VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* NGUYỄN HÀ NGỌC ÁNH APPLYING PEER FEEDBACK IN LETTER WRITING: CHALLENGES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT (Áp dụng hình thức nhận xét bạn học trong luyện tập kỹ năng viết thư: Những khó khăn và giải pháp đề xuất) Field: English Teaching Methodology (applied program) Code: 8140231.01 HANOI - 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* NGUYỄN HÀ NGỌC ÁNH APPLYING PEER FEEDBACK IN LETTER WRITING: CHALLENGES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT (Áp dụng hình thức nhận xét bạn học trong luyện tập kỹ năng viết thư: Những khó khăn và giải pháp đề xuất) Field: English Teaching Methodology (applied program) Code: 8140231. Pham Lan Anh HANOI, 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I am aware of and understand the University's policy on plagiarism and I declare that this thesis is my own work in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master at Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, except for quotations, and citations which have been acknowledged. NGUYỄN HÀ NGỌC ÁNH i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not be carried out and possible without the massive support and on-time encouragements of my professors, colleagues, students, and my family. First of all, I would be grateful to my supervisor – Dr.
Pham Lan Anh who is a dedicated and inspired professor for making my study possible. I would like to deeply thank Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan, support staffs and librarians at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies who are kind and helpful. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my colleagues who helped me to find the necessary materials and gave me constructive comments.
I would like to show my appreciation for our students involved in my study for their enthusiasm and patience. Finally, from bottom of my heart, I thank my parents, my beloved sister and my friends for their love and encouragements. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES/ TABLES Figure 1: Students’ perceptions on peer feedback in general Table 1: Students’ perceptions on the benefits of peer feedback Table 2: Students’ perceptions on the disadvantages of peer written feedback Table 3: Difficulties that students encounter when they do peer written feedback Table 4: Students’ follow – up activities after receiving peer feedback Table 5: Students’ expectations of using peer feedback in the future Table 6: Students’ opinions about solutions to overcome difficulties in giving peer feedback iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Although writing is an important component of language, it is not easy for learners to achieve the high level of writing and review other's work. Therefore, a number of studies were done for peer feedback in writing.
Nonetheless, this thesis is concerned with student's difficulties in giving peer feedback in writing letters of application because it is regarded as the initial step to show their talent and experience as well as to leave the first impression on recruiters. This thesis was conducted in an English center in Hanoi with 50 pre-intermediate university students. The data of the research were collected by means of questionnaires, and interviews. The results revealed the attitude of students toward peer feedback as well as some difficulties they had when they gave peer feedback in letter writing.
Some solutions to the problem were also suggested in the study with the hope that students could overcome those problems. Keywords: peer feedback; letter writing; letter of application. iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY. ii LIST OF FIGURES.
iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION. Research objectives and aims. The scope of the study. The significance of the study.
Organization of the thesis. 5 CHAPTER 1: The Literature Review .Teaching writing skills. Teaching letter writing skills and letter of application. Feedback and feedback in writing.
Peer feedback in writing. The importance of peer feedback in writing .Types of feedback in writing. 10 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Potential difficulties in giving peer written feedback.
Review of previous studies. Data collection instrument. Data collection procedure. Data analysis procedure.
18 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Results from questionnaire. Students’ perceptions on peer feedback .Students’ perceptions on feedback in general. Students’ perceptions on the benefits of peer feedback.
Students’ perceptions on the disadvantages of peer feedback. Students’ difficulties that they encountered when giving peer written feedback .3 Students’ follow – up activities after receiving peer feedback. 27 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Students’ expectations of using peer feedback in the future.
Students’ opinions about solutions to overcome difficulties in giving peer feedback. Results from interview. The reasons for these difficulties of giving peer feedback in writing were recognized. Recommendations for improving peer feedback as well as writing skills.
Recapitulations of main findings. The implication for teaching. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies.
I APPENDIX I: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE. I APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS. V APPENDIX III: THE RESULT OF INTERVIEW. VI APPENDIX IV: SAMPLE OF STUDENT’S INTERVIEW.
VIII vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale English seems to have been adopted as the language of globalization these days as the language of global culture and the international economy (Graddol, D. Therefore, fluency in the four English macro skills seems to be one of the important factors in order to meet those requirements and to master the language. More specifically, two productive skills (speaking and writing) will be the main factors to decide the ability to use language and writing skills are regarded as the most difficult ones.
Numan (1989) argues that writing is an extremely difficult cognitive activity which requires the learner to have control over various factors. Moreover, the writing is viewed in terms of isolated units such as orthography, sentence structure, and discourse level structure (Matsuda, 2006). It comprises numerous skills and all types of knowledge from critical thinking, comprehension, problem – solving, reflection to revision. In other words, writing is a way to help people express their own thought, define themselves and the world, and clarify their ideas and knowledge as well as reinforce their grammar structure and vocabulary.
Although strong writing skills may enhance students' chances for success (Alexander, 2008), the majority of Vietnamese students lack proficiency in language to become successful upon graduation. Despite the fact that they spend years studying English, from primary to tertiary level, they are not capable of being fluent in English. As a consequence, fresh graduate students cannot create good impressions for recruiters because of their English proficiency. More specifically, they may fail from the profile selection round and a letter of application is always considered the first.
It can be said that letter writing skills play an essential role in contributing to students' initial success in the society of modernization and industrialization. However, writing a letter does not seem an easy task for most students. A lack of letter writing 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com skills is caused by various factors. Several researchers inform that the absence of feedback is also a reason for the problems of poor writing skills.
There are several kinds of feedback such as teacher's feedback, peer feedback which seem to be effective tools for students to improve their skills. Most teachers use teacher feedback as the single mode in their class because it saves time. Nonetheless, Liu et al., 2001 shows that peer interaction is crucial to the improvement of students' learning because it allows students to construct knowledge through social sharing and interaction. Most students may feel confused and have difficulties in giving feedback to others because letter writing is practical which requires the use of authentic language.
Because of the importance of letter writing in students’ future career and the enormous benefits of peer feedback for improving writing skills, I decided to carry out the study entitled "Applying peer feedback in letter writing: challenges and suggestions for improvement". Aim and objectives Aim: The aim of this research is to figure out the difficulties or challenges that students often have when they do peer written feedback in letter writing in order to find possible solutions for the identified problems. Objectives: This aim of the research is reflected through the following objectives. Firstly, it explores the attitude and perception of students toward peer written feedback.
Secondly, it identifies the difficulties they encounter when they do peer written feedback in letter writing. After analysis, some reasons causing poor writing might be discovered; then several potential solutions have been proposed to help them improve their writing letter skills. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. What are the perceptions of students on peer feedback? 2.
What are the difficulties students often encounter when they give peer written feedback? 3. What are possible solutions to help students overcome these problems? 4. The scope of the study Due to the time constraint, the length of the thesis and the researcher's knowledge, this study only focuses on students' difficulties in letter writing. However, to meet the demand for student's future job, this study focuses much on formal letter writing, especially letter of application.
In addition, it is necessary for students to do peer written feedback in writing lessons in class so that the teacher can effectively take control and students can make progress in writing skills and become more critical writers. To improve students' writing skills, a number of activities and strategies can be proposed, however, the study mainly focuses on the challenges that students face with when they do peer written feedback in order to provide some suggestions for improvement. Significance of the study The study provides a deeper and critical understanding of students' difficulties when they do peer written feedback. Although the study was carried out in an English center in Hanoi, it is believed to be helpful for university students in Hanoi in general.
The results of the study will motivate other researchers to investigate other aspects related to writing skills. Furthermore, the researcher hopes that students will have more interests and motivation in letter writing to acquire proficiency in this skill. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methodology The study adopts a qualitative approach for data collection and data analysis.
In order to obtain adequate information for the study, the survey questionnaire and interviews were applied. The questionnaire was designed to deliver to 50 university students learning at an English center in Hanoi. And then, 15 students randomly selected were interviewed. The purpose of the two methods is to explore the perceptions of students toward peer feedback and identify the difficulties the students encounter when they do peer written feedback in letter writing as well as their solutions to overcome these problems.
Organization of the thesis The thesis is divided into three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. The first part is Introduction. It gives an overview of the study, specifying reasons for choosing the topic, the aim, objectives, and research questions as well as the methods of the study. It also provides the significance and scope of the study.
The second part is – Development. It consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 is Literature review and theoretical framework. Chapter 2 is Methodology.
It describes in detail the research methodology which comprises the information of the participants, instrumentation, data collection and data analysis procedure. Chapter 3 is Results and Discussion. This chapter shows the analysis and discussion of the findings. The last part is the Conclusion.