VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** CHU THỊ PHƢƠNG LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTTIVENESS OF PEER-WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESL WRITING FOR THE 11th SPECIALIZED ENGLISH GRADE IN SONTAY HIGH SCHOOL (Khảo sát về tính hiệu quả của phƣơng pháp sử dụng ý kiến phản hồi của bạn học tới việc phát triển kỹ năng viết Tiếng Anh đối với học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh – Trƣờng THPT Sơn Tây) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi – 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** CHU THỊ PHƢƠNG LINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTTIVENESS OF PEER-WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESL WRITING FOR THE 11th SPECIALIZED ENGLISH GRADE IN SONTAY HIGH SCHOOL (Khảo sát về tính hiệu quả của phƣơng pháp sử dụng ý kiến phản hồi của bạn học tới việc phát triển kỹ năng viết Tiếng Anh đối với học sinh lớp 11 chuyên Anh – Trƣờng THPT Sơn Tây) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc. Nguyen Van Do Hanoi – 2015 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I confirm that the thesis “An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Peer-written Feedback to the Development of ESL Writing for 11th Grade Majoring English in Sontay High school” is a presentation of my original research work.
It was carried out under the consultant of Prof. Nguyen Van Do. I also declare that quotation for the information and references in the thesis has obeyed academic rules. I hereby want to confirm that this research had never been published anywhere before the submission and this research is only carried out in the framework of a master thesis.
i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With boundless love and great attitude, I would like to send my deepest sincere and appreciation to the people who devote their valuable work and time for the researchers during the time conducting the research. Without their help, this research would have never been completed First of all, I would like to express my special thankfulness to my supervisor, Prof. Nguyen Van Do for the guidance, support, consistence advice as well as remarks and engagements through the process of this master thesis. All of his help contributes to bring the success to the research.
I would also like to send my appreciation to all the participants of this thesis. They are Mrs. Nguyen Thu Huyen- the former teacher of 11th English gifted class in Sontay high school, Mrs. Le Phuong Lan- the teacher of English and 45 students in this class, who willingly shared their precious time and efforts to help me complete the questionnaire and conduct a long series of writing test during four months of collecting data.
Without their support, the thesis would never been fulfilled. I hope to send my thanks to my colleague, teachers and English teaching staffs in Sontay high school for their valuable critical feedbacks, comments and encouragements. Last but not least, I am very grateful to my family and friends, who always stand by me and give me mental support as well as encouragement to complete the master thesis ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The study is designed to investigate the effect of peer written feedback on the development of ESL writing skill for the 11th grade. The study primarily aims to explore the attitude of 11th grade students majoring English towards peer written feedback activity.
This study also explores students‟ writing aspects which had been improved thanks to the feedback from their peers The results of the research may be proved to suggest some implications for the teacher to exploit more roles of peer written feedback within ESL writing lesson. Firstly, the sample including 45 students in 11th grade majoring English in Sontay high school was required to do the proficiency tests to measure the level of improvement students had thanks to the help of their peer-feedback. After that, half of them were asked to attend the survey to give the data for the attitude of students towards peer written feedback in their ESL writing. The collected data were then presented under the form of tables and charts.
The result showed that students had mixed attitude towards peer-written feedback. However, the number of students having positive attitude were out-numbered than those who has negative viewpoint about it. The main instrument to collect research data were students‟ writing tests measured during the four-month testing. The change in the assessment and the number of mistakes which could be realized and corrected indicated that peer written feedback had improved the quality of students‟ writing products in some aspects.
iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES. vi DEFINITION OF TERMS .vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Previous research findings about the study. Organization of the research paper.
5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. An overview of writing. Approaches to writing teaching in ESL classes.1 The product approach .2 The process approach:. An overview of peer written feedback on writing .1 An overview of feedback .2 Peer-feedback and its formats on language writing.
The purposes and drawbacks of peer-written feedback .1 The purposes of feedback on English Second Language writing development11 4.2 Drawbacks of peer written feedbacks. 13 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Context of the study .1 The setting of the study .2 The writing program applied in 11th grade majoring English in Sontay high school. 17 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Data collection instruments. Data analysis methods. 23 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS OF DATA ANALYSIS. Students’ general information.
Summary of the findings. Recommendation to exploit students’ more role of peer- written feedback in ESL writing lesson .1 Clear checklist or rubrics .2 Timely and regularly .3 Feedback should illuminate both the strength and the areas for development40 2.4 Teacher’s control and instruction. Limitation of the study. Suggestions for further research.
I v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES I. List of Tables 1. Table 1: The number of population in the two groups of students 2. Table 2: Students‟ attitude towards peer written feedback on their writing skill 3.
Table 3: Writing score scales of students‟ Pre-test 4. Table 4: Writing score scales of students‟ Post- test 5. Table 5: The disadvantages of peer written feedback on students‟ writing II. List of Charts 1.
Chart 1: Students' experience in English 2. Chart 2: Students‟ attitude towards English language learning 3. Chart 3: Number of students preferring students‟ comment or teacher‟s comment 4. Chart 4: The number of errors students make in the Pre- test and Post- test 5.
Chart 5: Number of mistakes can be shown and corrected III. List of Formula 1 n 1 1. Deviation Standard: S i n 1 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DEFINITION OF TERMS Control group: The group that was taught and learn under the traditional teaching approach Experimental group: The group that was tested with innovative teaching approach Quantitative research: is used to quantify data by generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. It uses measurable data to formulate facts and uncover patterns.
Mean: an average score within a set of number Min: the lowest number in a range Max: The highest point or number in a range Mode: The most frequently number in a set Deviation Standard: a measure of the spread of the score within a set of data Variance: A measurement of the spread between numbers in a data set vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Rationale of the study Feedback in education is seen to take a crucial contribution to the improvement of students‟ ESL learning. It takes benefits in improving “both encouraging and consolidating learning” (Anderson, 1992; Brophy, 1981, Vygotsky, 1978 cited in Ken Hyland and Fiona Hyland, 2006). In most of the traditional ESL class, especially writing section, giving feedback and correctness to students is one of the important tasks of the teachers, as feedback takes benefits in creating supporting learning environment, as well as instructing students a model sample of writing.
With the help of teacher, students have fewer burdens with their work. However, the help of teacher‟s feedback in the proficiency of students‟ ESL writing skill just has benefits in some aspects. The researchers found out that focusing on the help of teacher only would be problematic as they just understand the „outer lay- out‟ of the problems without understanding the core reason of the errors and how to make the writing improved. As a consequence, students will have short-term improvement on their revised lesson and they will be easy to make the mistakes again.
Thus, one of the duties of teachers is to discover an effective way to facilitate students‟ learning without the help of teacher‟s feedback and help them avoid the above-mentioned troubles. To prepare for students a good writing skill, teachers should try to combine different strategies with the aim of helping students learn better and enhancing writing skill because “Second language writers often benefit most and make most progress when teachers contribute to this goal through a variety of intervention strategies available in classroom settings” Skroll (2003). Among many interventions, using students‟ peer feedback in writing is one of the effective strategies. In this method, students conduct their first writing product.
In the next stage, they exchange it with their peer to receive their friend‟s feedback. 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Despite the effectiveness of written feedback to students‟ ESL writing skill, most experienced English teachers in the school still blame the drawbacks of peer-written feedback. The reason is that students‟ ability is inadequate to give useful feedbacks. They have difficulty in indicating the errors and providing suggestions.
Many teachers do not take advantages of peer written feedback in their ESL writing period as they do not truly believe it can bring benefits to their students. They assume that peer written feedback just has its roles to the college or university students. This rumor is an obstacle that prevents the students from receiving modern learning and teaching techniques, and peer written feedback in specific. Besides, the previous studies show too much conflict.
The results of the studies depend largely on the attitudes of students toward this kind of feedback, which contributes to the success and effectiveness of peer written feedback. From the above mentioned reasons, the research “The effect of peer written feedback on the development of ESL writing for the 11th major English grade at Sontay high school” is carried out 2. Aims of the study This research is conducted with the aim of: (1) Exploring students‟ attitudes towards the written peer feedback activity. (2) Investigating the level of improvement students gained after the periods of testing with peer written feedback method.
(3) Suggesting some specific implications for teachers to exploit further effectiveness of peer –written feedback in writing lesson. Research questions In order to fulfill the aims, the research attempts to answer the following questions: 1. What are the attitudes of students to peer-written feedback on their writing? 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. To what extents of students‟ ESL writing can have improvement thanks to peer-written feedback? 3.
What are the drawbacks of applying peer-written feedback in students‟ ESL writing lessons? 4. Scope of the study Feedback applied in writing is such a broad topic, which includes teacher feedback and students‟ feedback.