An investigation into teacher feedbacks on 11th grader’s writing peformance

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE PHUONG THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHER FEEDBACKS ON 11th GRADER’S WRITING PERFORMANCE MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION NGHE AN, 2017 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE PHUONG THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHER FEEDBACKS ON 11th GRADER’S WRITING PERFORMANCE Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thi Kim Anh Nghe An, 2017 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been published elsewhere Author Le Phuong Thao i ABSTRACT Although teacher feedback to students’ writing plays an important role in teaching and learning writing, both teachers and students at high school not pay much attention to this problem To get much more information about this reality, the researcher make an effort to investigate into teacher feedbacks on 11th grader’s writing performance at Nghe An No Boarding Ethnic high school This thesis is implemented with co-operation of 50 students and teachers of English with the combination of some survey instruments Firstly, questionnaires were delivered for students and teachers Next, an interview with a list of questions was carried out between the researcher and the other teachers After that, some samples from students’ writing drafts were collected and analyzed These sources of data collection will provide new insights into teachers’ feedback giving practice The findings of the study revealed that there existed a lot of problems concerning teachers’ responding methods, their feedback focus, their frequent types and forms as well as their help for students’ comprehension of teacher feedback The results also showed the misfit between what the teachers often give, what the students would like to get as well as give out some solutions for the giving teacher feedback on students’ writing with the hope to help the teachers and students to change the current condition and make students to be more and more interested in writing skill ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the encouragement and support of many individuals in assisting me to accomplish this study First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Kim Anh, whose useful instructions and advice, as well as detailed critical comments and encouragements help me a great deal from the beginning to the end of the thesis writing process Without her help, the study would have never fulfilled Additionally, I also would like to thank all the teachers of English and my students at Nghe An No Boarding Ethnic high school who help me much to collect the important data for the research Finally, my special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates and especially my beloved family for valuable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS … ……….… …….……………………………………iv LIST OF CHARTS vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS .viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Research questions 1.6 Design of the study CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Writing 2.1.1 Definitions of writing 2.1.2 Types of writing 2.1.3 The importance of writing 2.1.4 The importance of writing skill to students of high school 2.1.5 Teaching Writing 2.2 Feedback 11 2.2.1 Definitions of feedback 11 2.2.2 The importance of feedback 13 2.2.3 Strategies for writing feedback 15 2.2.4 Approaches to feedback giving 17 2.2.5 Types of feedback 18 2.3 Focus on Teacher Feedback 21 2.3.1 Forms of teacher feedback 22 2.3.2 Types of teacher feedback 22 iv 2.3.3 Issues in the teachers' written feedback 23 2.3.4 Principles of teacher feedback 25 2.3.5 Major issues in giving teacher feedback 26 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY …………………………………………28 3.1 The context of the study 28 3.2 The textbooks 29 3.3 Participants 30 3.4 Instruments for Data Collection 30 3.4.1 Questionnaire for Students 31 3.4.2 Questionnaire for Teachers 31 3.4.3 Follow-up Interview 32 3.4.4 Document analyses of teacher feedback 32 3.5 The instruments 33 3.6 Data collection methods 33 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 35 4.1 Data analysis 35 4.1.1 Data analysis of questionnaire for students 35 4.1.2 Data analysis of questionnaire for teacher 47 4.1.3 Analysis of the interview 52 4.1.4 Observation of teacher commentary on the students’ drafts 54 4.2 Findings and discussion 56 4.2.1 Findings 56 4.2.2 Discussion 59 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 63 5.1 Conclusion 63 5.2 Recommendations 63 5.3 Suggestions for further studies 65 REFERENCES 66 APPENDIX : 70 v LIST OF CHARTS Page Figure 4.1 The students’ interest toward writing skill 35 Figure 4.2 The students’ attitude towards topics of writing in textbook 36 Figure 4.3 Amount of time a day students spend on writing 36 Figure 4.4 The most difficult problem encountered when studying writing skill 37 Figure 4.5 Things students before writing 38 Figure 4.6 The students’ attitude towards the time of studying writing skill in class 39 Figure 4.7 People who correct students’ writing task 40 Figure 4.8 The importance of teacher feedback on students’ writing 40 Figure 4.9 Students' expectation for frequency of teacher feedback on each assignment 41 Figure 4.10 Students’ expectation for teacher feedback types 42 Figure 4.11 Students’ expectation for the focus of teacher feedback 42 Figure 4.12 Students’ expectation for teachers’ indication of errors in the writing 43 Figure 4.13 Students’ expectation for teachers’ treatment if there are many errors in the writing 44 Figure 4.14 Students’ comprehension of teacher feedback 45 Figure 4.15 The reasons for not understanding teacher feedback 45 Figure 4.16 The solutions for the problems 46 Figure 4.17 Frequency of teacher feedback to each assignment 47 Figure 4.18 Treatment with errors in the student writing 50 Figure 4.19 Teacher’s consideration about students’ comprehension of teacher feedback 51 vi LIST OF TABLES Page Table 4.1 The purpose of teacher’s giving feedback 47 Table 4.2 Frequency of teacher feedback types 48 Table 4.3 Focus of teacher feedback 49 vii LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS EFL : English as foreign language ESL : English as a secondary language ETC : Et cetera % : percent viii applying them, using suitable and easily understandable vocabulary and structures in feedback Besides, teachers should not miss a chance to get feedback from students concerning what the students actually think about their feedback by asking students to respond in the form of learning journals or letters In this way, teachers can measure what they is useful or not Finally, in order to make their feedback on the student writing successfully, the teachers also need to be flexible in using and combining the forms or techniques together with their pragmatic intention to each error item Lewis (2002) in her research on “Giving feedback in language classes” recommends a functional framework for feedback giving which is very useful for writing teachers 5.3 Suggestions for further studies Although the researcher has tried to represent problems as well as solutions to the reality about giving teacher feedback at Nghe An No Boarding Ethnic high school, it cannot avoid some limitations Due to the shortage of time, the limitation of framework of a minor thesis, many other types of feedback have not been mentioned in the research In the further studies, the investigation of other types of feedback such as peer feedback, self- editing, oral teacher feedback should be carried out in order to supply for the teacher more effective methods in giving feedback on students’ writing papers Furthermore, the findings of this study can be used to make comparative and contrastive analysis with other types of feedback so that we can find out which feedback is more effective for students to improve their writing The study only considers the teacher feedback in a limitation of 50 11th grade students’ writing papers at a Boarding Ethnic high school So, further research should widen the settings to other high schools in mountainous areas in Nghe An to get better effect in this issue Despite the limitations above, the researcher hopes that the study will make a contribution to the better situation of teaching and studying writing skill at Nghe An No Boarding Ethnic high school All valuable comments, advice and suggestions from teachers, colleagues and friends will be highly appreciated by the writer 65 REFERENCES Bachman, L F (1990) Fundamental considerations in language teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Bartels, N (2004) Written peer response in L2 writing, Retrieved on March 22, 2010 from http: / exchange.state.gov/forum/vols/vol41/No1/p34.htm Brookhart, Susan M (2008) How to give effective feedback to your students /Alexandria, Va : Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Brown, D H (2000) Principles of language learning & teaching (4th ed.) New York: Longman (pp 49-58) Brown, G., BULL, J & PENDLEBURY, M.(1997) Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education, London: Routledge Brown, H.D (1994), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Englewood, New Jersey, Prentice Hall Regents Brown,H Douglas (2001).Teaching by Principle An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy San Francisco: Longman Byrne, D (1991) Teaching writing skills - Longman handbooks for language teachers Long man: London Charles, M (1990), “Responding to problems in written English using a student self-monitoring technique”, ELT Journal, 44, pp.286-293 10 Chaudron, C (1984).“The effects of feedback on students’ composition revisions” RELC Journal 11 Chenoweth, N A (1987) The need to teach writing ELT Journal, 41 (1), 25-29 12 Cohen, A (1975) Error analysis and error correction with respect to the training of language teachers Work papers in teaching English as a second language vol Los Angeles: California University 13 Douglas, M.F (2007) Enhancing Student learning using on-line submission and feedback to improve first year learning experience Business, Management, Accountancy and Finance Annual Conference UK: Birmingham 66 14 Dunn, L., Morgan, C., O’ Reilly M., & Parry, S., (2004) The student assessment handbook – New direction in traditional and online assessment Oxon: RoutledgeFalmer 15 Fathman, A., & Whalley, E (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 16 Ferris, D (1997) The influence of teacher commentary on student revision TESOL Quarterly, 31 (2), 315-339 Retrieved October 24, 2009, from JSTOR database 17 Ferris, D (2003) Responding to writing In B Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 18 Ferris, D R., & Hedgcock, J S (1998) Teaching ESL composition: Purpose, process, and practice Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 19 Grabe, W & B Kaplan (1996) Theory and Practice of Writing London and New York: Longman 20 Hansen, J G & Liu, J (2005), “Guiding principles for effective peer response”, ELT Journal, 59 (1), pp.31-38 21 Harmer, J (2004) How to Teach Writing England: Pearson 22 Hedge, T (1990) Writing: Resource books for teachers Oxford University Press 23 Hedge, T (2000) Teaching and learning in the Language classroom Oxford University Press 24 Hendrickson, J.M (1978) Error Correction in Foreign Language Teaching: Recent Theory, Research, and Practice The Modern Language Journal, 62 (8), 387-396 Retrieved May 9, 2007, from the JSTOR database 25 Hyland, K (1990), “Providing productive feedback”, ELT Journal, 44 (4), pp.279-285 67 26 Hyland, F., & Hyland, K (2001) Sugaring the pill: Praise and criticism in written feedback Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 185-212 27 Hyland, K (2003) Second language writing Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 28 Keh, C L (1989) Feedback at the product stage of writing: comments and corrections Guidelines, 11 (2), 18-24 29 Keh, C.L (1990) Feedback in the Writing Process: a Model and Methods for Implementation ELT Journal 4: 294-304 30 Konttinen, M (2009) The reality of teacher written feedback: A quantitative study Retrieved October 24, 2009, from https: //jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/bitstream/handle/Miia_Konttinen.pdf 31 Lewis, M (2002) Giving Feedback in Language Classes RELC Portfolio, (1) SEMEO Regional Language Centre 32 Mittan, R (1989), The peer response process: Harnessing students’ communicative power, New York, Longman 33 Nunan, David (1991) Language Teaching Methodology.A Textbook for Teachers Prentice Hall 34 Orrell, J (2006) Feedback on learning achievement: rhetoric and reality.Teaching in Higher Education Vol 11, No 4, October 2006 35 Raimes, A (1983) Techniques in teaching writing Oxford University Press 36 Reid, J M (1993) Teaching ESL Writing Prentice Hall Regents: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 37 Richards, J C, and Renadya W A (2002) Methodology in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 38 Rivers W.M (1981) Teaching Foreign Language Skills (2nd ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press 39 Schulz, R A (1996) Focus on form in the foreign language classroom: Students’ and teachers’ views on error correction and the role of grammar Foreign Language Annals, 29, 243-364 68 40 Seow, A (2002) The writing process and process writing In Richard, J C., & Renandya, W A (Eds.), Methodology in Language Teaching - An Anthology of Current Practice Cambridge University Press 41 Shrum, J.L &Glisan, E.W (2009) Teacher’s Handbook: Contextualized Language Instruction Boston: Heinle & Heinle 42 Shrum, Judith L & Glisan, Eilleen W (2002), Teacher’s Handbook: contextualized language instruction Heinle & Heinle college foreign language publishing term 43 Sommers, N (1982) Responding to student writing College Composition and Communication, 33,148-156 44 Sperling, M & Freedman, S.W (2001) Research on Writing, in V Richardson (Ed.) Handbook on Research on Teaching Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association 45 Stanley, J (1992) Coaching student writers to beeffective peer evaluators Journal of Second Language Writing, 1,3, pp 217–234 46 Straub, R (1997) Students' reactions to teacher comments: An exploratory study Research in the Teaching of English, 31 (1), 91-119 47 Taylor, I (1997) Developing learning in professional education Buckingham: SRHE 48 Truscott, J (1996) The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes Language Learning 46, 327-369 49 Truscott, J (2004) Evidence and conjecture on the effects of correction: A response to Chandler Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 337-343 50 Urquhart, V & McIver, M (2005) Teaching writing in the content areas Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum 51 Zamel, V (1985), “Responding to student writing”, TESOL Quarterly, 19, pp.79-202 52 Zhu, W (1995) Effects of training for peer response on students’ comments and interaction Written Communication, 12,4, pp 492–528 69 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (For Students) This survey questionnaire is designed for my study “An investigation into teacher feedbacks on 11th grader’s writing performance” This is not a test, so there are no “right” or “wrong” answers and you not even have to write your names on it Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is reserved only for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Please, give your answers sincerely as only this will guarantee the success of the study Instructions: There are three parts in this questionnaire Please, put a tick in the appropriate box or give short answers in the space provided Part I: Personal Information * Gender Male Female * Class * How long have you been learning English ? years * Your English writing performance (according to your assessment): Excellent Good Fair Poor Part II: Your opinions/ (attitudes towards) on your writing task Which of the following skill you like best? a Listening b Speaking c Reading d Writing * Other ideas: ……… ……………………………………………………… What you think about the topic of writing tasks in your textbook? a Easy b Normal c Difficult d Very difficult * Other ideas: ……………………………… … …………………………… How much time you spend on self study at home? a 30 minutes per day b hour per day 70 c not every day d Not self study at home * Other ideas: ……………………….……………… …………………… What is the most difficult problem when study writing skill? a Vocabulary b Grammar c Lack of ideas d Different topic, lack of teacher help * Other ideas: ……………… …………………………….………………… What you before starting to write? a Think about the main ideas b Discuss with your friends c Get information from the Internet or books d Do nothing, just write naturally * Other ideas: ……………… …………………………….………………… What you think about the time of one writing skill practice lesson? a It is too long b It is too short c It is enough for practicing writing skill d It is not enough for practicing writing skill * Other ideas: ……………… …………………………….………………… Who corrects your written works? a Friends b Teacher c Yourself d No one * Other ideas: ……………… …………………………….………………… Part III: Your opinions/ (attitudes towards) on your teacher feedback 8.How important is the teacher feedback to your writing? a extremely important b very important c important d not important How many times you want your teacher respond to each of your writing task? a Once/ assignment b Twice/ assignment 71 c Three times/ assignment d Many times/ assignment 10 What types of feedback would you prefer to receive? a Positive feedback b Negative feedback c Specific feedback d General feedback * Other: 11 Which aspect (s) in the writing does your teacher often focus on? (you can choose more than one answer or give other short answer in the space) a Grammar b Vocabulary c Content d Organization e Language use f Organization of ideas g * Other: 12 How you want your teacher to indicate an error in your written work? a by showing the errors without correcting them b by showing the errors and correcting them c by showing the errors and giving clue about how to correct them d by paying attention to the content, ignoring the errors in grammar, vocabulary, spelling… e * Other: 13 If there are many errors in your task, what you think your teacher should do? a Correct all the errors b Correct the major errors, but not the minor ones c Underline all the errors without correcting them d Correct only the major errors that are the most important e * Other: 14 Is your teacher feedback easy to understand? a Yes b No 72 If no, can you give the reason why? a Teacher gives too many feedbacks b The feedback is not clear c Teacher uses many symbols d Teacher uses new feedback strategies e * Other: 15 When you not understand the feedbacks, what you do? a Ask the teachers b Ask the friends c Consult a dictionary or a grammar book d Do nothing e * Other: Thank you very much for your cooperation! 73 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (For teachers) This survey questionnaire is designed for my study “An investigation into teacher feedbacks on 11th grader’s writing performance” Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is reserved only for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Please, give your answers sincerely as only this will guarantee the success of the study Instructions: There are two parts in this questionnaire Please put a tick in the appropriate box or give short answers in the space provided (You can use either Vietnamese or English) Part I: Personal Information * Gender: Male * Age: Female * How long have you been teaching English ? years Part II: Your opinions on giving feedback to students’ writing What is the purpose of giving feedback to the students’ writing? (you can choose more than one answer) a to help students improve their writing b to justify the grade you give to heir writing c to evaluate their writing progress d to indicate students’ strength and weakness e to enhance the relationship between the teacher and students How many times you often respond to each of your students’ writing task? a Once/ assignment b Twice/ assignment c Three times/ assignment d Many times/ assignment 74 How often you use the following types of feedback to respond to the students' writing? Types of feedback a Positive feedback b Negative feedback c Specific feedback d General feedback e Others Often Sometimes Never Which aspect (s) in the students’ writing you often focus on? (you can choose more than one answer or give other short answer in the space) Focus of feedback Often Sometimes Never Grammar Vocabulary Content Style Language use Organization of ideas * Other: How you indicate an error in your students’ written work? a Underline the error without correcting it b Underline the error and correct it c Underline the error and give clue about how to correct it d Pay attention to the content only, ignore the errors in grammar, vocabulary, spelling… * Other: Do you think your feedback is suitable for your students’ level and easy to understand? a Yes b No 75 Have you ever asked students to tell you what they think about the feedback they receive? a Yes b No Thank you very much for your cooperation! 76 APPENDIX 2: LISTS OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Question 1: Do you think giving feedback on the student writing is important?” Question 2: What is purpose of giving feedback to students’ writing papers? Question 3: What types of feedback you often use when correcting students’ errors? Question 4: Which parts of writing you often focus your feedback on? Question 5: Do you correct all the errors in students’ writing task? 77 TRANSCRIPTS OF INTERVIEWS - Researcher (R): First of all, thank you for your agreement to participate in the interview Now, I would like to tell something about objective of my action research and that of my interview This interview aims to: + Investigate teacher feedbacks given to 11th form students’ writings: their responding method, the feedback focus, feedback types and forms, as well as their problems in responding to the students' writing + Propose some recommendations for teachers in order to help students write more effectively So, I’d like to ask you some questions related to giving feedback on students’ writing papers Do you think giving feedback on the student writing is important?” - Teacher (T 1): In my opinion, I cannot ignore feedback when teaching writing because it is necessary to show out students’ errors so that they can improve their papers.” - Teacher (T 2): For me, I not correct the errors all the time because in some cases, the topic is not very difficult for students to write when they are asked to write something similar to the sample - R: What is purpose of giving feedback to students’ writing papers? - T 1: I want to improve my students’ writing skill so I try to give feedback as clearly as possible so that they will not make the same mistake again and rewrite better paper - T 2: It is a useful way to point out their advantages and the weak points of students when they practice writing skill So, I often give comments and mark to students’ writing task so that they can know how they write and what level they are in -R: What types of feedback you often use when correcting students’ errors? -T 1: My students not like to receive a question or an exclamation in their 78 paper They want some things in detail How can I write something clear enough with a question? I like to write my comments in the margin of students’ paper because I want to show specific comments to my students Also, I often use a red pen to underline and correct the mistakes at the end of the sentence because it is easy for students to recognize their problem Students will be confused a lot if we write our comment in general at the end of the paper -T 2: I often write such comments “Quite good, very good or try harder” in my students’ paper because I want to encourage them to write more and more R: Which parts of writing you often focus your feedback on? - T 1: My students often make a lot of errors in grammar such as verb tenses, article use, subject and verb agreement…etc and errors about using vocabulary -T 2: I try to focus my feedback in pointing out errors in grammar, spelling, and vocabulary because students need to improve their knowledge about these features to complete successfully the English current test which focus much on form” R: Do you correct all the errors in students’ writing task? -T 1: We have only forty-five minutes for a writing lesson, so it is difficult for us to correct all the words in a paper However, we always try to help our students to improve their skill So, I often indicate students’ errors by underlining the errors and write the correct ones -T 2: I think most of the students are not very good at writing, so they want to have all errors corrected Most of them make a lot of different mistakes, so if I indicate and correct all the errors, they can exchange their papers to improve all errors easily However, I cannot have enough time to correct all the errors if there are many of them in a paper, I only focus on the errors that relate to the requirement of the writing task R: Thank you for your cooperation! 79 ...MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE PHUONG THAO AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHER FEEDBACKS ON 11th GRADER’S WRITING PERFORMANCE Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching... focus on language form, focus on content, focus on text functions, focus on creative 22 expression, focus on the writing process, and focus on genre Focus on language structures, as Hyland explains,... students’ writing skill All of these motivated me to conduct a research titled ? ?An investigation into teacher feedbacks on 11th grader’s writing performance” with the aim at improving writing skill