dạy học viết tiếng Anh, giáo viên thường phản hồi trực tiếp vào viết sinh viên, làm sở để người học chỉnh sửa trước hoàn thiện viết Việc coi tốn thời gian, công sức giáo viên, giới nghiên cứu tranh luận hiệu chất lượng viết Trong nghiên cứu này, chúng tơi phân tích tác động phản hồi tương tác giảng viên chất lượng viết tiếng Anh sinh viên Việt Nam học tiếng Anh ngôn ngữ thứ Chúng thu thập 30 viết 15 chủ đề 03 sinh viên đại học người Việt 24 tuần Tác động phản hồi tương tác phân tích theo chuẩn Ferris, chất lượng viết phân tích định tính theo chuẩn Viết Phân tích Hoa Kỳ, so sánh kết sử dụng phương pháp ANOVA (định lượng) Kết cho thấy, người học tiếp thu, sử dụng gần 70% góp ý nhận xét giảng viên, có sở thống kê để nhận định chất lượng viết lần cuối cao lần đầu, đặc biệt nội dung, bố cục, văn phong (không cải thiện sử dụng từ ngữ pháp) Kết nghiên cứu giúp cải thiện quy trình dạy học viết tiếng Anh trình độ đại học Việt Nam Từ khóa: nhận xét giáo viên, phản hồi, phản hồi tương tác, viết tiếng Anh INTRODUCTION Teachers’ responses to student writing has been acknowledged as central to teaching composition (Freedman, Greenleaf, & Sperling, 1987) In fact, since the early twentieth century, Carpenter et al (1913) considered the role of response or “criticism” to the teaching and learning of writing as “one of the most important in the whole problem of teaching English, upon which the value of the criticism success in teaching composition finally depends” (Carpenter, Baker, & Scott, 1913, p 142) 84 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 Responding to students’ writing is arguably a most widely adopted method; yet it is time consuming and “the least understood” (Sommers, 1982, p 170) The questions of how to write helpful comments, to what extent teacher written response is supportive to student revision, and whether student successful revision is the result of teacher comments, are never simple to answer A growing body of research has attempted to answer these tricky questions Teacher written response has been examined in both first language NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v (L1) and second language (L2) writing classes Teacher response, as agreed upon by most teachers and researchers, has evolved into more than just written marginal or end comments Responses may include all types of interaction with student drafts They could be formal, informal, in written, or oral forms to a series of drafts, or to one polished final paper Responses may be used in formal mainstream classrooms, or in an informal, casual interaction between teacher and student (Freedman et al., 1987) Teacher response might be explicit, implicit, or a combination of both A teacher might comment as explicitly as “I’m interested in your idea here,” “I like your voice in this paragraph,” or “I think this sentence needs a verb.” Teachers might also engage indirectly, such as “What you think this paragraph lacks?” or “I’m lost here!” Reflective response might also be used, such as “I’m just curious to see what is happening here,” or “as a reader, I like to see more details in this scene.” In this study, we attempted to explore the effects of reflective response on student revision as defined by Anson (Anson, 1989) The study was a pilot study for a future research with greater sample We examined 15 papers, including 30 drafts produced by three college students who studied English as a second language over a period of two academic semesters (24 weeks) These papers were written as an additional writing exercise, out of the students’ normal class time, and not for credit or grading No pressure was placed on the students with regard to what they wrote, when they wrote, and where By doing this, we intended to give more freedom to the students, and avoid imposing the concepts of teacherly “ideal text” on the students (Sommers, 1982) The students would revise their drafts only because they wanted to so, not because of meeting any requirements by the teacher for the purpose of grading The effects of reflective response were analyzed using a rating scale developed by Ferris (1997) We assessed if the students’ subsequent revisions were the result of the teacher response, and if the changes in drafts improved the overall writing quality as evaluated using a version of the National Writing Project’s analytical writing continuum (NWP, 2009) Improvement in a student’s paper was determined by two procedures: (a) holistic scoring of the first and final drafts on a six-point scale, and (b) analytical scoring centered on six traits: content, structure, stance, sentence fluency, word choice, and conventions REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 L1 response research and theory Written teacher response has been a topic drawing concern from a large number of researchers and educators, resulting in a growing body of research in the field As early as 1913, Walter Barnes wrote: I believe that children in the grades live, so far as the composition work is concerned, in an absolute monarchy, in which they are the subjects, the teacher the king (more often, the queen), and the red-ink pen the royal scepter In our efforts to train our children, we turn martinets and discipline the recruits into a company of stupid, stolid soldierkinsprompt to obey orders, it may be, but utterly devoid of initiative (Barnes, 1913, pp 158-159) Similarly, a teacher who emphasizes mechanical errors, or “[a teacher] ferrets out the buried grammatical blunder, who scents from afar a colloquialism or a bit of slang” (Barnes, 1913) was not an effective composition teacher, to use the words by A Lunsford & Connors (1993) Research in written teacher response was blooming during the 1970s when there was a shift from focusing on a final, polished paper submitted for grade to emphasizing the multiple draft process A number of studies have addressed the issue of whether teacher response is supportive to the improvement of student writing (e.g Anson, 1989; Connors & Lunsford, 1988; Freedman et al., 1987; Knoblauch & Brannon, 1981; A A Lunsford & KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 85 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI Lunsford, 2008; A Lunsford & Connors, 1993; R Lunsford & Straub, 1995, 2006; Moxley, 1989; Sperling & Freedman, 1987; Straub, 2000) among many others Though written comment was the most widely used method, also the most time-consuming (Sommers, 1982), the influence of written teacher response on student writing improvement is still controversial Earlier researchers showed their skeptical view on the effectiveness of teacher response while more recent researchers have expressed milder, more balanced arguments over the influence of written teacher response on student writing revision and quality (Bitchener & Ferris, 2012; Ferris, 2003, 2004) 2.2 Earlier skepticism Researchers (such as Hairston, 1986; Knoblauch & Brannon, 1981; Sommers, 1982; Sperling & Freedman, 1987) tended to draw a bleak picture of the effectiveness of written response to the improvement of student drafts For example, in Knoblauch & Brannon’s (1981) review, teacher comments showed minimum influence on student writing, students failed to interpret and handle teacher responses, and even if the students understood the feedback, their paper was not better Sommers (1982) reported that “teachers’ comments can take students’ attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers’ purpose in commenting” (p 149) Students made changes in their paper in the way the teacher wanted, not what they thought was needed Teacher responses focused more on errors than on idea development, and teachers did not prioritize errors to be fixed Sommers also observed that “teachers’ comments are not text-specific and could be interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text” (p 152) Teacher response tended to be generic, which included vague directives and abstract commands Brannon & Knoblauch (1981) reported that students revise their drafts to meet their teacher’s expectation, not because of their need for idea development 86 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 Teacher response was believed to be authoritative and imposing, which emphasized logical, rational arguments, rather than being reflective and clear More importantly, written response was even reported to be unsupportive and even harmful to both teachers and students (Hairston, 1986; Sperling & Freedman, 1987) Hairston believed that responding may leave negative effects on teachers (such as frustration, burn-out, and despair) and on students (cognitive overload, defensive barriers that resist teacher comment) Sperling & Freeman (1987), in a case study with a high school student, reported that response was not supportive to student revision, and that the student misinterpreted the teacher’s message The student seemed to ignore problems pointed out in the comments by the teacher These observations are echoed by Wilson who reported that students receptively accepted the comments, and made changes to satisfy the teacher, to have good marks, which damaged and demotivated students’ view of what writing means (Wilson, 2009) Sperling & Freeman, therefore, called for clearer, more careful, well-constructed, helpful, relevant feedback from teachers in responding to student drafts 2.3 More recent balanced perspective on response A milder, more balanced view in judging teacher’s written feedback and student revision was noticed in recent studies (i.e Anson, 1989; Beason, 1993; Crone-Blevins, 2002; Freedman et al., 1987; A Lunsford & Connors, 1993; R Lunsford & Straub, 1995; Mathison-Fife & O’Neill, 1997; Smith, 1997; Sperling, 1994, 1996; Straub, 1997) These researchers attempt to construct an analytical framework in examining teacher comments and the influence on student writing Freedman, et al., (1987) conducted an extensive ethnographic study (surveying 715 junior high school students, 560 teachers from 116 National Writing Project sites) and reported that response during writing processes is significantly more NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v helpful than response to final polished products Teacher response is preferred over peer, parent, or other adult response But when grading was involved, teacher feedback was not helpful on the final piece submitted for grading In a series of studies, Sperling (1994, 1996) proposed that in order to reach a deeper understanding of student writing in the context of school, teachers should have in mind five orientations when responding to student writing: i) interpretive (relating elements in students’ writing to teachers’ prior knowledge and experience or to students’ prior knowledge and experience); ii) social (playing different social roles in reading students’ papers, such as peer and literacy scholar, teacher, and aesthetic reader); iii) cognitive/ emotive (reflecting reasoning and emotions as teachers read students’ papers); iv) evaluative (critically assessing students’ writing, explicitly and implicitly, opening chances for extensive criticism on students’ writing); and v) pedagogical (treating students’ papers as teaching and learning tools) (Sperling, 1996, pp 23, 24) These orientations form an analytical framework for investigating the perspective of teacher-as-reader in responding to student writing Having questions, relating to prior knowledge and experience, playing multiple roles in reading a paper, and sharing these hypotheses with students helps students understand themselves better as writer and reader The framework might serve as a holistic approach to investigating student writing in classroom context where teacher response is valued In their landmark research, Straub & Lunsford (1995; 2006) investigated 3,500 comments by 12 experienced teachers and professors of English on 156 sets of responses The researchers examined written teacher comments by analyzing the “focus” and “mode” both quantitatively and qualitatively Focus is understood as the issue to which the comment refers while the mode refers to how the comment is shaped Figure 1: Categories for analyzing comments (R Lunsford & Straub, 1995, p 159) FOCUS Global Ideas Development Global structure Local Local structure Wording Correctness Extra-textual MODE Corrections Evaluations Qualified Negative Evaluations Imperatives Advice Praise Indirect Requests Problem-Posing Questions Heuristic Questions Reflective Statements Straub & Lunsford reported that most of the teachers’ comments were text-specific, focused on global issues The comments were framed in a nonauthoritative mode and supported writing as a process Anson (1989) attempted to examine responding styles and their relationship with thinking styles The researcher categorized written teacher response styles into three groups of dualistic, relativistic, and reflective Dualistic responders tend to focus their attention on surface errors and mechanics Teacher responders clearly prescribed what is right from what is wrong, and that students should make changes in their revision “The tone of the responses implied that there were standards for correct and incorrect ways to complete the assignment, and that a teacher’s job was to act as a judge by applying the standards to the student’s writing,” or “[the tone] was highly authoritative and teacherly” (Anson, 1989, pp 344, 348) Grammatical issues seem to be the focus of dualistic comments Dualistic response emphasized narrowly prescriptive comments (Straub & Lunsford, 1995) Dualistic response tends to focus on spelling out issues, not to offer options for revision The following example is a typical dualistic response: There are some serious problems with this paper For one thing it is far too short, and the ideas in it, if any, are at the moment barely articulated… KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 87 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI one obvious reason why you did not write more, is that you have very serious deficiencies in your knowledge of the mechanics of writing I am referring here to tense, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure (Anson, 1989, p 344) The second type of responders, relativistic, commented almost nothing They wrote minimum comments on the margins of student papers as well as in the summary statements Relativistic responders seemed to avoid focusing on the student’s text, and to be “entirely unconcerned with giving the students anything more than a casual reaction… the text seems ‘owned’ by the writer” and teachers did not want to intrude into the text Relativistic responder provides “no options for revision,” just “idiosyncratic response of a single reader” (Anson, 1989, pp 349-350) The third approach examined was reflective response Reflective responders tend to make suggestions and possibilities for future revision This type of comment expresses concerns for student writers in “ideas, textual decisions, personal reactions.” Reflective responders acted as “representative readers” of student text, not authoritative teachers Final choices of whether or not making any changes to the drafts will be decided by the students themselves Reflective response also implies that the student writing was “in-process drafts” which serves as “tools for further learning.” Reflective responders often phase “maybe you could think about…”, “what if you…”, “and how about seeing if there’s a way to…” The tone of reflective response tended to be collaborating, suggesting, guiding, and modeling The reflective responder seems to be “rhetorically sitting next to the writer” (Anson, 1989, pp 351, 353) Below is an example of a reflective commentary to the student’s writing: Hi Bobby The first thing that strikes me before I even read your story is that it’s very short… I’m wondering if it’s short for a good reason, or it’s short because you just couldn’t think of things to say It’s possible for a piece of writing that’s very 88 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 short to be very good Poetry is that way, certainly On the other hand, the more you put in, the more chances are that your reader is going to be able to get into your story Stories generally- and this essay is a story- are fairly well-detailed… if you just keep it short and don’t put in many details then we never really get into your story at all (Anson, 1989, p 351) Reflective responses tend to “place more responsibility on the writer … not just in the style or form of the response, but in its focus and content.” By challenging the students to rethink their essays, reflective response appeared to “challenge the students to rethink their ways of viewing the world” (Anson, 1989, p 352) 2.4 L2 written feedback research Research in L2 written feedback has been growing, with attention being paid to the effectiveness of teacher’s written comments to student writing and in the ways feedback is given (e.g., Ashwell, 2000; Bitchener, 2008; Bitchener & Ferris, 2012; Bruton, 2009a, 2009b, 2010; Chandler, 2003; Conrad & Goldstein, 1999; Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris, 1995b, 1997, 2001, 2003, 2004; Ferris, 2010; Ferris, Brown, Liu, & Stine, 2011; Ferris, Pezone, Tade, & Tinti, 1997; Guénette, 2007; Hartshorn et al., 2010; F Hyland & Hyland, 2001; K Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Leki, 1990; Storch & Wigglesworth, 2010; Truscott, 1996, 1999, 2007; Van Beuningen, De Jong, & Kuiken, 2012; Zamel, 1985) Earlier L2 written feedback research yielded similar findings to L1 research Teacher comments were reported to be vague and form-related They focused on language errors rather than on global issues such as ideas and organization (Zamel, 1985) Research in the 1990s tended to focus on what to respond to (either on form, content, or both), and reported mixed findings Focus on form was believed to be helpful for student writing (Ashwell, 2000; Chandler, 2003; Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris, 1997; Leki, 1990) In an empirical study with 72 college NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v students from mixed backgrounds, Fathman & Whalley (1990) reported that specific comments on grammatical errors have greater effect on the improvement of grammatical accuracy than general comments on content The researchers also noted that both grammar and content response might be provided either separately or at the same time “without overburdening the students” (p 187) This claim was further supported by later studies (e.g Ashwell, 2000; Ferris, 1997) Feedback on some selective patterns of errors was helpful to student writing (Ferris, 1995b) Chandler (2003) reported, for example, that error correction helped students gain greater accuracy than when they did not receive error feedback Form-related comments (on grammatical errors) led to better grammatical accuracy than content-related feedback did (Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris & Roberts, 2001) Error correction helped prevent error fossilization (i.e a tendency to resist to change errors so that the errors become fixed) in L2 learners (Higgs & Clifford, 1982; Lalande, 1982) However, earlier studies in L2 written feedback also revealed that error correction was ineffective, even harmful to students’ fluency, and led to no improvement in long-term progress (Fazio, 2001; Kepner, 1991; Polio, Fleck, & Leder, 1998; Robb, Ross, & Shortreed, 1986; Semke, 1984; Sheppard, 1992; Truscott, 1996) Truscott (1996), for example, claimed that error correction was harmful to student fluency and led to no improvement in long-term progress and that students might not gain anything from error feedback Zamel (1985) and Lunsford and Connors (1993) reported that teacher feedback was often vague, form-related, and inaccurate Truscott (1999) suggested that teachers should adopt a correction-free approach in teaching writing, and teachers should focus on extra writing practice rather than spending time handling errors In recent reviews, Ferris summarizes a number of issues in response research: i) teachers often rely on marginal or end of paper notes whose purpose is to request, suggest, give information, encourage, and provide positive feedback A number of techniques have been utilized to respond: questioning, making statements and imperatives, recommending, etc., ii) teachers adjust their responses to types of writing task and student writing proficiency; and iii) some response styles tend to be more effective to revision than the others Comments about information, grammar, or mechanics are more likely to lead to successful revision than comments about such issue as thinking or argumentation (Bitchener & Ferris, 2012; Ferris, 2003) One of the main concerns in L2 response scholarship is how to determine if teacher response affects student revision Several taxonomies have been developed to trace revision changes Faigley & Witte (1981) proposed a system that traces revision by classifying changes into surface changes (changes that not result in new information) and text-based changes (changes that lead to new content or deletion of old content) (Faigley & Witte, 1981) Storch (2010) and Ferris (2003) argues that this revision scheme tends to be misleading because i) students tend to make by far greater number of surface formal changes than text-based changes within a writing, and ii) the scheme does not deal with how such a change affects the general quality of the draft Another procedure monitoring teacher response and student revision is proposed by Ferris (1997) This rating scale traced the students’ drafts and the teacher’s response to see how students utilized the comments in their revision Students’ revision was coded as not revised, successful revision, and unsuccessful revision These changes were also determined if they improve quality of the paper, have mixed effects, or have negative effect This method “more directly addresses the influence of teacher feedback and its effects not only on the types of revisions students make but on whether those changes actually improve the quality of the students’ texts” (Ferris, 2003, p 36) A number of studies have applied this analytic model in working with teacher’s comments and the effect on student’s KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 89 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI revision (i.e Conrad & Goldstein, 1999; Ferris, 1997, 2001; F Hyland, 1998) Many researchers, such as Bitchener and Ferris (2012), Storch (2010), Guénette (2007); K Hyland and Hyland (2006), and Ferris (2003, 2004), suggests that future studies in L2 response should consider student background and motivation level for L2 learning These include the amount of time students commit to spend on writing (in-class and out-of-class) The relationship between students and teacher should also be noted The types of writing student compose, the ways teacher constructs responses (linguistic, pragmatic, etc.) might also count in the relationship between response and revision Whether or not teacher’s written feedback is harmful to student’s writing as Truscott (1996, 1999) claims or whether teacher’s feedback is helpful to students’ immediate revision are also issues that merit further explorations There has been a debate about whether or not teacher’s written feedback is helpful to nonnative students of English (e.g., Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2011; Ferris, 2006; A Lunsford & Connors, 1993; Truscott, 1996, 1999, 2007; Zamel, 1985) Among many types of written feedback, the current study only explores only one type, written reflective feedback, and to examine if written reflective response has any effect on ESL students’ revision Given the fact that written feedback is still the most widely adopted method by writing teachers and is time consuming and yet appropriately examined, it is necessary to investigate whether or not teachers’ feedback make a difference to students’ writing progress The study was designed to answer the two following research questions: To what extent does teacher’s written reflective response influence ESL learners’ revision process? To what extent does ESL students’ revised draft improve after receiving teacher’s written reflective response? 90 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 THE STUDY 3.1 The participants The study was conducted on three female college students They were Vietnamese first year students (mean age is 20) They were pursuing different degrees in different majors, at different universities For the purpose of ethics, their names are coded as Queen, Pie and Tea Queen was studying English and commerce in Singapore; Pie was following a business program at a university in Wellington, New Zealand; and Tea was studying finance in Russia The length of the participants’ experience with English varies Queen has been learning English since she was at her secondary school in Vietnam (for about seven years) and she is now learning English in Singapore Pie and Tea have acquired Russian as their second language Pie learned Russian for six years before switching to English when she began her business program in Wellington in 2009 By the time data for the study was collected, Pie has been learning English in New Zealand for roughly a year Tea, interestingly, still used Russian as a means for her accounting program since Russian was a language of instruction at her university Tea, however, wanted to learn English since she was considering a Master’s degree in an English speaking university By the date of the data collection process, Tea had been learning English for almost two years To fully examine the effect of teachers’ responses (if any), it is appropriate to select the participants with diverse backgrounds of English learning All of the participants were former students at the universities in Vietnam where two of the researchers used to teach but were not current students at the time of this study Following the university’s approval, an email was sent out to recruit the participants These three students were the ones who agreed to join the study They were female students who appeared to have a clear commitment and plan to their studies, which might give credit to their motivation in learning English All of them were eager to participate in the study NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v since it offered them opportunities to be exposed to English, to practice writing in English, and to receive feedback from the researchers 3.2 Data collection process The data for the current study (the students’ series of drafts and final version) were collected over a period of two academic semesters (24 weeks) All of the writing was done outside of school, not for credit or grading It was made explicit before the participants joined the project that there would be no rules on how the writing had to be done, with no time constraints It was also up to the students’ interests and personal habits to decide when, where, and what to write We provided the students with some writing prompts if they did not wish to selfselect topics/themes to write about In fact, most of the writings came from these students’ self-selected topics Only two teacher-provided writing prompts were used The participants wrote multiple drafts After finishing each draft, they sent the teacher researcher for comments Since the focus of the study was on reflective feedback, the researcher interacted reflectively with these students’ drafts by writing exploratory comments at the end of each draft The researcher then returned the students the drafts with comments The students studied the comments and decided one their own what to with the draft They would continue to revise and edit their draft, which again would be sent to the researcher; or the student may refuse to revise and stop writing about that topic If the students chose to revise their drafts, they would revise it and send the revised paper to the teacher until the students were satisfied with the final draft Most of the drafts were written over two weeks Some topics resulted in up to four drafts plus the final version Seven topics/themes per student were collected during this period, yet only five of the papers per student were selected for analysis This was because the students chose not to revise the other two topics for some reason In total, 15 papers with more than 30 drafts were collected for analysis over a period of 24 weeks 3.3 Analysis of the effect of written feedback on revision Since the study attempted to see how the teacher’s reflective feedback affects the students’ revision, Ferris’s (1997) analytic model was used to analyze the revision A number of L2 feedback studies have adopted this procedure (i.e Conrad & Goldstein, 1999; Ferris, 1997, 2001; F Hyland, 1998) The procedure cross-checked the student’s drafts and teacher’s response to see to what extent the revision was successful, following the comment According to this scheme, three main categories were coded in analyzing student drafts: not revised, successful revision, and unsuccessful revision These categories were further examined to see to if the changes were minimal or substantive, and if they generally have positive effect, mixed effect, or negative effect A rating scale was adopted to aid the coding process (Figure 2) Figure 2: Rating scale for revision (Ferris, 1997, p 322) KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 91 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI Figure below described how the coding procedure worked in tracing the influence of the teacher’s feedback on the students’ writing across the drafts: Figure 3: Analysis of effects of teacher’s feedback on drafts Earlier Draft Teacher’s Feedback My first day at the school, I had a placement test which took me about two hours with other students I did my test not well because my basic English knowledge was very bad After that, a manager called Simon introduced us about regulation’s school and campus tour Sometimes when the manager was taking I did not understand, but he tried to explain for me what did he say When I felt nervous he helped me more confident I thought he is not also a good manager but only is a devoted teacher Queen, this is a clear essay about a good topic It seems that you are right on track to descriptive writing As a general reader, I can see a few of your activities on the first day at the university This is about your first day, a difficult day, at a foreign strange university You therefore should describe it more specifically, add more details to help readers see how difficult you felt on that day For example, you could write more on (1) your feelings on the way to the university, (2) what you saw at the university (students, buildings, anything you thought it’s strange!) (3) who took you there or you went there yourself? (4) what you felt when you saw the placement tests and how you did it, any special strategies? If you could remember, give one example in the test that you think it’s tricky (5) how the manager helped you to understand all the instructions and rules and regulations? How you thought of him/her before and after his/her orientation? (6) after the orientation, you went to make the student ID Tell me more about it and the process of ID issuing in a Singapore university After finished introduction, we went to student service centre to made student cards which we helped us can use computer rooms and borrow books from library Then we got home and to prepared for the first day at class 92 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 How the feedback worked The first day I went to school, I got (1) fail to revise up at seven o’clock and had breakfast After that, I went to school by bus at eight o’clock When I was coming to the school, I saw a beautiful campus (2) revise appeared in front of my eyes (2) successfully My first day at the school, I had a with minimal placement test which took me about change two hours with other students I did my test not well because my basic English (3) fail to revise knowledge was very bad I thought “if I want study at university in Singapore (4) revise I must study very hard” (4) Then, a successfully manager called Simon introduced us with minimal about regulation’s school and campus change tour Sometimes when the manager was taking I did not understand, but he tried to explain for me what he said He (5) revise used easier words to explain his ideas successfully (5) When I felt nervous he helped me with minimal more confident I thought he is not also change a good manager but only is a devoted teacher After finished introduction, we went to student service centre to made student cards which we helped us can use computer rooms and borrow books from library I began take photos for it (6) revise After the staff gave me an ID number successfully and I waited she gave me my student with substantive card I had to pay ten dollars for it change Before I went home other students and I came to computer room and library In the library did not have lots of books because this was a new school It established in 2008, so it had little students After that, we went to canteen to drink some things (6) Then we got home and to prepared for the first day at class I hoped the first day at class would be a good day for us Later Draft NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v The coding procedure framework was based on Ferris (1997) All recommendations from the teacher’s comments were first identified We then located these recommendations in the final drafts before we determined whether or not the students used these suggestions to make changes to their final drafts We further assessed if the changes were minimal or substantive Finally, we determined if the changes led to successful revision Two independent raters were recruited to the coding These raters have been teaching English for ten years and hold their Ph.D in English education and M.A in TESOL They were carefully trained with clear demonstrations before their actual coding The inter-rater reliability correlation between the two raters was 85 3.4 Assessing the improvement of the student writing In an attempt to qualitatively measure possible improvement in student writing, eight experienced English instructors were recruited to analyze the first drafts and final drafts Two out of eight raters hold an M.A degree in TESOL; four hold M.A in English Education, and two Ph.Ds Before the actual scoring, a demonstration scoring session was designed to familiarize the scorers with the process and address possible issues arising from the scoring process These raters examined the first and final drafts and scored the papers based on a version of the NWP’s analytic writing continuum (NWP, 2009) Improvement in a student’s paper was determined following two main procedures: i) holistic scoring of the first and final draft on a six- point scale; and ii) analytical scoring based on a six-trait scoring guide 3.4.1 Holistic scoring Before each scoring session, all identifying information was removed so that the raters did not know which draft was the first draft and which draft was the final draft Each pair of the papers (the first and final draft) went through two independent readings by two different raters, which resulted in two independent sets of scores If there was an obvious discrepancy in the scores (equal or greater than two points) after the two readings, a third independent reading was required The final score for that paper was the average of the three independent readings 3.4.2 Analytical scoring After the holistic scoring, the raters analyzed each draft in detail The analysis centered on the following traits (NWP, 2009): (i) Content (including quality and clarity of ideas and meaning); (ii) Structure (organization of the paper); (iii) Stance (including tone, voice, and style); (iv) Sentence fluency (sentence structure, sentence flow and rhythm, clarity of sentences); (v) Diction (word use, range of vocabulary, expressions); and (vi) Conventions (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraph breaks) FINDINGS 4.1 Teacher’s written reflective feedback did influence student revision Analysis of the student drafts showed that teacher’s written reflective comments did help improve the student revision The students in the study mostly utilized the teacher’s written comments and most of the comments led to successful revision The students only ignored a small percentage of the teacher’s comments Graph shows the percentages of the six categories of the rating scale for revision among the drafts Based on the Ferris’s (1997) procedure, most of the teacher’s comments led to successful revision The students utilized about 67 percent of the suggestions and recommendations by the teacher Among this, 33% of the comments resulted in minor revision with positive effects on final drafts, and nearly 34% of the comments led to substantial revision with positive effects on the final drafts Only about a third of the suggestions in teacher responses led to no revision or revision with negative effects in final drafts Among these categories, the students ignored about 16% of the teacher’s comments, and about 15% yielded negative or mixed effects KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 93 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI Graph 1: Influence of response on revision via revision rating scale 4.2 Improvement and progress recorded for the final drafts Statistical tests based on the holistic scoring and analytical scoring showed that the final drafts scored significantly higher than the first drafts Analytical six-trait scoring showed that final drafts tended to improve in content, structure, stance, and sentence fluency No clear improvement in final drafts was found with word choice and conventions 4.2.1 Holistic scoring To statistically compare the two sets of scores (first draft scores and final draft score) of the same students’ papers, analysis of variance is recommended to be the appropriate method used The two sets of scores were analyzed by running a one-way ANOVA The result of the ANOVA was presented in Table and Table below Table shows the descriptive statistics for first draft and final draft scores provided by eight raters Table shows the statistical result comparing the mean scores of the two sets of drafts As the tables show, the mean score of the final draft is statistically significantly higher than the mean score of the first drafts (p = 0048), at both α levels of 05 and 01 Table 1: Descriptive statistics for the two sets of scores Descriptive Statistics for First Draft Scores and Final Draft Scores Measure Mean St Dev Variance Minimum Maximum First draft 2.4533 0.7738 0.5987 1.0 4.00 Final draft 3.4053 0.9229 0.8518 1.75 5.00 Total 2.9293 0.9668 0.9346 Table 2: Analysis of variance for improvement across first drafts and final drafts Analysis of Variance Comparing the Score Means for Paper Improvement Source SS DF MS F P Between 6.7973 6.7973 9.37** 0.004827 Within 20.3071 28 0.7253 Total 27.1044 29 0.9346 *p < 05 **p < 01 94 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v Six one-way ANOVA tests were run to compare the sub-scores of the six traits (content, structure, stance, sentence fluency, diction, and conventions) given on first and final drafts The combined results were presented in Table As the table shows, the mean sub-scores of the final draft’s content, structure, stance, and sentence fluency were statically significantly higher than those of the first drafts at α level of 05 (Content at both α levels of 01 and 05) With regard to diction and conventions, the mean sub-scores of the final drafts showed no progress Table 3: ANOVA comparing means of sub-scores of the six trait Analysis of Variance comparing the means of sub-scores of the six traits F P Content 9.15** 0.005218 Structure 5.72* 0.023731 Stance 5.65* 0.024527 Sentence fluency 6.46* 0.016853 Diction 3.02 0.093232 Conventions 1.88 0.181224 *p < 05 **p < 01 4.2.2 Analytical scoring The quality of the drafts over time was also evaluated by the eight raters using analytical scoring The evaluation was based on the six-trait scoring guide Summary of these raters’ comments are presented in Table below These comments are a compilation to reflect the overall comments given, not comments on a particular paper or by a particular rater The raters wrote mostly for themselves as fellow teachers and were not drafting comments that would go to the students Table 4: Summary of scorers’ comments based on the NWP’s (2009) analytic scoring continuum Traits First draft Content (including Ideas are related but not quality and clarity of developed ideas and meaning) Expand your examples Subject is not clear, no clear focus Final draft Use of details Considerably longer Good content with more details The lead is good Begin with a good example Add some explanations, details Interesting lead + end; ideas more developed Good additional information helped this piece flow more naturally There is potential but much should be cut The writer adds more global, abstract background information in paper The imagery and language use in this piece is stronger Simplicity in conveying ideas KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 95 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI Structure (organization of the paper) Stance (including tone, voice, and style) Sentence fluency (sentence structure, sentence flow and rhythm, clarity of sentences) Diction (word use, range of vocabulary, expressions) Conventions (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraph breaks) List- like in delivery Break up the middle paragraph Very hard to followorganization not clear The first draft lacks fluency and organization Poor voice The first one felt a little more focused It has voice and descriptive information Has a focus + connected ideas but weak fluency+ diction Sentences are unclear due to inappropriate structure; even if the flow of the story seems good, some sentences are confusing because of broken word order Vary sentence length Word choice Missing verbs, article and preposition, adjective issues, Plurality, phrasing is unclear Tense, subject-verb agreement problems Capitalization Poor spelling Structure is easy to follow Paragraph 1-2 start more focused; The second one seems more professional as the writer’s fluency and organization are better There is a greater attempt to organize with paragraphs, which are chronological Add figurative language for interest Inaccurate subject-verb match but more detail and better voice Writer’s voice more clearly Better sentence structure The use of transition words Improved sentence fluency Much better organized with fluent word choice and good sentence structure Good command of adverbs and adjectives The thoughts here are profound, but often they are expressed in language that is difficult to penetrate, due to a lack of familiarity with nuances of American expression Verb tense, article, preposition still persists Unclear convention change Analytical, qualitative scoring revealed that final drafts generally improve in content, structure, stance, and sentence fluency Most raters agreed that final drafts were considerably longer, richer in details, explanation and examples, and showed a stronger voice Ideas were also more developed and flowed more naturally Final drafts showed a better lead and ending, and better sentence structures, though confusing structures still persisted, which influenced the overall clarity of the papers The raters also reported that there was no clear improvement in diction and conventions across the drafts Final drafts still showed a number of grammatical issues Among them were the use of verb tenses, articles and prepositions, broken word order, and weak word use DISCUSSION The results from this study indicatively suggest that teacher’s written reflective feedback was helpful to the student revision The analysis showed that up to 70 percent of the teacher’s feedback led to successful revision Following the teacher’s comments, the students had revised their first drafts, either minimally 96 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v or substantively, and improved the final draft Only a small number of the teacher’s comments were ignored by the students or led to negative and/or mixed effects The results provided some support to previous studies that reported that students highly appreciated teacher’s written comments and used teacher’s feedback to guide their revision (i.e Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Ferris, 1995a; Radecki & Swales, 1988,) a larger amount of teacher responses led to successful revision (i.e.Conrad & Goldstein, 1999; Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris, 1997, 2001; Ferris et al., 1997; Kepner, 1991) and the overall quality of the writing was improved (i.e.Ashwell, 2000; Bitchener & Ferris, 2012; Bitchener & Knoch, 2008; Bitchener, Young, & Cameron, 2005; Bruton, 2009b; Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 2004; Ferris, 2010; Ferris, Chaney, Komura, Roberts, & McKee, 2000; Ferris & Helt, 2000; Lalande, 1982; Van Beuningen et al., 2012) Teacher’s written reflective feedback clearly contributed to the students’ improvement on the overall quality of the writing products Statistical tests showed that the final drafts scored significantly higher than the first drafts The areas of improvement included the overall structure, content, stance, and sentence fluency This might be due to positive interpretation by the students when they received the teacher’s feedback As Anson (1989) suggests, the tone of reflective response tends to be collaborating, suggesting, and modeling Students are challenged to rethink their essays following the teacher comment Indirect response might be able to lead students to “cognitive problem-solving,” since students are able to “self-edit” after receiving teacher comments (Ferris, 2004, p 60) In this context, the responder seemed to be “rhetorically sitting next to the writer,” but “place more responsibility on the writer… not just in the style or form of the response, but in its focus and content” (Anson, 1989, pp 252, 253) Reflective feedback perhaps was more helpful to the ESL students’ revision than ineffective or harmful as some researchers claim (e.g., A Lunsford & Connors, 1993; Polio et al., 1998; Sheppard, 1992; Truscott, 1996, 1999, 2007; Zamel, 1985) Commenting reflectively during the early stage of writing, teachers might focus on a broad picture (i.e ideas and content) rather than focusing on hunting for errors and asking the students to fix them Weaver believes that teacher should interact with the student and only focus on errors during the later stage of writing: “When fixing error becomes the focal point, we miss all the incredible things our students are doing and all the incredible growth they are experiencing… To respond to the writers first, then to the content of the writing, and only later to what might need to be revised or edited” (Weaver, 2008, p 263) Holistic and analytical scoring qualitatively showed that the students’ word choice and conventions did not seem to improve The raters assessed that inappropriate use of words, and difficulties with punctuation and capitalization were rampant in both first and final drafts Regarding errors in word choice, it was likely that because basic ESL student writers in this study experiment, take risks in detailed topics, and develop more sophisticated syntax, the occurrence of errors may increase (i.e Shaughnessy, 1977; Weaver, 2008; Zinsser, 2006) The results showed no clear progress in the use of conventions in final drafts Neither were there many spelling errors in both first and final drafts Reasons could vary However, this might be because the students typed their essays on their computers instead of writing by hands on papers Some software such as Microsoft Word supports auto-spelling check that aids the students to spell and punctuate their drafts CONCLUSIONS Since the aim of the study was to explore the impact of teacher’s written reflective feedback on student revision, teacher’s reflective feedback was helpful to the students’ revision Evidence from the study showed that up to two thirds of the teacher’s comments led to successful revision These were either minimal or substantive changes with positive effects Only about 15 percent of the teacher’s KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 97 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI comments did not receive attention from the students Likewise, only a small percentage of the teacher’s feedback resulted in negative or mixed effect (13%) In terms of quality of the drafts over time following the teacher’s reflective feedback, holistic and analytical scorings revealed evidence to support that final drafts were statistically stronger than first drafts Analysis of variance showed that final drafts scored statistically significantly higher than that the first drafts In the final drafts, the mean scores of content, structure, stance, and sentence fluency were statistically significant and higher than those in the first drafts In contrast, no clear progress was found with regard to word choice and conventions The study showed several implications for responding to student writing First, though written feedback was time consuming, it was helpful and influential in helping students revise their drafts Students seemed to use most of the teacher’s comments in their revision as they might appreciate teacher’s written feedback (Enginarlar, 1993; Ferris, 1995a; Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1994, 1996; Saito, 1994) The fact that most of the teacher’s written comments in this study led to successful revision perhaps suggests that teacher’s written feedback is not harmful to L2 student revision as several researchers previously claim Second, regardless of the writing context (inclass or out-of-class writing, English- or nonEnglish classes), teachers should interact more with students Teacher should dramatize the role of a reader or audience who communicates with students via written exploratory response (R Lunsford & Straub, 1995) By giving exploratory responses, teachers hold students accountable for their decision-making in their revision process (Anson, 1989; Ferris, 2003, 2004) Third, perhaps due to the fact that ESL students’ writing is developing and ESL students are trying out with their second language, writing teachers should show more interest in the students’ papers, consider the students as emerging writers (Weaver, 2008) and be concerned about student writer behind 98 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 the text (Elbow, 1998; R Lunsford & Straub, 1995) Instead of using authoritative voice, a teacher should perform a role “that allows her to ‘discuss’ a paper with the writer” (R Lunsford & Straub, 1995, p 373) Indirect feedback, as Ferris concludes, leads students to “cognitive problem-solving,” because students may be able to “self-edit” after receiving teacher comments (Ferris, 2004, p 60) The fact that the students in this study used only two writing prompts to write their papers, and most of their other writings came from their self-selected topics may help writing teachers have better teaching strategies Instead of forcing students to follow the prompts, rules and the like, teachers may want to encourage ESL students to write more descriptively, even to engage more in out-of-class writing (e.g., free-writing and journal writing) to develop nuances and fluency (Fulwiler, 1987) Responding should help L2 student writers improve ability to scrutinize their writing, and more important, increase their confidence in using their written language (Ferris, 2004; Lindemann, 1987; Shaughnessy, 1977; Weaver, 2008) Though the study helped to confirm that teacher’s written feedback was helpful to L2 student revision, due to its scale, it inherently compounds several weaknesses The first concern is the limited number of subjects Though a number of writings were collected spanning over two semesters and though this was a pilot study for a future research with larger sample, only three students would not be a perfect representative sample The second drawback involves the number of teachers who provided written response Only one teacher researcher responding to the student writings limits the chances for generalization to other teachers and students Third, the study focused on informal writing (under no time or grading pressure) Therefore care should be taken in interpreting the results of the study when writings are produced in on-demand, formal contexts Clearly, these issues merit further considerations in future studies of teacher’s written feedback and student writing NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v References: Anson, Christ (1989), Respond styles and ways of knowing In C Anson (Ed.), Writing and response: theory, practice, and research (pp 332366) Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English Ashwell, Tim (2000), Patterns of teacher response to student writing in a multiple-draft composition classroom: is content feedback followed by form feedback the best method? Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(3), 227-257 Barnes, Walter (1913), The reign of red ink The English Journal, 2(3), 158-165 Beason, Larry (1993), Feedback and revision in writing across the curriculum classes Research in the Teaching of English, 27(4), 395-422 Bitchener, John (2008), Evidence in support of written corrective feedback Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(2), 102-118 doi: 10.1016/j jslw.2007.11.004 Bitchener, John, & Ferris, Dana (2012).,Written corrective feedback in second language acquisition and writing New York: Routledge Bitchener, John, & Knoch, Ute (2008), The value of written corrective feedback for migrant and international students Language Teaching Research, 12(3), 409-431 doi: 10.1177/1362168808089924 Bitchener, John, Young, Stuart, & Cameron, Denise (2005), The effect of different types of corrective feedback on ESL student writing Journal of Second Language Writing, 14(3), 191205 doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2005.08.001 Bruton, Anthony (2009a), Designing research into the effects of grammar correction in L2 writing: Not so straightforward Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(2), 136-140 doi: 10.1016/j jslw.2009.02.005 10 Bruton, Anthony (2009b), Improving accuracy is not the only reason for writing, and even if it were System, 37(4), 600-613 doi: 10.1016/j system.2009.09.005 11 Bruton, Anthony (2010), Another reply to Truscott on error correction: Improved situated designs over statistics System, 38(3), 491-498 doi: 10.1016/j.system.2010.07.001 12 Carpenter, George Rice, Baker, Franklin T., & Scott, Fred Newton (1913), The teaching of English in the elementary and the secondary school New York: Longmans, Green, and co 13 Chandler, Jean (2003), The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in the accuracy and fluency of L2 student writing Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(3), 267296 doi: 10.1016/s1060-3743(03)00038-9 14 Cohen, Andrew, & Cavalcanti, Marilda (1990), Feedback on written compositions: teacher and student verbal reports In B Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing: research insights for the classroom (pp 155-177) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 Connors, Robert, & Lunsford, Andrea (1988), Frequency of Formal Errors in Current College Writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle Do Research College Composition and Communication, 39(4), 395-409 16 Conrad, Susan, & Goldstein, Lynn (1999), ESL student revision after teacher-written comments: text, contexts, and individuals Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(2), 147-179 17 Crone-Blevins, Deborah E (2002), The art of response English Journal, 91(6), 93-98 18 Elbow, Peter, (1998), Writing without teachers New York: Oxford University Press, Inc 19 Enginarlar, Hüsnü (1993), Student response to teacher feedback in EFL writing System, 21(2), 193-204 20 Fathman, Ann, & Whalley, Elizabeth (1990), Teacher response to student writing: focus on form versus content In B Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing: research insights for the classroom (pp 178-190) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 21 Fazio, Lucy L (2001), The effect of corrections and commentaries on the journal writing accuracy of minority- and majoritylanguage students Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(4), 235-249 doi: 10.1016/s10603743(01)00042-x KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 99 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI 22 Ferris, Dana (1995a), Student reactions to teacher response in multiple-draft composition classrooms TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 33-53 23 Ferris, Dana (1995b), Teaching ESL composition students to become independent selfeditors TESOL Journal, 4(4), 18-22 24 Ferris, Dana (1997), The Influence of teacher commentary on student revision TESOL Quarterly, 31(2), 315-339 25 Ferris, Dana (1999), The case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes: A response to Truscott (1996) Journal of Second Language Writing, 8, 1-10 26 Ferris, Dana (2001), Teaching writing for academic purposes In J Flowerdew & M Peacock (Eds.), Research perspectives on English for academic purposes (pp 298-314) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 27 Ferris, Dana (2003), Response to student writing: implications for second language students Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 28 Ferris, Dana (2004), The “Grammar correction” Debate in L2 Writing: where are we, and where we go from here? (and what we in the meantime ?) Journal of Second Language Writing, 13(1), 49-62 29 Ferris, Dana (2011), Treatment of error in second-language student writing Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press 30 Ferris, Dana (2006), Does error feedback help student writers? New evidence on the shortand long-term effects of written error correction In K Hyland & F Hyland (Eds.), Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues (pp 81104) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 31 Ferris, Dana (2010), Second language writing research and written corrective feedback in SLA: Intersections and practical applications Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32(2), 181-201 32 Ferris, Dana, & Roberts, Barrie (2001), Error feedback in L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be? Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(3), 161-184 100 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 33 Ferris, Dana, Brown, Jeffrey, Liu, Hsiang, & Stine, Maria Eugenia Arnaudo (2011), Responding to L2 Students in College Writing Classes: Teacher Perspectives TESOL Quarterly, 45(2), 207-234 doi: 10.5054/tq.2011.247706 34 Ferris, Dana, Chaney, J, Komura, K, Roberts, J, & McKee, S (2000, March), Perspectives, problems, and practices in treating written error Paper presented at the International TESOL Convention, Vancouver, BC 35 Ferris, Dana, & Helt, M (2000), Was Truscott right? New evidence on the effects of error correction in L2 writing classes Paper presented at the AAAL Conference, Vancouver, BC 36 Ferris, Dana, Pezone, Susan, Tade, Cathy, & Tinti, Sharee (1997), Teacher commentary on student writing: Descriptions and implications Journal of Second Language Writing, 6(2), 155-182 37 Freedman, S.W., Greenleaf, C., & Sperling, M (1987), Response to student writing: National Council of Teachers of English 38 Fulwiler, Toby (1987), The Journal book Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Guénette, Danielle (2007), Is feedback pedagogically correct?: Research design issues in studies of feedback on writing Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(1), 40-53 doi: 10.1016/j jslw.2007.01.001 39 Hartshorn, K James, Evans, Norman W., Merrill, Paul F., Sudweeks, Richard R., StrongKrause, Diane, & Anderson, Neil J (2010) Effects of Dynamic Corrective Feedback on ESL Writing Accuracy TESOL Quarterly, 44(1), 84-109 doi: 10.5054/tq.2010.213781 40 Hedgcock, John, & Lefkowitz, Natalie (1994), Feedback on feedback: Assessing learner receptivity to teacher response in L2 composing Journal of Second Language Writing, 3(2), 141163 doi: Doi: 10.1016/1060-3743(94)90012-4 41 Hedgcock, John, & Lefkowitz, Natalie (1996), Some Input on Input: Two Analyses of Student Response to Expert Feedback in L2 Writing The Modern Language Journal, 80(3), 287-308 NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI v 42 Higgs, Theodore, & Clifford, Ray (1982), The push toward communication In T Higgs (Ed.), Curriculum, competence, and the foreign language teacher (pp 57-79) Skokie, IL: National Textbook Company 43 Hyland, Fiona (1998), The impact of teacher written feedback on individual writers Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(3), 255-286 44 Hyland, Fiona, & Hyland, Ken (2001), Sugaring the pill: praise and criticism in written feedback Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(3), 185-212 45 Hyland, Ken, & Hyland, Fiona (2006), Feedback on second language students’ writing Language Teaching, 39(2), 83-101 doi: 10.1017/ s0261444806003399 46 Kepner, Christine G (1991), An experiment in the relationship of yypes of written feedback to the development of second language writing skills Modern Language Journal, 75(3), 305-313 47 Leki, Ilona, (1990), Coaching from the margins: issues in written response In B Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing: research insights for the classroom (pp 57-68) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 48 Lunsford, Andrea A, & Lunsford, Karen J (2008), “ Mistakes Are a Fact of Life”: A National Comparative Study College Composition and Communication, 781-806 49 Lunsford, Andrea, & Connors, Robert (1993), Teachers’ rhetorical comments on student papers College Composition and Communication, 44(2), 200-223 50 Lunsford, Ronald, & Straub, Richard (1995), Twelve readers reading: responding to college student writing Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press 51 Lunsford, Ronald, & Straub, Richard (2006), Twelve reades reading: A survey of contemporary teachers’ commenting strategies In R Straub (Ed.), Key Works on Teacher Response: An Anthology (pp 159-189) Portsmouth: NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers 52 Mathison-Fife, Jane, & O’Neill, Peggy (1997), Re-seeing research on response College Composition and Communication, 48(2), 274-277 53 NWP (2009), Analytic writing continuum CA: Berkeley: National Writing Project 54 Polio, Charlene, Fleck, Catherine, & Leder, Nevin (1998), “If I only had more time”: ESL learners’ changes in linguistic accuracy on essay revisions Journal of Second Language Writing, 7(1), 43-68 doi: 10.1016/s1060-3743(98)90005-4 55 Radecki, Patricia, & Swales, John (1988), ESL student reaction to written comments on their written work System, 16(3), 355-365 56 Robb, Thomas, Ross, Steven, & Shortreed, Ian, (1986), Salience of Feedback on Error and Its Effect on EFL Writing Quality TESOL Quarterly, 20(1), 83-95 57 Saito, Hiroko (1994), Teachers’ practices and students’ preferences for feedback on second language writing: A case study of adult ESL learners TESL Canada Journal, 11(2), 46-70 58 Semke, Harriet (1984), Effects of the red pen Foreign Language Annals, 17(3), 195-202 59 Shaughnessy, Mina P (1977), Errors and expectations: a guide for the teacher of basic writing New York: Oxford University Press 60 Sheppard, Ken (1992), Two feedback types: Do they make a difference? RELC Journal, 23(1), 103-110 61 Smith, Summer (1997), The genre of the end comment: conventions in teacher responses to student writing College Composition and Communication, 48(2), 249-268 62 Sperling, Melanie (1994), Constructing the perspective of teacher-as-reader: a framework for studying response to student writing Research in the Teaching of English, 28(2), 175-207 63 Sperling, Melanie (1996), Revealing the teacher-as-reader in response to students’ writing English Journal, 85(1), 22-26 64 Sperling, Melanie, & Freedman, Sarah (1987), A good girl writes like a good girl: Written response to student writing Written Communication, 4(4), 343-369 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 101 v NGHIÊN CỨU - TRAO ĐỔI 65 Storch, Neomy (2010), Critical feedback on written corrective feedback research International Journal of English Studies, 10(2), 29 66 Storch, Neomy, & Wigglesworth, Gillian (2010) Learners’ processing, uptake, and retention of corrective feedback on writing Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32(2), 303-334 doi: 10.1017/s0272263109990532 67 Straub, Richard (1997), Students’ reactions to teacher comments: an exploratory study Research in the Teaching of English, 31(1), 91-119 68 Straub, Richard, (2000) The practice of response : strategies for commenting on student writing Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press 69 Truscott, John (1996), The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes Language Learning, 46(2), 327 70 Truscott, John (1999), The case for “The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes”: A response to Ferris Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(2), 111-122 71 Truscott, John (2007), The effect of error correction on learners’ ability to write accurately Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(4), 255272 doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2007.06.003 72 Van Beuningen, Catherine G., De Jong, Nivja H., & Kuiken, Folkert (2012), Evidence on the Effectiveness of Comprehensive Error Correction in Second Language Writing Language Learning, 62(1), 1-41 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00674.x 73.Weaver, Constance (2008), Grammar to enrich and enhance writing HN: Portmouth: Heinmann 74 Wilson, M (2009), Responsive writing assessment Educational Leadership, 67(3), 58-62 75 Zamel, Vivian (1985), Responding to Student Writing TESOL Quarterly, 19(1), 79-101 76 Zinsser, W.K (2006), On writing well: The classic guide to writing nonfiction: Harper Paperbacks HOW TEACHER’S REFLECTIVE WRITTEN FEEDBACK MAKES A DIFFERENCE TO ESL STUDENTS’ REVISION TRUONG ANH TUAN, LANNIN AMY, NGO QUY CHUNG Abstract: Teacher’s written feedback is arguably the most widely adopted method by English teachers; yet it is time consuming and the least understood In the current study, teacher’s reflective written teacher feedback and its effects on L2 students’ writing revision and quality were explored Over thirty drafts from 15 themes were collected from three L2 college students during two academic semesters (24 weeks) The influence of teacher feedback on the students’ revision were analyzed using Ferris’s rating scale while the students’ writing quality was evaluated by holistic and analytical scoring following a version of the National Writing Project’s analytic writing continuum The analyses showed that teacher’s written reflective feedback was helpful to L2 students’ revision More than two thirds of teacher’s comments led to successful revision Final drafts also scored statically significantly higher than first drafts Individual raters reported that final drafts tended to be richer in content, more organized, and clearer voice while no clear effect in word choice and conventions was found The findings suggested several implications for response practices in the context of L2 writing Keywords: writing response, written feedback, reflective feedback, L2 writing Received: 11/04/2017; Revised: 11/5/2017; Accepted for publication: 28/6/2017 102 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ Số 08 - 7/2017 ... Paperbacks HOW TEACHER’S REFLECTIVE WRITTEN FEEDBACK MAKES A DIFFERENCE TO ESL STUDENTS’ REVISION TRUONG ANH TUAN, LANNIN AMY, NGO QUY CHUNG Abstract: Teacher’s written feedback is arguably the most widely