An investigation into the effectiveness of peer written feedback on the development of ESL writing for the 11th specialized english grade in sontay high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** CHU THỊ PHƢƠNG LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTTIVENESS OF PEER-WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESL WRITING FOR THE 11th SPECIALIZED ENGLISH GRADE IN SONTAY HIGH SCHOOL (Khảo sát tính hiệu phƣơng pháp sử dụng ý kiến phản hồi bạn học tới việc phát triển kỹ viết Tiếng Anh học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh – Trƣờng THPT Sơn Tây) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi – 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** CHU THỊ PHƢƠNG LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTTIVENESS OF PEER-WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESL WRITING FOR THE 11th SPECIALIZED ENGLISH GRADE IN SONTAY HIGH SCHOOL (Khảo sát tính hiệu phƣơng pháp sử dụng ý kiến phản hồi bạn học tới việc phát triển kỹ viết Tiếng Anh học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh – Trƣờng THPT Sơn Tây) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do Hanoi – 2015 DECLARATION I confirm that the thesis “An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Peer-written Feedback to the Development of ESL Writing for 11th Grade Majoring English in Sontay High school” is a presentation of my original research work It was carried out under the consultant of Prof Assoc Dr Nguyen Van Do I also declare that quotation for the information and references in the thesis has obeyed academic rules I hereby want to confirm that this research had never been published anywhere before the submission and this research is only carried out in the framework of a master thesis Date: ……………………………………… Signature: ………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With boundless love and great attitude, I would like to send my deepest sincere and appreciation to the people who devote their valuable work and time for the researchers during the time conducting the research Without their help, this research would have never been completed First of all, I would like to express my special thankfulness to my supervisor, Prof Assoc Nguyen Van Do for the guidance, support, consistence advice as well as remarks and engagements through the process of this master thesis All of his help contributes to bring the success to the research I would also like to send my appreciation to all the participants of this thesis They are Mrs Nguyen Thu Huyen- the former teacher of 11th English gifted class in Sontay high school, Mrs Le Phuong Lan- the teacher of English and 45 students in this class, who willingly shared their precious time and efforts to help me complete the questionnaire and conduct a long series of writing test during four months of collecting data Without their support, the thesis would never been fulfilled I hope to send my thanks to my colleague, teachers and English teaching staffs in Sontay high school for their valuable critical feedbacks, comments and encouragements Last but not least, I am very grateful to my family and friends, who always stand by me and give me mental support as well as encouragement to complete the master thesis ii ABSTRACT The study is designed to investigate the effect of peer written feedback on the development of ESL writing skill for the 11th grade The study primarily aims to explore the attitude of 11th grade students majoring English towards peer written feedback activity This study also explores students‟ writing aspects which had been improved thanks to the feedback from their peers The results of the research may be proved to suggest some implications for the teacher to exploit more roles of peer written feedback within ESL writing lesson Firstly, the sample including 45 students in 11th grade majoring English in Sontay high school was required to the proficiency tests to measure the level of improvement students had thanks to the help of their peer-feedback After that, half of them were asked to attend the survey to give the data for the attitude of students towards peer written feedback in their ESL writing The collected data were then presented under the form of tables and charts The result showed that students had mixed attitude towards peer-written feedback However, the number of students having positive attitude were out-numbered than those who has negative viewpoint about it The main instrument to collect research data were students‟ writing tests measured during the four-month testing The change in the assessment and the number of mistakes which could be realized and corrected indicated that peer written feedback had improved the quality of students‟ writing products in some aspects iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi DEFINITION OF TERMS .vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Previous research findings about the study Organization of the research paper CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW An overview of writing Approaches to writing teaching in ESL classes 2.1 The product approach 2.2 The process approach: An overview of peer written feedback on writing 3.1 An overview of feedback 3.2 Peer-feedback and its formats on language writing 10 The purposes and drawbacks of peer-written feedback 11 4.1 The purposes of feedback on English Second Language writing development11 4.2 Drawbacks of peer written feedbacks 13 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 16 Context of the study 16 1.1 The setting of the study 16 1.2 The writing program applied in 11th grade majoring English in Sontay high school 17 Research design 17 iv Participants 19 Data collection instruments 19 4.1 Writing tests 19 4.2 Questionnaire 20 Research procedure 21 Data analysis methods 23 6.1 Questionnaire 23 6.2 Proficiency tests 23 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS 25 Students’ general information 25 1.2 Research questions: 27 CONCLUSION 37 Summary of the findings 37 Recommendation to exploit students’ more role of peer- written feedback in ESL writing lesson 39 2.1 Clear checklist or rubrics 40 2.2 Timely and regularly 40 2.3 Feedback should illuminate both the strength and the areas for development40 2.4 Teacher’s control and instruction 41 Limitation of the study 41 Suggestions for further research 42 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIXES I v LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES I List of Tables Table 1: The number of population in the two groups of students Table 2: Students‟ attitude towards peer written feedback on their writing skill Table 3: Writing score scales of students‟ Pre-test Table 4: Writing score scales of students‟ Post- test Table 5: The disadvantages of peer written feedback on students‟ writing II List of Charts Chart 1: Students' experience in English Chart 2: Students‟ attitude towards English language learning Chart 3: Number of students preferring students‟ comment or teacher‟s comment Chart 4: The number of errors students make in the Pre- test and Post- test Chart 5: Number of mistakes can be shown and corrected III List of Formula Mean: ( X  n xi  ( x1  x2   xn )  n i 1 n n Variance: S   (x  X ) i n 1 n Deviation Standard: S   (x  X ) i n 1 vi DEFINITION OF TERMS  Control group: The group that was taught and learn under the traditional teaching approach  Experimental group: The group that was tested with innovative teaching approach  Quantitative research: is used to quantify data by generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics It uses measurable data to formulate facts and uncover patterns  Mean: an average score within a set of number  Min: the lowest number in a range  Max: The highest point or number in a range  Mode: The most frequently number in a set  Deviation Standard: a measure of the spread of the score within a set of data  Variance: A measurement of the spread between numbers in a data set vii INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Feedback in education is seen to take a crucial contribution to the improvement of students‟ ESL learning It takes benefits in improving “both encouraging and consolidating learning” (Anderson, 1992; Brophy, 1981, Vygotsky, 1978 cited in Ken Hyland and Fiona Hyland, 2006) In most of the traditional ESL class, especially writing section, giving feedback and correctness to students is one of the important tasks of the teachers, as feedback takes benefits in creating supporting learning environment, as well as instructing students a model sample of writing With the help of teacher, students have fewer burdens with their work However, the help of teacher‟s feedback in the proficiency of students‟ ESL writing skill just has benefits in some aspects The researchers found out that focusing on the help of teacher only would be problematic as they just understand the „outer layout‟ of the problems without understanding the core reason of the errors and how to make the writing improved As a consequence, students will have short-term improvement on their revised lesson and they will be easy to make the mistakes again Thus, one of the duties of teachers is to discover an effective way to facilitate students‟ learning without the help of teacher‟s feedback and help them avoid the above-mentioned troubles To prepare for students a good writing skill, teachers should try to combine different strategies with the aim of helping students learn better and enhancing writing skill because “Second language writers often benefit most and make most progress when teachers contribute to this goal through a variety of intervention strategies available in classroom settings” Skroll (2003) Among many interventions, using students‟ peer feedback in writing is one of the effective strategies In this method, students conduct their first writing product In the next stage, they exchange it with their peer to receive their friend‟s feedback just two methods among them are used to collect data for the research questions, which are students‟ writing portfolios and questionnaire After four-month testing period, the conclusions for the research questions are found out, and summarized as followed: In the first place, referring to students‟ attitude to peer written feedback in their writing lesson, the study recognizes that students have opposite attitude towards peer written feedback methods: some support to the effectiveness of this method to their improvement in ESL writing skill; on the other hand, some disapprove its role in their study It can be understandable as all the students not perceive their learning methods in the same way In fact, the social linguistics proves that students can be perceived languages by four different channels Each type of learners requires different means to exploit their knowledge Of course, peer written feedback is just one method among them However, the students who realize its effectiveness outnumbers than those who have negative feedback on it It proves that in general, peer- written feedback is helpful to the learners Among many advantages of peer written feedback, students admit that peer written feedback not only brings improvement to their ESL writing skill but also develop their personal and mental development skills To the other group, the reasons to explain why they disapprove the impact of peer written feedback to their work may lie in the fact that they not trust their friends on correcting their writing; the methods why their peer use to check their writing cannot meet their need or they prefer the help from their teacher than their classmates To the second research question which aims to explore the aspects can gain the most effectiveness from their peer‟s written feedback Finding the answer for this question is the most important duty of the thesis, so the researcher has to use investigate very carefully Even the Descriptive Statistics Methods with rather complicated math calculation must be linked to find the persuasive data The final result proves that although peer written feedback cannot satisfy all the students, it 38 still brings effectiveness to the group of students that gained peer written feedback throughout four-month testing The evidence is that the average scores for the post test is much higher than that in the initial stage Through the statistics, the study also recognizes after testing students‟ writing proficiency with peer written feedback, students‟ writing background has improvement in different aspects; however, their grammar and structures take the most benefits from their peer checking It can prove that grammar knowledge seems to be easier for them to possess than any other skills However, in the whole, students need more help about structure, word choice, ideas and expression Refer to the third research question, which investigates the disadvantages of peer written feedback; the result concludes that the biggest difficulties students have when using their peer written feedback to correct their writing is the misunderstanding within their peer and students‟ lack of effort to correct their mistakes This is an evident obstacle for students because students have their own way of thinking and there are many ways for them to express their ideas To understand what the other people want to express is not easy It requires students to pay much time and efforts Besides, the lack of motivation to give feedback to their friends‟ writing makes the activity to become more boring and waste of time Students just have minor improvement once students give useless and „inter lay-out‟ checking Recommendation to exploit students’ more role of peer- written feedback in ESL writing lesson The main duty of the minor research is investigating the effectiveness of peer written feedback to the development of students‟ ESL writing skill Although the results prove that peer written feedback takes an effect on the improvement of students‟ writing proficiency; it has certain shortcomings As a consequence, the researcher suggests some recommendations for teachers to exploit more effectiveness of peer written feedback in writing lessons 39 2.1 Clear checklist or rubrics Checklist or rubrics are important tools teachers have to use when they want their students to provide feedback to their friends The role of checklist is permitting students to find out variety of errors at one time and guiding students to focus on the most serious mistakes or the important skills With a clear checklist, the checkers are easier to assess and give marks to the writer Moreover, it helps savings time and effort of the markers as well as is good if their students want to revise their own writing Moreover, using checklist enables all students to have the same criterion to assess their friends‟ writing; as a consequence, students will feel more comfortable when they see that their writing has an equal assessment as the others 2.2 Timely and regularly Being able to read and make an analysis about other‟s written product needs a lot of time and practice It may last from several months to years, and the success does not come immediately Therefore, in order for the peer written feedback have a positive effect to the learners, teacher should divide the procedure into smaller periods and apply it step by step Moreover, the strategies to use peer written feedback cannot exist in students‟ mind for such a long time It will soon disappear if they not use it regularly As a consequence, if peer feedback is applied at the class, it should be repeated more than once Through practice, students will learn how to give constructive feedback to their friends as well as understand the way to reconstruct the writing in a proper method 2.3 Feedback should illuminate both the strength and the areas for development Feedback itself has two opposite aspects; therefore, it can motivate students or disappoint them If feedback focuses much on their strong point, students of course will over-estimate their capacity On the other hand, once people pay much attention to their shortcomings, students are more likely to feel pessimistic and they 40 not have motivation to learn All of these factors destroy the roles of feedback Therefore, it is advisable that students‟ comments should include the strength and weaknesses as well as suggestions for the writing to make improvement Moreover, the checkers should make certain that their comments should start by exploring their strength It is more comfortable for students to get compliments rather than the comment on their weak points One more thing students should remember when checking their peer„s product is that giving the negative feedback must be together with the constructive suggestions for them to improve their writing (Kilminster et al, 2007) 2.4 Teacher’s control and instruction As peer written feedback is a new learning approach for most of the students, the roles of teacher and instruction takes a vital part in modeling and enhancing their attention to this learning approach Teacher can attend to give checklist based on which, students can focus to give comments on the most important checking If students are forced to concern on so much work to do, the peer written feedback cannot work Therefore, giving students with a brief guideline will help them more focus on the response Teacher should also instruct them to feedback honestly about their peers‟ errors All of these makes peer written feedback on ESL writing lesson more effective Limitation of the study Despite many efforts made by researcher in justifying the methodology for the study, as well as collecting and analyzing data during the time of conducting the research, the research still meets some unavoidable limitations The first shortcoming comes from the tools used to collect data for the research With the scope of the minor thesis, only students‟ writing portfolios and questionnaire are used as the sources of data for the research Therefore, it may be weak for the study to ensure the validity and reliability of the research Moreover, before writing the data analysis for the thesis, the researcher has an ambition to 41 discover the roles of SPSS tool to analyze and measure the research data Unfortunately, the researcher‟s knowledge is not good enough to make use of the tool, and just Data Statistics Method is applied It is the most serious limitation, which can be improved if researcher takes more time and efforts Besides, as shown in the previous chapters in this thesis, students‟ writing portfolios analysis is the main tool to collect data for the research However, the researcher cannot make full use of its results Only the pre-test and post-test are given mark and compared to see the improvement of students, while there are only four writing essays students conducted within four-month investigation being collected random to analyze If all their products are collected and analyze, researcher can well aware their improvement, but it is a real burden which the researcher cannot afford to solve Despite these unavoidable limitation, the research itself is hope to make a certain contribution to the current situation of ESL teaching and learning within Vietnam‟s domestic region, and Sontay high school in specific My colleague can take this thesis for reference if they hope to apply peer written feedback in their lessons Suggestions for further research In the framework of this thesis, the researcher can just focus on the roles of peer written feedback to the improvement students‟ writing proficiency in 11th majoring English class It is the limitation of the thesis Therefore, the researcher raises the questions that could be answered by the other researches to conduct a more successful product First, whether the other studies could explore the roles of other types of feedback to the improvement of other students‟ skills such as speaking, listening or communication Moreover, a future study, if conducted, should reconstruct the structure and population of the research In another words, it should be carried out with a longitudinal design with the hope of retaining more detail analysis In order to fulfill the purposes; the researchers are required to contribute more time and efforts to investigate deeper research methods as well as some useful equipment to analyze the research data 42 REFERENCES Brown, H.D (1994), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Englewood, New Jersey, Prentice Hall Regents Bostock, S, J (2000) Students’ Peer Assessment A workshop at Keele University, 2000 Chaudron, C (1984), “The Effects of Feedback on Students‟ Composition revisions”, RELC Journal, 15(2) Coffin, C., Curry, M., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T., & Swann, J (2003) Teaching academic writing: A toolkit for higher education London: Routledge Elbow, P (1983) Writing without Teachers New York: Oxford University Press Elbow, P (1998) Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process New York: Oxford University Press Hassen, J.G & Liu, J (2005), Guiding Principles for Effective Peer response, ELT Journal, 29 (1) Honeycutt, R.L& Pritchard, R, J (2005) Using Unstructured Writing Workshop to Help Good Readers who are Poor Writers North Carolina State University, Raleigh Hyland, K (2001), “Managing group work”, Guidelines A Periodical for Classroom Teacher, 13 (1) 10 Hyland, K (2003) Writing and Teaching Writing In J.C Richard (Ed) Second Language Writing Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 11 Kroll, B.C (1990) Second Language Writing: Research Insight for the Classroom Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 12 Paulus, T.M.(1999) The Effect of Peer and Teacher‟s Feedback on Students‟ Writing Journal of Second Language Teaching 8(3).265-289 13 Rollinson, P (2005), “Using peer feedback in the ESl writing class”, ELT Journal, 59(1) 43 14 Tsui, A &Ng, M (2000) Do Second Language Writers Benefits from Peer Comment?, Journal of Second Language Writing 15 Ur, P.(1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, Cambridge: CUP 16 Yang, M., Badger & Ju, Z (2006) A Comparative Study of Peer and Teacher‟s Feedback in a Chinese EFL Writing Class Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 179-200 44 APPENDIXES APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE “The Effect of Peer-written Feedback on the Development of ESL Writing for the 11th Major English Grade in Sontay High School” Hi everybody! I am conducting the above thesis for my M.A graduation paper, and this questionnaire is designed with the purpose of finding the attitude of students‟ attitude towards peer-written feedback I strongly appreciate if you could help me complete the questionnaire, which served as the major source of data for my paper Please feel free to write down because all the information will be strictly confidential Thank you for your help! PART A: PERSONAL INFORMATION How long have you been learning English? Your answer: …………………… Why you wish to become an English gifted student? (You can choose MORE THAN one answer) A I am forced to learn by your parents B I just need to pass university exam C I am interested in English D English is good for my future career E Others (What are they?)…………………………………………………………… Do you appreciate the importance of English writing skill for your future job or higher education? Yes No I PART B: Question 1: Please put a tick (√) in the most suitable answer for you (5= Completely Agree, 4= Agree, 3= Neutral, 2= Disagree, 1= Totally Disagree) Statements 2 1 You appreciate peer-written feedback on the improvement of your writing It‟s useful to give and receive feedback to/ from your peer Giving feedback to your friends‟ writing helps you to correct your own writing Giving peer feedback helps you to improve critical thinking skills (think and read carefully) Question 2: Do you agree with the following statements? (5= Completely Agree, 4= Agree, 3= Neutral, 2= Disagree, 1= Totally Disagree) Statements Some comments of your friends on your writing are not correct Your friends may not understand your ideas Your friends not have enough vocabulary and structure to correct the mistakes of your writing Your friends are not serious in checking your work You have a chance to give and receive peer feedback on every writing lesson Your friends‟ comments are too general and difficult to understand Your friends not have enough time to give feedback carefully to yours in the classroom Your second draft writing can correct the mistakes in the first version that are not found by your peer II Question 3: What kinds of errors you expect your friends to correct in your writing? A Word choice B Spelling C Grammar and structures D Expression E Ideas F Others: (What are they?)…………………………………………………………… Question 4: How you feel when your writing is found out so many mistakes? A Embarrassed B Ashamed C Thankful D Others: (What are they?)…………………………………………………………… Question 5: Whom you prefer your writing to be corrected by: your teacher or your friends? Why? ……………………………………………………………………………………… …… ………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO COMPLETE THE QUESTIONNAIRE! III APPENDIX 2: MARKING SCALES FOR WRITING PERFORMANCE Assessable Serious Limited uses Capable use of Precise use of mistakes in of verb tenses sentence sentence grammatical and sentence formation and formation, uses formation minor correct tenses grammar and cohesion features Grammar mistakes Content Ideas Comprehensive Throughout The Weak construction, construction of construction construction, which includes of the passage lacks some lack the the overall Summarize the required genres required stages and its main trend and trends stage direction Comprehensive Throughout information Limited Weak knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and knowledge and understanding, understanding, understanding, well supporting Minor lack of details supporting mistakes understanding ideas or they may get misunderstood Expression Few/ minor errors that not impede comprehension Some minor Some major Major errors, errors, errors, often greatly impede occasionally impede comprehension impede comprehension comprehension Word choice and No spelling Some minor IV Major error Serious spelling mistake spelling spelling mistakes in Proficiency use mistakes Restricted use spelling and of vocabulary of language the selection of Effective use of vocabulary word ( Adapt from Jacobs et.al.‟s (1998) From “The Impact of Online Peer-feedback on EFL Learner’s Motivation in Writing and Written Peformance” written by Minh Hien V APPENDIX 2: STUDENTS’ PROFICIENCY WRITING TESTS I/ Pre-test: WRITING ASSIGNMENT TOPIC: Write a paragraph of NO MORE THAN 150 words to summarize the main information in the chart below: ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………….…………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………….………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………….……………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………….…………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… …………………….………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… …….………………………………………………………………………………… VI III/ Post- test WRITING ASSIGNMENT TOPIC: The charts below show the results of a survey of adult education The first chart shows the reasons why adults decide to study The pie chart shows how people think the costs of adult education should be shared Write a report for university lecturer, describing the information shown below You should write at least 120 words VII VIII ... DECLARATION I confirm that the thesis An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Peer-written Feedback to the Development of ESL Writing for 11th Grade Majoring English in Sontay High school ... improvement of students‟ ESL writing skills in the high school ESL class majoring English Therefore, at the beginning of the chapter, the study hopes to focus on the context of the study It contains the. .. skills In the minor thesis, the researcher hopes to concentrate on the roles of peer feedback on the single writing section 3.2 Peer -feedback and its formats on language writing To the field of language