VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT LÃ NGUYỄN BÌNH MINH THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PEER CORRECTION ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS TO STUDENTS IN INTENSIVE ENGLISH CLASSES AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY (NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP NGƯỜI HỌC CHỮA BÀI CHO NGƯỜI HỌC NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN CÁC LỚP TĂNG CƯỜNG TIẾNG ANH – ĐẠI HỌC LUẬT HÀ NỘI) M.A Minor Thesis Field: Methodology Code: 60 14 10 HANOI - 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT LÃ NGUYỄN BÌNH MINH THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PEER CORRECTION ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS TO STUDENTS IN INTENSIVE ENGLISH CLASSES AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY (NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP NGƯỜI HỌC CHỮA BÀI CHO NGƯỜI HỌC NHẰM NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN CÁC LỚP TĂNG CƯỜNG TIẾNG ANH – ĐẠI HỌC LUẬT HÀ NỘI) M.A Minor thesis Field : Methodology Code : 60 14 10 Supervisor: Lê Văn Canh, M. HANOI - 2009 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration Acknowledgements Abstract List of Abbreviations Lists of figures, tables and graphs CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Identification of the problem. The Scope of the Study.
The Purpose of the Study. The Significance of the Study. The Organization of the Study. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Approaches to Teaching Writing: Product vs. The product approach. The process approach. Definition: What is peer correction?.
Why peer correction?. How to incorporate peer correction into the writing lesson?. Error! Bookmark not defined. Previous study on peer correction.
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Analysis of Students’ general information. Error! Bookmark not defined. Students’ attitudes towards peer correction method. Students’ views on the effectiveness of peer correction.
Students’ feelings towards the constraints of peer correction .3 Students’ preference for peer correction. Limitations and Recommendations for further study. Recommendations for further studies .44 Bibliography Appendices LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi List of Abbreviations EFL English as a Foreign Language HLU Hanoi Law University L1 First Language L2 Second Language M Mean N Number p Probability SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii List of tables Page Table 1: 5 Steps of the Writing Process 7-8 Table 2: Product vs. Process Approach 8 Table 3: Codes for peer correction 19 Table 4: Distribution of summed scores students’ attitudes in pre- and post- 27 questionnaire Table 5: Students’ responses to Statements 1 to 12 28-29 Table 6: Means and Standard Deviations of pre- and post-questionnaire (Item 33 1 – 12) Table 7: Comparison of students’ attitudes towards peer correction between 34 pre- and post-questionnaire (Item 1 – 12) Table 8: Distribution of summed scores of the items 13-17 in the 35 questionnaires Table 9: Mean scores of students’ feelings towards peer correction 36 constraints (Items 13 – 17) Table 10: Comparison of students’ attitudes towards some constraints of peer 37-38 correction in the pre- and post-questionnaire (Items 13-17) LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com viii List of figures and graphs Page Figure 1: Students’ experience in studying English.
23 Figure 2: Students’ self evaluation of their English standard 24 Figure 3: Students’ perceptions of the difficulty of EFL writing 24 Figure 4: Students’ interest in EFL writing 25 Figure 5: Students’ opinions about error correction 25 Figure 6: Students’ perceptions of peer correction before the experiment 26 Figure 7: Students’ preference for peer correction 39 Figure 8: Students’ opinions on whether they use peer correction in the future 39 Figure 9: Reasons for using peer correction in future 40 Graph 1: Sampling distribution of sample mean differences (Items 1 – 12) 35 Graph 2: Sampling distribution of sample mean differences (Items 13 – 17) 38 List of Appendices Appendix 1: Pre-treatment Questionnaire Appendix 2: Post-treatment Questionnaire LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Identification of the problem Of the four language skills, writing is considered a complex skill that most learners find difficult to study well. That is because in language teaching, it is a productive and taught skill. As Penny Ur (1996:11) puts it “it is a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” and that “requires some forms of instructions”.
Having taught EFL writing for some years, I realize that students face quite a few problems in learning writing. Worst of all, many learners make mistakes and errors when they write in the target language, regardless of how competent they are at grammar. Students rarely proofread their writings before handing in to teacher as she notices quite a few careless mistakes in grammar as well as spelling which can be avoided if students revise their work. It is, therefore, essential for teachers to find out effective methods to overcome this problem.
In many countries, particularly in Vietnam, teaching EFL writing is included in the curricular and the teaching of writing is just to pass exams. The traditional method employed to teach writing is product-oriented approach. As far as this approach is concerned, teachers focus on what a final piece of writing will be like and the normal procedure is to assign a piece of writing, collect it, then return it for further revision with their errors either corrected or marked for the students to do the correction (Raimes 1983). In recent years, EFL writing teachers have borrowed techniques from first language acquisition pedagogy, in particular the process approach to composition, which has been around since the early 1970s.
The process approach identifies four stages in writing: pre- writing, composing/ drafting, revising and editing (Tribble). These stages are recursive, or nonlinear and they can interact with each other throughout the writing process. This approach emphasizes revision, also feedback from others, so students may produce many drafts with much crossing out of sentences and moving around of paragraphs. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 Peer correction is a strategy which has been strongly advised with the process approach to teaching writing and is a promising teaching tool to overcome the above mentioned problem.
However, its effectiveness has not been sufficiently researched within my teaching context. This gives the rational for the present study. The Scope of the Study This study limits itself to the examination of the effectiveness of peer correction on students’ writing in the context of the English language program of a university. The effectiveness was measured by means of a student questionnaire rather than with a pre-test and post-test instrument.
In other words, the study did not aim to find out the casual relationship between peer correction as an independent variable and student writing proficiency as a dependent variable. Rather, the focus of the study was just on the students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of peer correction on their writing. The Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is of two - fold. First, this study aims at investigating students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of peer-correction used as an instructional strategy to improve the quality of learners’ English writings.
Second, the writer of this thesis would like to suggest some pedagogical implications for teachers in implementing this method teaching EFL writing and suggestions for further research. The Significance of the Study As stated in the previous part, the purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of peer correction on improving learners’ writing skills in the writer’s teaching context. Therefore, the results of this study will contribute a new implication to teaching EFL writing, particularly, to the area of error treatment. If peer correction is found to be effective, it will provide teachers at HLU an alternative method to treat errors in students’ compositions at small scale, and thus to improve learners’ writing proficiency.
The study will also provide a LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 great opportunity for language teachers to review and to reconsider effective ways of responses to various writings, and so pave the way for a better teaching of writing at different scales. More importantly, as being an alternative method, it may require revision of the currently used materials/ textbooks in order to incorporate peer correction in the writing lesson. The Organization of the Study This minor thesis consists of five chapters. In this chapter, the challenge as well as approaches to EFL writing is briefly discussed; scope and rational of the study stated.
The purpose and organization of the study are also mentioned. Chapter two is the review of literature which attempts to put the study in a proper context. Chapter three describes method and procedure. Chapter four reports and analyzes quantitative and qualitative findings.
The last chapter presents the pedagogical implications of the study and points out its limitations and suggestions for further research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW As stated in Chapter 1, the purpose of this study is to explore the effects of a new approach to L2 writing pedagogy, peer correction. To help contextualize this study, we will briefly examine a variety of relevant literature that addresses the challenges of EFL writing, product and process approaches to teaching writing, and previous studies on peer feedback. We will also examine the possible advantages of peer correction and how to incorporate peer correction into the writing lesson.
Introduction Challenges of EFL writing. Writing is considered a complex skill in foreign language learning in general and in EFL learning in particular. EFL teachers and students face certain problems in teaching learning writing. As many teachers of English have noted, acquiring the writing skill seems to be more laborous and demanding than acquiring the other three skills.
In fact, Nunan (1999) considers it an enormous challenge to produce “a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing” in one’s second language. This is magnified by the fact that the rhetorical conventions of English texts – the structures, style, and organization – often differ from the conventions in other languages. It requires effort to organize and manage these differences (Leki, 1991). Teaching EFL writing is rather complex because of many dimensions of writing that need attention.
For example, consider the accuracy of what is written, the originality of the ideas that are expressed, the organization of those ideas, the attention to the purpose of the writing, including the tone and various needs of the audience, and so on. These and other important dimensions of writing may compete for the attention of the teacher and student throughout the writing process. For many students, the reason to practice writing is to pass exams or to get a good grade in the class because the education systems in their countries emphasize writing for LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 taking tests. This focus on writing to pass exams reduces writing to producing a product and receiving a grade from the teacher.
This is not likely to make students interested in writing, which become decontextualized and artificial, giving students no sense of purpose. These challenges of EFL writing require an innovation in the teaching method to motivate students to learn and improve their writing proficiency at the same time. Approaches to Teaching Writing: Product vs.