students’ attitudes towards teachers’ feedbacks
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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
BAN THI KIM THANH
STUDENTS ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERSCORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT THE
BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL FOR ETHNIC MINORITYSTUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG
THI CA HC SINH I VI PHN HI
THNG TIN CHA LI CA GIO VINTRONG MN VIT TRNG THPT DN TCNI TR TUYN QUANG
MA. MINOR THESISFIELD: METHODOLOGY
CODE 601401
HA NOI - 2010
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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF PROJECT REPORT
I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled
Students Attitudes towards Teachers Corrective Feedback in Writing
at the Boarding High school for Ethnic Minority Students
in Tuyen Quang
in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts
Hanoi, September 2010
Ban Thi Kim Thanh
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my superior Hoang
Hong Hai, M.A. for the support, guidance and valuable critical feedback. Her
help, stimulating suggestion and encouragement helped me a lot right from
the beginning to the end of this study.
I would like acknowledge my sincere thanks to the headmaster, the teachers
of English Group and the students at The High School and Boarding for
Ethnic Minority in Tuyen Quang who helped me a lot and showed great
willingness to take part in my survey.
My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates for
valuable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement.
Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my husband, my
parents and my children for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement.
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ABSTRACT
Many language educators and researchers (e.g., Nunan; 1987; Horwitz,
1988; Schulz, 2001) claim that matching the expectations of teachers and
students is important for successful language learning. Accordingly, it is
beneficial for teachers to discover their students perceptions toward the
feedback they received. This study investigates the students attitudes towards
teachers corrective feedback at the Boarding and High School for Ethnic
Minority Students in Tuyen Quang. The participants included 4 teachers of
English and 100 students from Grade 10 to 12. The data were collected fromsurvey questionnaires for students, the direct interview with four teachers and
teachers commentary on the students written work. The results show that
there is a slight mismatch between teachers beliefs and students preferences
for teacher corrective feedback regarding feedback types and forms, various
features of writing, and error correction techniques. Also, it is important for
teachers to be aware of the impact of their feedback practices on studentsexpectations and attitudes. On this basis, the study recommends a number of
directions for teachers to help them improve their feedback practices more
effectively.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certification...i
Acknowledgements.......ii
Abstract....iii
PART ONE - INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................81.1. Rationale of the study......................................................................................................81.2. Aims of the study..........................................................................................................101.3. Research questions........................................................................................................101.4. Scope of the study.........................................................................................................101.5. Significance of the research..........................................................................................111.6. Methods of the study.....................................................................................................11
1.7.Design of the study.........................................................................................................11PART TWO. DEVELOPMENT.........................................................................................12CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.............................................................................121.1.Theoretical backgrounds of feedback. ...........................................................................131.1.1.Definitions of feedback...............................................................................................131.1.2. The importance of feedback in L2 writing.................................................................141.1.2.Types of feedback to students writing.......................................................................151.1.2.1.Self-editing...............................................................................................................161.1.2.2.Peer feedback...........................................................................................................161.1.2.3. Teachers feedback ................................................................................................181.2.The focus of teacher feedback........................................................................................19
1.2.1.Types of teacher feedback...........................................................................................191.2.1.1.Marginal versus end feedback..................................................................................201.2.1.2.Positive versus negative feedback............................................................................201.2.1.3.Text specific versus general feedback...................................................................211.2.1.4.Feedback focus on form versus on content..............................................................211.2.2.Forms of teacher feedback..........................................................................................221.2.3.Major issues in giving teachers feedback..................................................................232.1.Context of the study.......................................................................................................252.1.1.The setting of the study...............................................................................................252.1.2.The writing program ...................................................................................................262.1.2.1.Overview of the textbooks.......................................................................................26
2.1.2.2.The teaching of writing skill....................................................................................272.2. The study.......................................................................................................................282.2.1.Methodology...............................................................................................................282.2.1.1.The subjects..............................................................................................................282.2.1.2.The instruments:.......................................................................................................292.2.1.3. Data collection methods..........................................................................................302.2.2.Data analysis................................................................................................................302.2.2.1.Data analysis of classroom observation...................................................................302.2.2.2.Data analysis of direct interview between the researcher and four teachers ...........312.2.2.2.1.Teachers demographic information.....................................................................312.2.2.2.2. Analysis of the interview......................................................................................32
2.2.2.3.Observation of teacher commentary on the students drafts....................................35
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2.2.2.4.Data analysis of students survey questionnaire ......................................................362.2.2.4.1.Students demographic information......................................................................362.2.2.4.2.Analysis of students survey questionnaire...........................................................362.2.3.Findings and discussion...............................................................................................43
CHAPTER THREE: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS...............................48PART THREE. CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................503.1. Summary ......................................................................................................................503.2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies.........................................51
References
Appendices
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PART ONE - INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale of the study
Today English is considered one of the most important factors to thetrend of globalization in all fields of life over the world. Thus, English as
Second Language has been taught in many countries and the demand to use
English fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essential
among all students. As a result, methodology has been studied for years to
find out the most effective ways of teaching and learning English.
In Vietnam, high school students have to acquire four skills of English
as reading, speaking, listening and writing when they study English. Among
them, writing is considered the most difficult skill. Clearly, Vietnamese
students are often much anxious about writing and afraid of making errors in
writing classrooms. Nevertheless, they need to be encouraged to see it as a
means of learning, rather than demonstrating learning. In order to do this,
students need to be provided with opportunities to respond to constructive
feedback on their work.
A review of the literature on writing reveals three major areas of
feedback as revision: peer feedback, self-editing and teachers comments as
feedback. Because of the importance of feedback, there have been a lot of
studies that focus on all aspects relating to feedback. As clear, concise
feedback matched to standards will promote students achievement, feedback
plays a very important role in the teaching of any language. Through
feedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled and confused the
reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of
development ideas, or something simple like inappropriate word-choice or
tense. In other words, the writers have opportunities to identify their errors
and correct them to make better writing. Also, the use of teacher feedback in
writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature review as a
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potentially valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodological
benefits ( Merlin, (1986), Radecki and Swales (1988), Hedge (2000), Ferris
and Roberts (2001)). They all believe that teacher feedback is very importantand has a great influence on the success of teaching and learning writing.
As a teacher of English at the Boarding High School for Ethnic
Minority Students in Tuyen Quang, the researcher is constantly searching for
ways to help her students become more confident and effective writers.
During writing lessons, she finds that her students often make a lot of errors
that increase students anxiety in writing lesson. With a view of language
learning as a creative construction process, she shares an agreement with
Hedge (2000) in the view that error is an inevitable and positive part of that
process (p.15). Hedge also claimed that learners progress faster with
meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment and with an
informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher (p.15). This
means teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process as he stated
getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the class
enables learners to test hypotheses and refine their developing knowledge of
the language system (p.13). That is why the researcher focuses on teacher
corrective feedback, which she considers a complex troublesome, but
important issue in writing classrooms. To have a quick view on this aspect, an
observation on the writing lessons of four teachers of English in the
researchers school was conducted within a month. The result showed that all
the four teachers applied mostly teacher corrective feedback to respond to the
students writings. She wondered if the teachers present feedback matched
with students preferences and how students reacted to the feedback they
received.
All above encouraged the researcher to conduct a survey to explore
students attitudes towards teacher corrective feedback and recommend
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teachers of English some suggested solutions to help their students gain more
achievement in writing skill.
1.2. Aims of the study.This research is designed to explore students attitudes toward their
teachers corrective feedback at The Boarding High School for Ethnic
Minority Students in Tuyen Quang. It is expected to achieve the three primary
aims:
(i) to investigate the teacher feedback-giving practice in writing classes:
their responding methods, their feedback focus as well as the feedback types
and forms.
(ii) to investigate the students perceptions of the feedback they receive
and their recommendations for improving it.
(iii) to find out students preferences for teachers corrective feedback
as well as to propose some recommendations and suggestions for the teachers
to improve their practice in order to respond to the students writing more
effectively.
1.3. Research questions
In order to achieve the mentioned aims above, the following research
questions will be included in the study:
1. How do the teachers respond to the students writing?
2. What are the students opinions on the feedback they received?
3. What are EFL students preferences for teachers corrective feedback
techniques?
1.4. Scope of the study
Feedback in writing is such a broad topic that the researcher cannot
discuss all the aspects related. Therefore, within the framework of a minor
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thesis, this study focuses only on the teacher corrective feedback in
responding to the students writing at the Boarding High School for Ethnic
Minority Students in Tuyen Quang.1.5. Significance of the research
The research is carried out with the hope that the results of the study will
provide significant insights into both what teachers have actually done as they
respond and how the students react to these responses. This may lead to
suggestions for improving teacher feedback and helping the students to utilize
it more successfully in their writing revision.
1.6. Methods of the study
To realize the aims, the following methods for data collection were
employed in the study.
1.5.1. Data were collected by means of survey questionnaires for 100
students at The Boarding High School for Ethnic Minority Students
in Tuyen Quang. The questionnaires included closed-ended
questions, open-ended questions and Likert scales.
1.5.2. Other sources for data collection came from classroom observation,
an interview between the researcher and four teachers, and
collection of the teachers written comments on the students written
work.
Four sources to data collection will hopefully provide fresh insights into
teachers feedback giving practice and the students reactions towards the
feedback they received. On this basis, some measures will be applied to
improve the teacher corrective feedback so that the teacher responds to the
students writing more properly.
1.7. Design of the study
This study has three main parts: introduction, development, and
conclusion.
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The introduction briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims,
research questions, scope, methods, the significance and the design of the
study.The development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 provides a review
of literature on feedback in general and teacher feedback in particular.
Chapter 2 contains the core part of the study including the context of the
study, the methodology, the collection and analysis of the data for the
research, the findings and implications. Chapter 3 mentions the authors
recommendations and suggestions for improving teacher feedback in a way
that help students to have better writing.
The conclusion at the end gives a summary of the main issues that have
been discussed so far in the study and suggestions for further research.
PART TWO. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter focuses on some of the most important issues in the theories
of feedback in general and the teacher feedback in particular. Two main
features will be concerned, namely, theoretical background of feedback and
the focus on teacher feedback.
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1.1. Theoretical backgrounds of feedback.
1.1.1. Definitions of feedback
As far from now, responding to student writing, including givingfeedback, is one of the most controversial topics in second language
instruction and theory. As the importance of feedback, it is considered a
fundamental element of a process approach to writing. Therefore, there have
been attempts to define the term feedback.
According to Ur (1996) feedback is information that is given to the
learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the
objective of improving this performance (p.242). He also distinctly pointed
out two main distinguishable components of feedback: assessment and
correction. This significant definition mentions feedback as an essential step
in teaching with an obvious aim at helping students to have better
achievement in learning.
Similarly, Keh (1989) defined feedback as any output from reader to
writer that provides information for revision (p.18). In other words, it is the
comments, questions, and suggestions a reader gives a writer to produce
reader-based prose as opposed to writer prose. As the writers receive all these,
they will discover that good writing involves an interaction between their
ideas, the expressions of the ideas, and their readers perceptions and
reactions to the expression (Chaudron, 1984. p.2). This definition can be
seen as one of the most comprehensive as feedback is considered as an
effective means of teachers communication to the students about their
writing in the final one. Some researchers (Ferris, 2003; Leki, 1990) also
shared an agreement when noting that feedback is most effective when it is
delivered at intermediate stages of the writing process.
Dreham (1995) also had the same point of view in the case that
feedback is interestingly likened to a two-bullock cart. His definition is based
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on a famous saying that in order for the cart to move in the right direction, its
two bullocks need to understand not only the purpose of their efforts but also
each other (p.160). In other words, there should be a collaborative approachto the monitoring and processing of feedback between the teacher and the
students so that the teacher feedback becomes an effective tool for student
revision.
Seows (2002), in contrast, defined feedback as the teachers quick
initial reaction to the students drafts. In this point of view, teacher response
should be given at preliminary or intermediate drafts, not the final one
because things which are not clear or which could be improved upon can still
be changed (p.317). This means students should have chances to rewrite
their drafts at least one more time. If students write only one draft which is
then graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition
comes too late. Added to this, Raimes (1983, p.139) noted, Responding to
students writing is very much a part of the process of teaching writing. In
other words, feedback should be provided in the process of writing rather than
in single act of producing a text.
1.1.2. The importance of feedback in L2 writing
Just as importantly, a great number of studies on this aspect have been
done and a debate about the value of providing feedback on L2 writing has
been prominent in recent years.
According to Taylor (1997) feedback is an area which causes students
considerable anxiety (p.65) and there is a need for great care to be taken in
relation to issues as as timing, location, participation, attitudes, outcomes and
so on. Also, both Huntley (1992) and Truscott (1996), based on their
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respective reviews of the literature, stated that substantial research evidence
suggests that correction of surface level errors is futile and may not be worth
the instructors time and effort. Truscott even concluded that this type ofcorrection should be abandoned in second language writing classes because it
can have harmful effect. This point of view is shared by other studies in
various second language contexts investigating the effect of different types of
feedback on student writing skill in the case that explicit error correction
seems to be generally ineffective (Keper, 1991; Sheppard, 1992).
However, there have been number of the researchers who support to the
importance of feedback in teaching English as a second language. They
believed in giving corrective feedback to students to improve their written
accuracy. In Schulz (1996) students beliefs about what constitutes effective
feedback on writing and their expectations regarding teacher paper-making
techniques may influence the effectiveness of such feedback. Hedge (2000)
shared an agreement in the case that getting feedback from the teacher and
from other students in the class enables learners to test hypothesis and refine
their developing knowledge of the language system. (p.13). In this case,
good feedback not only stimulates students for revision but also motivates
them to maintain their interest in writing. In addition, provision of comments
helps individualize writing instructions in which students will be able to get
individual attention to have their own needs or problems rightfully addressed
(Reid, 1993). In this way, feedback is an important step towards the learner
centeredness.
In conclusion, giving and receiving feedback helps students to develop
their sensitivity and their own writing style. In other words, feedback is a
fundamental element of a writing approach when it pushes the students
through the writing process on to the eventual end-product.
1.1.2. Types of feedback to students writing.
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A review of literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback
as revision. They are self-editing, peer feedback, and teacher feedback.
1.1.2.1. Self-editingSelf-editing is an important aspect of re-writing. It is the last thing a
writer does before sending the manuscript off to their agent or an editor.
Raimes (1983) supported this when he stated that What students really need,
more than anything else, is to develop the ability to read their own writing and
to examine it critically, to learn how to express their meaning fluently,
logically, and accurately (p.149). This means students need to be able to find
and correct their own mistakes. Students attempt in language learning is one
of the crucial factors towards their success. If a learner was aware of self-
editing and tried to learn from his own failure, he would receive more chances
of overcoming difficulties in learning than others who did not care why they
failed.
In order to help students to have success in self-editing their writing,
some techniques are designed to help them apply the same critical skills to
their own written products at the right stage in the process as all the
techniques of reading closely and analyzing the writing help with critical
reading. In fact, students need to hold the critical skills in check as the ideas
are forming at the beginning of the process. They also have to know not only
how to edit their own writing but when is the right time to do it.
However, self editing involves an ability to look at ones work with an
impersonal eye. For some this can be difficult; the best thing to do is to let
ones completed manuscript sit for a month, then go back and do a final edit.
In other words, self-editing is more time consuming than the other types of
feedback. Also, it is unsuitable way for students with low English proficiency
to revise their writing.
1.1.2.2. Peer feedback
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Peer feedback is a part of larger category of educational activities in
which students work together in groups. According to Bartels (2004), peer
feedback means feedback from your fellow students. If students are workingon the same assignment together, peer feedback means exchanging drafts and
comments on each others drafts. Peer feedback broadens learners
involvement by giving them the additional roles of reader and advisor to go
with that of writer. This addition of roles, hopefully, increases learners
insight into the writing process. A related benefit proposed for peer work is
that it helps learners become more autonomous, thus preparing them to write
without teacher there to correct their errors. Further, structuring face-to-face
discussion into the feedback process provides students the opportunity to
engage in constructive controversy which may lead to insights and greater
task engagement (Johnson & Johnson, 1987).
Peer feedback on student writing has been advocated for second
language learners. Jacobs (1987) discussed the benefits for learners of
interaction with others when pointing out that such interaction can be the
source of cognitive conflict which can lead learners to reexamine and adjust
the frameworks through which they view the word. In addition, Rollinson
(2005) found that peer feedback gives both readers and writers more time for
collaboration, consideration, and reflection.
In deed, calls for the use of peer feedback may become more common
for two reasons. First, the growing popularity of teaching writing as a process
with several dimensions has made peer feedback more appropriate because
there is more emphasis on revision. Second, these dimensions of the writing
process creating ideas, sharing those ideas into a piece of writing, and then
fixing the form of that writing provide more points at which feedback can
be offered.
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However, some teachers and students, particularly in L2, are worried
about the using peer feedback in writing class because they fear students
comments will cause as many problems as they solve, due to students lack oflanguage ability (Jacobs, 1987).
1.1.2.3. Teachers feedback
Clearly, as the teachers are engaged in the process of responding teacher-
response is considered an essential step in the writing process (Hyland,
1990). He claimed that diligent marking provides students with an idea of the
criteria by which their work is judged. Also, useful information that will help
students avoid similar errors in the future should be offered.
An increasing number of studies have suggested a positive role of
indirect teacher feedback, when it incorporated with student self-revision 1, in
facilitating accuracy in L2 wiring. Ferris and Roberts (2001) examined the
differential effect of teacher feedback among university ESL student writers
in terms of the percentage of errors they could revise when they self-edited
their texts across three feedback conditions: (1) errors marked with codes; (2)
errors underlined with no codes and (3) no feedback at all. Results showed
large beneficial effects for feedback groups versus the non-feedback group.
However, differences in terms of the proficiency level between the feedback
group and the non-feedback group might be a confounding factor in their
study. Chandler (2003) examined whether teacher feedback in the form of
underling errors could help East Asian college students improve their writing
accuracy and whether the effects would last over one semester. The results of
this study demonstrated that formal accuracy of student writing improved
significantly if the participants were required to correct their errors than if
they were not. Results also exhibited a gain in accuracy which was not
accompanied by a decline in fluency over the semester. Findings of the study
signified the importance of student correction or revision, and it might be
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possible that if students did not revise their writing based on feedback about
errors, having teachers mark errors was equivalent to giving no error
feedbackA number of researchers have also attempted to directly investigated
L2 students preferences and reactions to teacher making techniques and their
beliefs about what constitutes effective feedback to writing. Radecki and
Swales (1988), based on a survey of 59 ESL students attitude towards
feedback on their written work, conclude that ESL teachers might lose their
credibility among their students if they do not correct all surface errors since
findings revealed that students seem to need and expect correction of all
errors. Nugrahenny, (2007)carried out a studyto explore Indonesian students'attitudes toward teacherfeedback. The findings show that generally teachers
and students have a marked preference for teacher feedback. The high
preference for teacher feedback was mainly the result of the respondents'
positive attitudes towardsteacher feedback. Interestingly, student preferences
for teacherfeedback also stemmed from their awareness that teachers control
grades. Students also show a high preference for feedback which focused on
language. Moreover, the interview data illustrated that teacher feedback
contributed greatly to students' emotional states particularly their motivation
and attitudes towards writing.
Compared with this growing but far from the conclusion of studies on
the written feedback strategies of teachers, it seems that teacher feedback is a
prominent aspect of responding to students works. Since students beliefs
about feedback on writing may influence the degree of effectiveness of
teacher feedback, it is crucial to identify students attitudes towards error
correction and their expectations regarding teacher feedback on their writing.
1.2. The focus of teacher feedback
1.2.1. Types of teacher feedback
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In general, teacher feedback can be transmitted in a variety of ways: in
dialog journals, mini-conferences during class workshops, written comment
on student drafts and student-teacher conferences. In the scope of the thesis,the author mentioned teacher corrective feedback only. In this section, types
of teacher corrective feedback and how these types influence the student
revision will be examined.
1.2.1.1. Marginal versus end feedback
Marginal feedback is a kind of feedback that is written in the margin or
between sentence lines of the students paper. It refers to the teachers
immediate intervention in discrete parts of the students draft. By contrast,
summary at the end of the paper called end feedback is normally an overview
of more consideration in an essay.
In Ferris and Hedgcocks view (1998), there is no conclusive evidence
that either marginal or end comments are preferable or more effective.
However, in case teachers can only give one form of commentary given
overwhelming number of papers and severe time constraints, a
comprehensive and clear endnote is strongly recommended. When time
permits, writing teachers should try to make a combination of both to give
students more chance to revise their writing.
1.2.1.2. Positive versus negative feedback
As far as teacher feedback is concerned, a lot of studies have been done
into the effects of positive and negative comments on the student revision
(Gee, 1972; Ferris, 1995). All the studies come to an agreement that the
students remember and appreciate encouraging remarks made by their
teachers. Gee has gone far to assert that the students would have better
attitudes towards writing if they receive positive feedback.
However, Ferris noted that a significant majority of her participants
described critical comments as being positive since they all helped them
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improve their papers. This result suggested that students expect to receive
constructive criticism and are not necessarily offended by this although they
appear to enjoy and appreciate praises.1.2.1.3. Text specific versus general feedback
Text-specific feedback is a kind of comment that directly relates to the
text at hand; whereas; general feedback can be attached to any paper.
Many prominent scholars in the field argued that teacher feedback is
more helpful if it is a text-specific (Hillocks, 1986; Reid, 1993; Seow, 2002).
Reid (1993, p.225) stated that feedback should be informative and detailed
enough to help the students writers return to the task of writing but not so
overwhelming that they cannot form a revision plan. As they write, receive
response, and revise, students should be able to feel good about what they
have done well and realize that they can improve on what they have not done
effectively, Seow (2002, p.317) show his agreement that text-specific
responses, rather than rubber-stamped comments by the teacher will help
students rediscover meanings and facilitate the revision of initial drafts.
However, Ferris (1997) argued that there is a role in teacher commentary for
general responses. A general response of encouragement is no doubt better
than none. This view has been well supported by Fathman and Whalleys
perspective that general comment that do not refer to specifics within a text
can be effective giving encouragements helped improve the students
rewrites. (1990, p. 186)
1.2.1.4. Feedback focus on form versus on content
When responding to students written work, teachers often face with a
big problem on choosing the best feedback to help their students improve
their writing. This is difficult because there is a little agreement among
teachers or researchers about how teachers should respond to student writing.
Much of the conflict over teacher response to written work has been whether
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teacher feedback should focus on form (e.., grammar, mechanics) or on
content (e.g., organization, amount of detail). Griffin (1982) has noted, the
major question confronting any theory of responding to student writing iswhere we should focus our attention (p.299).
A small number of studies have focused on content alone. Hillocks
(1986) concluded that focused feedback can have an effect on certain aspects
of writing (p.166). Additionally, Huntley (1992) maintained that feedback on
content should be provided to students while feedback on form should be
avoided, and she recommended that L2 teachers incorporate peer reviews and
student-teacher conferences in their teaching as two valuable alternative
feedback methods to traditional error correction. These views led to the
suggestion that teachers should focus on content more than form and provide
content feedback between initial and final drafts of papers.
However, some research findings have proved the teacher feedback focus
on form. Enginarlar (1993), based on a survey of 47 EFL students attitudes
towards the feedback procedure employed in their class, concluded that these
students perceive attention to linguistic errors as effective teacher feedback.
Similarly, Ferris (1995) reached the same conclusion based on his respective
surveys of students attitudes toward feedback in an EFL context. Schulz
(1996) investigated Fl teacher and student beliefs about explicit grammar
instruction and error correction and also found that students preferred a focus
on form.
1.2.2. Forms of teacher feedback
Ferris (1997) claimed that teacher feedback generally includes four basic
syntactic forms: question, statement, imperative, and exclamation. They have
different pragmatic aims such as giving or asking for further information,
making requests for revision, giving positive feedback about what the
students has done well.
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In EFL writing classrooms, these forms can be used to provide feedback
to the students works. However, despite their advantages, each form has the
potential problems which teacher should be aware of. In terms of questions,Ferris warned that questions sometimes confuse students although they may
stimulate students thinking process and help teachers avoid appropriating
students texts; statements which give information are not necessarily
intended to lead to specific changes because they do not explicitly ask or tell
the student what to do, although many do contain important information that
teachers want the students to review while revising ; in terms of requests,
Ferris stated, even though students appeared to understand from the
comment that something was required of them, they were less clear about
how to incorporate the requested changed successfully (p.331). Therefore,
teachers should be careful in constructing their own feedback forms, in
explaining those feedback forms together with their pragmatic intents to the
students, and most importantly, in helping the students process the comments
and revise their drafts effectively.
1.2.3. Major issues in giving teachers feedback
As far as teacher feedback in L2 writing classes is concerned, a number
of researchers have attempted to give an overview of issues involved in
responding to L2 writers works (see, Leki, 1992; Ferri, 2003; Reids,
1993). In their studies, major issues in responding to L1 writers seem to fall
largely into three categories: class goals, teacher role(s), and strategies of
teacher feedback.
In terms of class goals, Leki (1992) explored the problematic nature of
teacher feedback and then discussed how an ESL writing teachers goal for
her students as writers might influence how, when, and what she respond to.
She claimed that we may resist the idea, our responses to the writing of ESL
students and our goals for them in our writing courses, are, in fact, laden with
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political context (p.125). With regard to teachers roles in Ls writing classes,
Raimes (1984) discussed the difficulty of composing in a second language
and of how teacher response can shape and potentially get in the way of thatprocess. The main purpose of the researcher is to suggest that ESL writing
teachers need to pay more attention to the act of writing and less to ESL. She
claimed that one remedy for the aguish of composing is to concentrate on the
making of meaning, to concentrate on the act of composing instead of
peripherals (p.92). She offered three areas in which teacher can do this:
generating assignments for the class, giving feedback, and providing readings.
In terms of providing feedback, Raimes suggested that corrections are not the
only kind of feedback teacher can give and that working on developing
grammatical forms should be a parallel activity to composing.
In regard to strategies of teacher feedback, Reid (1993) stated in
teachers attempt to evade the evils of appropriation taking over their
students work, many ESL writing teachers have stopped working with their
students texts altogether (p.275). Though this withdrawal may stem from
the best of intentions, Reid argued that teachers need to accept their
responsibilities as cultural informants and as facilitators for creating social
discourse community in the ESL classroom (p.275).
Summary
In summary, this chapter has so far touched upon issues relating to the
topic of the study. It has mentioned the definition and the importance of
feedback, types of feedback and the focuses on teacher feedback as well as
major issues in giving teachers feedback in ESL writing classroom. The
following chapter will focus on the study - its methodology and findings
under the light of the above discussed theories.
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CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
This chapter focuses on the context of the study and the study. The context
includes information about the setting and the writing program. The study
concentrates on the methodology, data analysis, and findings and discussion.
2.1. Context of the study
2.1.1. The setting of the study
The study was carried out at the Boarding and High school for Ethnic
Minority Students in Tuyen Quang. The school is located in Tuyen Quang
Town. It was founded 50 years ago and is for ethnic minority students from
all parts of Tuyen Quang Province. The purpose of the school is to train
ethnic minority students as good people who will greatly contribute to the
development of the province. That is why the school is investigated largely
every year with good equipment and good working condition.
There are about five hundred ethnic minority students studying at
school each year. The total classes are fourteen and not very large size ones
(about 30 35 students in each). There are thirty-eight teachers and most of
them are well-trained. They are considered the most hard-working and
enthusiastic teachers of all in the province. There are five teachers of the
English Group at the school. Most of them are not very high-educated, but
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experienced teachers. They spend a lot of their concerns about teaching and
improving students English level. However, they lack appropriate teaching
methods and techniques, especially giving feedback. They do not have anadequate knowledge about many fields of language teaching; in other words,
they need to be retrained.
All the students are ethnic minorities groups. They mostly come from
remote or mountainous areas of the province. They are hard-working and
well-behaved students. However, most of them have low ability in learning.
Many of them have low English proficiency and their utterances are in words
or short prefabricated phrases. Their grammar is mostly inaccurate and their
pronunciation requires concentrated listening. As a result, they often have a
great anxiety in English classrooms. Among four skills of English, they find
writing much more difficult than the others and often participate in writing
lessons unsuccessfully. Despite their low ability, many of them are
continuously paying much more concerns about English as a core subject and
hope that their English level will be improved by their great efforts. Thus,
they ask for help in writing skill.
2.1.2. The writing program
2.1.2.1. Overview of the textbooks
The textbooks which are required to teach English in high schools are
English Basic 10, 11 and 12. They were developed based on the new national
curriculum. The methodologies that the books follow are learner-centered
approach and the communicative approach with task-based teaching being the
central teaching method (English 10, Teachers Manual: 12).
Each book includes 16 teaching units and six review units. Each
teaching unit covers a topic and is sub-divided into five sections: Reading,
Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus. Each part is supposed to
be taught in a period of 45 minutes.
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The Writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities
that guide students through the writing process such as model analysis,
language work, and guided writing. In this part, students are required toproduce various text types such as personal and formal letters, narratives,
chart, graph and table description, and expository essays. The general and
specific objectives are set clearly in the books. (Table 1, 2)
2.1.2.2. The teaching of writing skill.
Table 3: Distribution of writing activities
English 10 English 11 English 12Total
SB WB SB WB SB WB
Preparation work 20 1 9 2 16 0 48
Controlled writing 7 13 1 8 2 12 43
Guided writing 7 2 7 3 3 4 26
Free writing 13 4 15 9 18 7 66
No. of activities 47 20 32 22 39 23 183
No. of units 22 16 22 16 22 16 114
The types of the texts that students are taught and made to practice in
three books are quite varied, ranging from forms, postcards, letters, and
announcements to mini-biographies, narratives, table descriptions, and
expository essays. A glance at this variety seems to guide students to follow
the process of writing than the product. However, according to Thuy Minh
(20?, p.43) the writing approached adopted in the books seems to beproduct-oriented in the nature emphasis seems to be placed on the end-result
of writing rather than the process of writing itself. She found that the writing
section normally begins with some preparation work in which students are
required to analyze task requirements, work on models, or generate ideas.
Then, it may proceed with one or two controlled or / and guided writing
activities and end with a freer writing activities (p. 43). This fact leads
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students to engage in imitating copying and transforming models of correct
language texts to the new writing task. There seems to be no explicit
emphasis on the process of planning, drafting, revision, and editing.
Moreover, the textbooks do not offer much chance for free writing
practice. As can be seen from the table 3, among the 183 writing activities, 66
are for free writing practice, account for 36%. In other words, there is an
average of only 0.5 free writing activity per unit. This is quite far from the
given goal of teaching writing in CLT that is to enable learners to become
more independent and effective writers. Also, Thuy Minh, based on a text
book evaluation, claimed that writing involves more than putting ideas into
sentences and without adequate prior preparation (e.g. instruction about
paragraph writing, working on models, controlled and guided practice (p.
45). She concluded that writing task in the three textbooks would probably be
too challenging and perhaps even beyond students ability. As a result, the
teachers have to adapt writing tasks to match them with students ability.
Also, the teachers should know students preferences for the feedback they
receive to give good responses to their students written work.
2.2. The study
2.2.1. Methodology
2.2.1.1. The subjects.
The subjects involved in the study include 100 students and 4 teachers
from the Boarding High School for Ethnic Minority Students in Tuyen
Quang. It may be very difficult to select a random sample of individuals due
to a large number of the students in the department (more than 500 students).
In this case, instead of randomly selecting individuals, the researcher
randomly selects classes or groups for investigation. This method is
convenient for the investigator to observe the participants complete the
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questionnaires in class. Moreover, these classes have been assigned with a
relative equal proportion of good, average, and poor English proficiency
students by the Department of English in each high school and there wereboth males and females in each class.
The 4 teachers are teaching English in the classes from which the
students are chosen to be involved in the research. They are both experienced
and inexperienced teachers of the Boarding High School for Ethnic Minority
Students. They are willing to participate in the survey with the hope that the
results of the study will help them to have better understanding on students
preferences for teacher feedback.
2.2.1.2. The instruments:
Four instruments were used to collect the data for the study.
Classroom observation was conducted within a month to get a quick
view on teachers feedback-giving practice.
A direct interview between the researcher and four teachers was
designed to examine more about the purpose of providing feedback, the types
and forms of feedback as well as the practice of error correction teachers
often use to give comments on the students writings. The interview was
formed in semi-structured questions.
A questionnaire for the students examined students attitudes toward
their teacher corrective feedback, the problems they often face up with in
writing classes as well as their preferred feedback type and form. It consists of
nine questions and is divided into three parts. Part I includes some short
questions on personal information of the participants. Part II consists of close-
ended questions, open-ended questions and 3 Likert scales to explore
students opinions on the feedback they received. Part III has three open-
ended questions to examine students preferences for their teacher corrective
feedback on writing.
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The teachers written comments on the students drafts were done with
a view to obtaining the most truthful information about the teachers current
practice of giving feedback.2.2.1.3. Data collection methods
The whole process was divided into four stages.
At the first stage, the researcher carried out an observation on writing
lessons of four teachers. The researcher attended eight periods of writing
lesson. She observed teachers feedback-giving practice carefully and took
notes all necessary information for the study.
At the second stage, the researcher had a direct interview with each of
four teachers. She interviewed each of them one by one. All the talks were in
Vietnamese. During the interview, the researcher sat nearby the interviewers,
taking notes all the information which was then transcribed into English.
Then, the questionnaire was transcribed into Vietnamese and
distributed to 100 students. The transcription of the questionnaire was done to
make sure that all the students understood all the questions. The researcher
was also present to give any explanation if any confusion or problem arises as
the respondents are working on the questions.
Finally, the writing drafts of the eight students on which there were the
teacher comments were collected at the beginning and the end of the school
year and analyzed.
2.2.2. Data analysis
This part of the thesis concerns with the treatment of all the data
collected from classroom observation, direct interview between the researcher
and four teachers, the survey questionnaires conducted on 100 students, and
the analysis of the teacher commentary on the students sample drafts.
2.2.2.1. Data analysis of classroom observation
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As a teacher of English Group, the researcher often attended different
English classes at her school. To collect data for this study, the researcher
attended totally eight writing classes of four teachers. She observed the waysfour teachers gave feedback to their students. She found that despite different
teaching experience, all teachers seemed to apply the same feedback
techniques. All of them seemed to use corrective feedback quite often. This
means they tended to focus their feedback on pointing out and correcting
errors. Besides, most of them used both oral and written comments to give
feedback. Interestingly, they rarely collected all students papers. They often
showed the students a sample in the end or applied teacher-student conference
when their students nearly finished their writing. Three of them sometimes
collected some papers to give written feedback at home, returning them to the
students next period and asking the students to rewrite the drafts in exercise
notebook. Obviously, all students are required to have an exercise notebook in
which they write their homework. Those notebooks will be collected
randomly during the school year buy the teachers to assess students learning
effort. Also, they tended to focus on correcting errors on form and spelling.
Only one teacher paid her attention to the content and organization of
students papers. Surprisingly, none of them applied other types of feedback
such as peer feedback or student self-monitoring in writing classes.
2.2.2.2. Data analysis of direct interview between the researcher and
four teachers
2.2.2.2.1.Teachers demographic information
There were only one male and three female teachers taking part in the
study. The teachers ages ranged from 28 to 50. Their experience in teaching
English quite varied from 5 years to 28 years during which they all have spent
4 years teaching writing to high school students since the writing section was
separated from others in new English text books.
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2.2.2.2.2. Analysis of the interview
Firstly, all teachers were asked about their beliefs on the importance of
feedback to teaching and learning writing skill. Most of them agreed thatfeedback played a very important role in writing lesson when stating that We
cannot ignore feedback when teaching writing because it is necessary to
show out students errors so that they can improve their papers. However,
one teacher had a neutral view to the importance of feedback. She said, It is
not necessary to give feedback to student quite often. The writing task is not
very difficult for the students when they are asked to write something similar
to the sample. That is the reason why most of the teachers often respond to
students written work and only one of them sometimes gives feedback to her
students.
When being asked about purpose of giving feedback, all of the teachers
said that they wanted to help the students to improve their writing. I want my
students to have a positive attitude towards writing and that is why I try to
give feedback as clearly as possible so that they will not make the same
mistake again and rewrite better paper, one of them said. Also, the majority
considered feedback as a good way to justify the grade given students
writing. They stated that we often give mark to students paper so that they
will know how they write and what level they are in.
In terms of feedback types, teachers seemed to have different choices
for different types of feedback. Most of the teachers tended to locate their
comments in the margin of students papers. The same number of teachers
sometimes gave comments at the end of the papers. Regarding the teachers
provision of general or specific feedback, all the teachers utilized specific
comments than the general ones. Moreover, teachers tended to use more
positive feedback to raise students strength. Most of the teachers never gave
negative feedback to their students. What they said are as follows:
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I like to write my comments in the margin of students paper because
I want to show specific comments to my students.
Students will be confused a lot if we write our comment in general atthe end of the paper.
Writing comments at the end of the paper takes a lot of time when we
have to overview all the errors and categorize them.
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.
I avoid giving negative comment to my students because they are
ethnic minority students who feel embarrassed quite easily. When they are not
encouraged, they will keep silence and write something invaluable. Thats
too bad.
In terms of feedback forms, all teachers said that they often used
statement and imperative when responding to students papers. They thought
it was easy for them to write short, clear comments with such feedback forms.
They said, My students do not like to receive a question or an exclamation in
their paper. They want some things in detail. How can I write something
clear enough with a question?
When being asked about the focus of teacher feedback on different
features of writing such as grammar, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary
choice, the organization, and the ideas expressed in the paper teachers
seemed to highly concentrate on pointing out errors in grammar and
punctuation. In terms of spelling and vocabulary choice, half of them agreed
that they often pointed out errors in these two features. However, not many of
them focused on the organization of the paper and the ideas expressed in the
paper. Their opinions are as follows:
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My students often make a lot of errors in grammar such as verb
tenses, article use, subject and verb agreementetc and spelling. They rarely
have errors in organization of the paper and sometimes errors in ideasexpressed. This does not mean they have high level of English, but they follow
a sample which guides them the organization of the paper.
Students do not have to write any essay in English current tests, so it
is not necessary to focus much on the organization of the paper and the ideas
expressed.
I try to focus my feedback in pointing out errors in grammar, spelling,
and vocabulary choice because students need to improve their knowledge
about these features to complete successfully the English current test which
focus much on form.
Regarding error indication, most of the teachers often indicate students
errors by crossing what is incorrect and writing the correct word or structure.
They sometimes showed the location of the error is and gave clue about how
to correct it. They never ignored errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation
etc, and only paying attention to the ideas expressed. If there were many
errors in a paper, they said they tried to correct all errors as many as possible.
What they said are as follows:
I often indicate students errors by underlining the errors and write
the correct ones
I think most of the students have low English proficiency, so they want
to have all errors corrected.
Most of my students make different mistakes, so if I indicate and
correct all errors, they can exchange their papers to improve all errors
easily.
However, only one of them claimed that she corrected all the errors she
considered major, but not the minor ones. She said, We can not have enough
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time to correct all the errors if there are many of them in a paper. We should
focus on the errors that relate to the requirement of the writing task. For
example, we should focus errors on past tenses when that paper reportedabout a past even. Other features should be concentrated less. She also
stated that students should be given chances to correct errors by themselves.
2.2.2.3. Observation of teacher commentary on the students drafts.
The students drafts which focused on describing a friend, a football
match and a letter about ones familys rules were examined. The eight
students were allowed to choose one of the topics in English 11 and 12. This
explained why the topic selected for each writing paper quite varied.
Through an observation of teacher written comments on the collected
drafts, the researcher came up with a finding that there were some points in
common and some differences among teachers when they gave feedback to
the students writing.
Concerning the common points, all the teachers tended to give text-
specific feedback to students writing. They tried to make the feedback
informative and clear enough so that the students would notice all of their
errors. They all indicated an error by using red-colored pens to underline the
error and write down the correct words or structures. Regarding many errors
in a paper, the teachers tended to correct most of the errors, among which
errors in grammar, vocabulary choice were focused on much more than the
ones in organization and ideas expressed in the papers. The other agreement
in teachers paper-marking techniques was that all of them gave marks on the
papers.
However, there were some differences among teachers in paper-
marking techniques. Firstly, they used different forms of feedback to respond
to students writing. Only one of them chose exclamation and sometimes
marking the errors, but not actually correcting them; two of them used
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imperative and the other even used no forms of feedback. In terms of the
choice between negative or positive feedback, two of the teachers preferred to
use negative feedback, only one would like to use positive one to encouragestudents. When indicating an error in students papers, only one teacher
showed where the error was and giving clue about how to correct it such as
was happened -> active voice, won or failed -> present participleThe
other only showed the location of the error without correcting it or giving any
clues.
2.2.2.4. Data analysis of students survey questionnaire
2.2.2.4.1.Students demographic information
There were 100 students from grade 10 to 12 completing the survey
questionnaire. Among them, there were 46 males and 54 female. Their age
ranged from 16 to 18 years old. All of them have been studying English for
five to 8 years. All of them have been learning writing since it was one of five
sections in each unit at secondary school.
2.2.2.4.2.Analysis of students survey questionnaire
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4%
24%
72%
not important
important
ve ry important
The chart showed students opinions on the role of feedback in writing.
Most of the student (72%) agreed that feedback plays a very important role in
teaching and learning writing skill. Some of them considered feedback an
important means. On the other hands, there were still few students denying
the role of feedback when stating that it was not important at all.
2%
2%
48%40%
8%
never
almost never
sometimes
often
very often
As shown in chart 2, students gave different ideas on the frequency of
teachers feedback-giving practice. Only eight percent of them agreed that
they received their teacher feedback very often. Nearly a half of them (40%)
said that their written works were often given feedback. However, larger
number of the subjects (account for 48%) claimed that their teachers
responses were sometimes given to their writings. Surprisingly, the same
37
Chart 1: Students Beliefs on the Importance of Feedback
Chart 2: Students Opinions on Teachers Feedback Frequency
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percentage of the students (2%) said that they never or almost never received
any feedback from their teachers.
10 6
32 20
7444 54
4844
1846 46
20 188
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
a b c d e
very helpful
helpful
not helpful at al
Chart 3 showed students opinions on Forms of Teacher Feedback (Part
II, items 3a-e). As can be seen from the chart, in general, the majority of the
students highly valued feedback in the following forms: questions, statement,
imperative, and exclamation, among which statement was considered the
most helpful one. In contrast, marking the errors, but not actually correcting
them was assessed by 74% of the students as not helpful one at all.
45%
55%
YES
NO
Chart 4 showed the students opinions on the comprehension of the
feedback they received. Only 45% of the students said that they found the
teacher feedback quite easy to understand; meanwhile 55% of them responded
negatively due to different reasons shown in table 4.
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Chart 3: Students Opinions on Forms of Teachers Feedback
Chart 4: Students comprehension of teacher feedback
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Items Responses (in
%)
4. Why dont you find your teacher feedback easy?
a. feedback is too general to understand
b. teachers use new vocabulary and structures in
feedback
c. teachers including hedges in feedback confuses me
d. teachers use new feedback strategies
5. What strategies do you use to solve your problem?
a. asking the teacher or peers for help
b. consulting a grammar book or dictionary
c. doing nothing
64
20
16
0
72
22
6
The data in the table showed different factors that made students not
comprehend their teacher feedback. The first reason which was shared by
64% of the students was that their teacher feedback is too general to
understand. In other words, students would like to receive more specific
feedback from their teacher. Besides, the use of new vocabulary and
structures in feedback had a negative influence on the students
comprehension. This factor made it difficult for them to understand the
teacher intention behind their feedback. Teachers inclusion of hedges in
feedback, such as perhaps or maybe, also confused students. Although
only 16% of the students complained about this factor, it was still one of the
main reasons affecting students comprehension that is worth getting
teachers attention when responding to students written works.
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Table 4: Factors Affecting the Comprehension of Feedback
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66
38
18
42
5844
24
42
17
38
30
30
10
14
65
1810
22
6 2 22 2 2
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%90%
100%
a b c d e f
strongly disagree
dis agree
neither agree nor disagree
Agree
Strongly agree
Response frequencies for 8 Likert-type items addressing the students
beliefs about the relative importance of various features of their writing (Part
III, items 6a-h) appear in chart 5. Students seemed to equate the importance of
most of various features of their writing such as grammar, spelling,
vocabulary choice, organization, and ideas expressed in the paper. More
students agreed that the teacher should point out errors in grammar and the
organization of the paper (ranging from 88% to 90%) than they did for the
other features (ranging from 74% to 80%). Punctuation might be only feature
that students concerned least. 65% of the students have a neutral choice for
this item.
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Chart 5: Students Beliefs about the Relative Importance of VariousFeatures in their Writing
Chart 6: Students Preferences for Kinds of Feedback
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4%
38%
58%
negative feedback
positive feedback
both of them
Chart 6 revealed students preferences for kinds of feedback. As can be
seen from the chart, the majority of the students preferred both negative andpositive feedback most. Many of them (38%) also would like to receive
positive feedback; meanwhile; only 4% wanted to get negative feedback from
their teacher.
Items Response (in %)1 2 3 4 5
6. When responding to your written work,
teacher should always:
a. use a set of correction of proof-reading
symbols.
b. use a red-colored pen.
10
48
14
30
20
18
38
2
18
2
1=strongly agree; 2=agree; 3=neither agree nor disagree; 4=disagree; 5 =
strongly disagree
As shown in Table 5, students preferences for teacher marking
techniques such as using a set of correction or of proof-reading symbols and
using a red-colored pen were quite different. 78% of the students agreed that
the teacher should always use a red-colored pen when responding to their
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Table 5: Students Preferences for Paper-marking Techniques
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written work. In contrast, 56% of them shared their disagreement with the
teachers use of a set of correction or proof-reading symbols.
ItemsRespons
es (in %)
8. How do you want your teacher to indicate an error in your
written work?
a. By crossing what is incorrect and writing the correct word or
structure.
b. By showing where the error is and giving clue about how to
correct it.
c. By only showing where the error is.
d. By ignoring the errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation
etc., and only paying attention to the ideas expressed.
8. If there are many errors in a paper, what do you wantyour English teacher to do?
(You can choose as many answers as apply)
a. Correct all errors, major and minor.
b. Correct all errors the teacher considers major, but not the
minor ones.
c. Correct most but not necessary all of the major errors if there
are many of them.
d. Correct only a few of the major errors no matter how many
there are.
e. Correct all repeated errors whether major or minor.
f. Correct no errors and respond only to the ideas expressed.
52
44
4
0
68
6
10
2
5
4
42
Table 6: Students preferences for Paper-marking Techniques Nominal items
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Concerning students preferences for teachers techniques in pointing
out errors, students revealed nearly the same choice as their teachers. As
shown in Table 6, 52% of the students chose crossing out an error and writingthe correct word or structure as the best teacher feedback technique in
responding to their written works. Similarly, 44% of them chose showing
where the error is and giving clue about how to correct it as the second
preferred one. In addition, very few students chose only showing where the
error is.
Regarding students preferences for the amount of feedback on their
papers if there are so many errors in a paper, 68% of the students stated that
they would prefer their teacher to correct all errors. 10% of them would like
to have most of the major errors corrected if there are many of them. Very
few students concerned on correcting a few major errors or all repeated errors
as well as the ideas expressed only (ranging from 2% to 6%).
2.2.3. Findings and discussion
This section presents the answers to the research questions proposed at
the beginning of the thesis.
Research question 1: How do the teachers respond to the student
writing?
Similar to a number of researchers who support the important role of
feedback in L2 context (Keh, 1989; Chaudron, 1984; Leki, 1990; Schulz,
1996), the teachers in this study approved the important roles of feedback as
an effective means in teaching and learning writing skill. As far as their
concerns, they stated that they responded to each of their students written
works quite often. The teachers main purpose of giving feedback to the
student writing was that it helped students to improve the quality of their
papers. This purpose is relevant to the most important function of teacher
feedback as a pedagogical tool for writing improvement. Most of the teachers
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also used feedback as a means to justify the grade given to the student
writing.
In addition, the teachers tended to equate their concentration to variousfeatures of writing such as pointing out errors in grammar, in spelling,
vocabulary choice, making comment on the organization and the ideas
expressed, but less on punctuation. This means the teachers focused on both
form and content when responding to students writing as Fathman and
Whalley (1990) stated, Grammar and content feedback, whether given alone
or simultaneously, positive affect writing (p.185).
In terms of types of teacher feedback, the results indicated that the
teachers seldom combined negative with positive comments. The majority of
them paid much attention to students errors and gave negative comments to
their students instead of encouraging them to write better writing in the next
attempt. However, all of the teachers indicated students errors clearly and
specifically and combined margin feedback and end feedback together, which
help most of the students with low English proficiency to find out their errors
easily and make greater effort for better writing. This point was supported by
Fathman and Whalley (1990) when they claimed that The identification of
the location of errors by the teachers appears to be an effective means of
helping students correct their grammar errors (p.185).
Besides, the teachers used forms of feedback quite differently. In this
study, no certain form appeared to be used the most often. The least choice
was marking the errors, but not actually correcting them. The other forms
such as question, statement, imperative, and exclamation seemed to be equal
in use, but not so often. This finding indicated that the teachers were in favor
of making requests for revision and identifying or marking the problems.
Regarding teachers techniques in pointing out the errors, most of the
teachers often crossed all errors and tried to write the correct words. They
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sometimes showed out the errors and gave clue about how to correct it if they
thought those errors were the minor ones. Also, teachers seemed to choose
short comments at the end of the students papers. This finding reflected themain problem that all teachers often faced with: written comments are time-
consuming.
The findings of teachers beliefs in giving corrective feedback above
revealed teachers great concerns on this area of teaching and learning
English in L2 con text as many researchers have shown their positive attitudes
towards teacher feedback so far (see Hylland, 1990; Lee, 1997; Ferris and
Robert, 2001).
Research question 2: What are the students opinions on the feedback
they received?
The study indicated that most of the students thought feedback was
important to their writing since it provided useful information to help them
rewrite their papers and produce better ones in the next stages. Some of them
strongly considered feedback as a very important means. In other words, they
would like to receive as much feedback as possible from their teachers to
make progress in writing. Despite their desire of feedback, more than a half of
the students stated that they didnt receive their teacher feedback for each of
their papers quite often. Surprisingly, few of them even claimed that they
never got feedback from their teachers. In terms of forms of feedback, the
students in this study thought that question and statement were the most
effective forms of encouraging them to rewrite and edit their own papers.
Only a few of them like to receive their teachers in form of exclamation and
imperative. Moreover, the majority thought that if their teachers marked the
errors, but not actually correcting them, such feedback would be not helpful at
all.
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More importantly, the majority of the students claimed that their
teacher feedback was not easy enough to understand. In their opinions, the
main reason for this is that their teachers feedback was too general tounderstand. In addition, their teachers used new vocabulary and structures in
feedback. A small number of the student thought teachers including hedges
in feedback confused them a lot. The finding suggested that students were not
really satisfied with the feedback they received. Thus, the students would like
to have more specific information of their teachers feedback, especially in
writing comments as they asked their teachers or peers for help to solve their
problem.
Research question 3: What are EFL students preferences for teachers
feedback techniques?
Similar to previous findings in L2 contexts (Radecki & Swales, 1988;
Leki, 1991; Ferris, 1995), the high school students revealed a great concern
with accuracy and error-free writing, in spite of the research evidence arguing
that surface-level error correction is ineffective. Besides, although the
students in this study generally equated the importance of various features of
their writing such as grammar, spelling, vocabulary choice, organization, and
ideas expressed in the paper; many of them chose comments on grammar and
organization of the paper as the most important teacher marks they look at.
Meanwhile, comments on punctuation were chosen least.
Regarding students preferences for kinds of feedback, many students
would like to receive both negative and positive from their teacher. This
finding may reflect a difference between teachers and students on feedback
kinds as teachers rarely used a combination of two kinds of feedback when
writing comments on student paper.
On the other hand, the students preferences for teachers techniques in
indicating an error seemed to differ to their teacher current practice. They
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chose crossing the error and writing the correct word or structure as the best
technique of responding to an error despite their low English proficiency.
Another positive finding is that many students would like to be shown wherethe error is and given clue about how to correct it rather than the correction
itself although the latter would presumably make it easier to revise the draft.
Such preference for clues in teacher feedback was also found among the
ESL students surveyed in Lekis (1991) study. Since an interdependent
relationship exists between teachers behaviors and students views
(Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1994, 1996), this finding revealed that teachers
seem not to be behaving according to students preferences.
Concerning students preferences for the amount of marks on their
papers, most students stated that they would prefer their teachers to correct all
errors. Considering that in most cases, this finding revealed students care
about having their written errors corrected beyond obtaining a good grade on
the paper.
Summary
In summary, this chapter has focused much on the main parts of the study. It
has concerned about the context of the study that has a great influence on the
teaching and learning English. Methodology including information about the
subject, the instruments, data collection and data analysis has been discussed
in particular. The chapter also pointed out major findings and discussion.
The following chapter will focus on recommendation and suggestions for
teachers of English under the light of the results above.
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CHAPTER THREE: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS
The results of the study revealed some gaps between teachers and
students beliefs towards corrective feedback. Obviously, teachers in this
study tend to give their feedback at the final stage of the writing process and
mainly focus on end-product. This means students do not have many
opportunities to rewrite the first drafts for the second time. In fact, teachers do
not have enough time to give feedback to each of the student paper as giving
feedback is time-consuming. In addition, large size classes (35 students per
each) and students preferences for correcting all errors also influence teacher
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corrective feedback. The following suggested solutions are drawn for the
teachers of English at the school to solve the problem.
Firstly, teachers should deliver feedback at intermediate stages of thewriting process. This is necessary because when students are required to write
drafts, they can receive feedback during and between the writing of their
drafts so that they can respond to feedback and may more actively attend to
the teachers comments and suggestions.
Secondly, teachers should provide corrective feedback on all aspects of
student text, including content, rhetorical structure, grammar, and mechanics.
However, teachers should not mention all errors at the same time. In other
words, teacher should be as a reader in the early drafts, then a reader and a
writing consultant to offer advice about structure and organization and finally,
as an editor and error analyst, focusing on the grammar and mechanic in the
papers.
Thirdly, teacher corrective feedback should be clear and concrete to
assist students with revision. It can be concluded that when the teachers ask
for specific information or give clear and concrete suggestions, the students
will appreciate it and produce more effective revisions. To do this, teacher
should ask themselves before giving feedback if their comments lead students
to positive learning experiences in their revision process, how their responses
shape the students view of what revision is, and if their comments help the
students to see what actions they should take when they revise their papers.
Finally, teacher corrective feedback must take individual and
contextual variables into account. In fact, a profound effect of teacher
corrective feedback can be expected when feedback given to the students
bases on their needs. In other words, teachers need to know their individual
students prior experiences, knowledge, and expectations, and give different
types feedback to meet individual students needs and desires.
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Summary
This chapter has pointed out recommendation and suggestions for teachers of
English, based on the results discussed before. The researcher hope