Students’ perceptions on the benefits of peer feed- 123docz.net

1.1.1. Students’ perceptions on peer feedback

1.1.1.2. Students’ perceptions on the benefits of peer feedback

Table 1: Students’ perceptions on the benefits of peer feedback (Number of student) Students can revise their writings effectively based on their friends’

correction and suggestion.

Students can avoid all the corrected mistakes next time. 6 Students can enhance their confidence in writing thanks to their friends’ 11

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encouraging feedback.

Students can develop critical thinking thanks to the peer’s feedback. 25 Students can know how to self-revise their writing in general. 37

Table 1 showed the different opinions of students about the benefits of peer feedback. We can see that the majority of students (37 students) chose the option that they can know to self - revise their writing after peer feedback is applied in writing class. It was clear that peer feedback had a positive impact on student's learning autonomy. Revising effectively the writing based on friends' correction and developing critical thinking were two benefits which students highly appreciated (28 students and 25 students respectively). On the contrary, only 11 students agreed that they could enhance their confidence in writing thanks to their friends' encouraging feedback and 6 students put their choice in avoiding all corrected mistakes next time. It has no doubt that writing is a complicated process and is considered to be the most difficult skill among four academic skills. Therefore, that two options above were in the lowest rank can be understood.

1.1.1.3. Students’ perceptions on the disadvantages of peer written feedback Table 2: Students’ perceptions on the disadvantages of peer written feedback

(Number of student)

Peer’s feedback contradicts my ideas 3

Peers’ feedback is not reliable 1

Peers’ feedback is too vague and difficult to understand 6

The peer’s feedback is unclear/ too general 3

The peer’s feedback discourages me 4

The peer’s feedback cannot help my writing improve 9

Table 2 was created for students who thought that peer feedback was not helpful to them. Based on table 2, most of the students admitted that peer feedback could not help them improve their writing. Clearly, it was not an effective method for them to boost their skill; as a consequence, another method might be a better one to support them. Two – third students (67%) found that their peers' feedback is too vague and difficult to understand while 33% students reported that the peer's feedback is unclear/

too general. In this case, it can be said that giving a full and comprehensible written feedback seems to be a hard task for students. Hence, to make others fully understand what message it is might be not simple. Besides, 44% students gave the opinion that the feedback discouraged them when they received from their peers. It may be explained that there are too many corrected mistakes in the feedback and it might be full of different - colored correction spreading out. These were the reasons why students felt embarrassed and had no motivation to revise their writing when receiving feedback. A small portion of students (33%) put a tick on the contradiction of peer feedback on their ideas. This figure revealed that 11% of student thought their peer feedback was not reliable. It can be inferred that these students who had contradictory ideas and showed unreliable on peer feedback might be some of the students who are a little better at learning than others.

1.1.2. Difficulties that students encounter when they do peer written feedback 1. Strongly agree 2. Agree 3.Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly disagree

Table 3: Difficulties that students encounter when they do peer written feedback (Percentage of students)

Aspects

Level of agreement

1 2 3 4 5

4. Form 4 6 10 50 30

5. Content ( ideas and expression) 18 30 28 16 8

6. Cohesion and coherence (organization and liking devices)

6 10 20 43 21

7. Lexical resource (vocabulary, word choice, word form)

32 46 12 6 4

8. Grammar rage (structures, verb tenses, article) 30 44 14 8 6

9. Accuracy (Spelling, Punctuation) 16 22 22 30 10

10. Giving general comments 24 36 20 14 6

*Form

Basing on table 3, the majority of students thought that form is an avoidable mistake (50% of students show disagreement and 30% of them strongly disagreed).

Meanwhile, the percentage of students have difficulty in that aspect accounts for 4%

strong agreement and 6% agreement. It can be referred that form might be not a big problem for the student in writing because they could compare with the given model and check form easily. Furthermore, table 2 also showed that 10% of students had the neutral idea.

*Content

Table 3 showed that most of the students agreed content is considered an obstacle (18% of agreement and 30% of strong agreement). It is possible that the Vietnamese language may affect them; they cannot produce simple sentences but meaningful as they expected. On the other hand, 16% and 8% disagreed and strongly disagreed respectively that they did not get trouble in transferring the content.

Contrary to form, the portion of students who have a neutral opinion of the content issue (ideas and expression) accounted for a quite large portion (28%). In this case, they seem to be confused and not self-confident in their ability of expression.

* Cohesion and coherence (organization and linking devices)

Basing on table 3, over 60% of students (43% disagreed and 21% strongly disagreed) reported that organization and linking devices were not their matter. This expresses that students did not spend much time understanding the meaning of the conjunction as well as the cohesion of the text because letter writing requires simplicity, clarity, and straightness; hence familiar linking devices are preferred using.

In contrast, 16% of students showed their agreement about the difficulty in correcting these errors while 20% of students were neutral.

*Lexical resource

Most of English learners recognized the importance of vocabulary in using language as the communication tool. However, not many of them have an effective method of learning to accumulate enough a certain amount of vocabulary to serve their purposes. Table 3 showed that over 75% of students had difficulty in recognizing the mistakes in term of vocabulary (word choice, word form, and word order). It is possible that they could not choose formal words as the requirement of letter writing (word choice). Moreover, word form is regarded as one of the most complex in term

vocabulary because it involves in affixes which can change the word meaning. That the students could not recognize part of speech of words basing on affixes has a negative impact on their skills a lot. Meanwhile, only 10% of students reported that they had no trouble in handling these problems. 12% of students were neutral which can be implied that they were not sure of their knowledge, and left out some mistakes.

*Grammar range

Grammar is always regarded as one of the most challenging areas for students although they have learned grammatical lessons from junior level. According to table 2, the percentage of students who had difficulty in grammar is nearly equal with the percentage of students who got trouble with vocabulary (74% and 78% respectively).

On the other hand, 14% of them do not regard grammar as their obstacle. There are still 14% of them are neutral. It may be implied that they might get difficulty in some aspects of grammar and they could handle well with the others.

*Accuracy

Spelling and punctuation seem not to be complex issues in writing generally and in letter writing particularly. However, basing on table 3, correcting accuracy error causes confusing for students. The percentage of students who agreed was nearly equal with the percentage of student who had a disagreement (38% and 40 % respectively).

Besides, 22% of them showed a neutral option.

*General comments

After checking a series of errors in their peer's writing, over half of the students (60%) spent a plenty of time writing comments about their peers' strengths and weaknesses but not short comments such as "Good", "Ok". Nonetheless, 20% of students thought that they could do that confidently. Meanwhile, there was still 20%

put a tick on neutral option.

1.1.3. Students’ follow – up activities after receiving peer feedback

Table 4: Students’ follow – up activities after receiving peer feedback (Percentage of student)

No. Questions YES NO

11 Did you understand your peer’s comments? 82 18

12 Do you have any argument or discussion after receiving feedback?

22 78

13 Do you often revise your mistakes that your peer commented on your writing and rewrite at home?

8 92

As shown in table 4, when the students received their peer’s feedback, over 80%

of them understood what their peer corrected or wrote. Only 18% of they reported that they misunderstood their peer’s comments. It is possible that they had poor learning outcomes. Because most of them supposed that they had full of understanding with their peer’ comments; hence when doing the survey, 78% of students answered that they did not have any argument or discussion after receiving feedback. In contrast, luckily, there is 22% of student who still needed to discuss with their peer to clarify their inquiries. Indeed, having discussion plays an important role in learning strategies because it will be a superb way for them to dig deeper into their knowledge as well as fill their gap of their knowledge. One of the reasons causing student’s low efficiency in learning is that they lack revision. Moreover, learning autonomy at home become much more necessary. In spite of its necessity, table 3 revealed that 92% of student did not have a habit of revising their mistakes or rewriting at home. Only 8% did that.

1.1.4. Student’s expectations of using peer feedback in the future

Table 5: Student’s expectations of using peer feedback in the future

(Percentage of student)

No. Questions YES NO

14 Do you see your progress in writing when using peer feedback? 82 18 15 Do you expect to use peer feedback in the future? 82 18

It cannot be denied that peer feedback brought benefits to the students.

According to table 5, over 80% of students saw their progress in writing when using peer feedback and had an expectation to apply it in the future. 18% of them showed the answer “No” for both questions.

1.1.5. Students’ opinions about solutions to overcome difficulties in giving peer feedback

Table 6: Students’ opinions about solutions to overcome difficulties in giving peer feedback

(Percentage of student)

Asking teacher/ peer for help 82

Searching for information on the internet 94

Using reference books/ dictionary 24

Using learning application on the smartphone 58

Establishing group discussion 10

Using a model text to compare 18

Reviewing some vocabulary, grammatical aspects needed before giving feedback.

As can be seen from table 6, searching internet to seeking information was the first option when they had difficulties (nearly all the students). Indeed, with the dominance of technology, finding tools like Google or Cốc cốc are considered the fastest way to deal with any issue. Sometime, technology could not make students fully understand the answer or it took them time to search out; therefore, more than two third of the students (82%) believed that asking teacher for help was better. Although using smartphone, a number of their smartphone does not connect with Wi-Fi or mobile network; hence 58% of them thought that using mobile application already downloaded on their smartphone was the alternative solutions. Reviewing necessary lexicon and grammar is also appreciated. 40% of students might think that it would be helpful to them in several aspects.

Though the development of technology, books or dictionary are always regarded as valuable authentic sources of knowledge for students to easily find out their answers. However, according to table 5, 24% of students did not appreciate books. It is possible that they are not willing to bring a book or a dictionary to the class because of its weight. Moreover, comparing with a model text and establishing a group discussion were not interesting ideas (18% and 10% respectively). It can be inferred that using a model not only does not solve completely the problems but make them confused as