MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI HOAI AN STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON TEACHER’S USE OF ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN SPEAKING CLASSES IN QUY NHON UNIVERSITY Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 8140111 Supervisor: o P of D Ng ễn Thị Th Hiền BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN THỊ HOÀI AN NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH VỀ HÌNH THỨC PHẢN HỒI LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG LỚP HỌC NÓI TẠI TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN Chuyên ngành: Lý Luận và Phƣơng Pháp dạy học bộ môn Tiếng Anh Mã số: 8140111 Ngƣời hƣớng dẫn PGS TS Ng ễn Thị Th Hiền i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON TEACHER’S USE OF ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN SPEAKING CLASSES IN QUY NHON UNIVERSITY” is the result of my research for the Degree of Master of Art. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution. To the best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by other people except where the references are made in the thesis itself. Author’s signature Nguyễn Thị Hoài An ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study would not have taken its final shape without significant support and efforts from many people who worked diligently to assist me, believed in me and encouraged me to pursue the final goal.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to all those concerned. My wholehearted appreciation goes to my supervisor, Assoc. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien for her patience, invaluable guidance, support and sincere advice throughout the years of academic work. Her thorough and immediate feedback, profound insights, professional support, dedication and devotion have given me admiration and motivation to complete my research.
I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to teachers, lecturers and professors of Quy Nhon University for patiently and wholeheartedly providing me with precious knowledge and guiding me through the process required to complete my program of study. I also gratefully acknowledge participant teachers and students at Quy Nhon university for their helpful contribution and co-operation in this study. A special mention goes to my best friends and colleagues whose understanding, sympathy, and support were invaluable spiritual strength for me during the process of completing this work. Last but not least, I owe a great debt to my parents who give me advice, unconditional love and support that have providing me with encouragement to further my learning and fulfil my dual responsibility throughout my walks of life.
iii ABSTRACT Oral corrective feedback (OCF) which is one of the central themes in second language (L2) pedagogy and research in applied linguistics and L2 acquisition has received growing interest for the past two decades. However, little research has been done with respect to students’ perception and teachers’ practice of providing OCF in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning in Vietnam. The current study extends this line of research by investigating the tertiary Vietnamese EFL students’ perception concerning the importance, types, timing and target of OCF and exploring how the teachers practice giving OCF in speaking classes. The data consisted of questionnaires with 127 students, interviews with 15 of those who completed the questionnaires, and 17 classroom observations of 3 EFL teachers at a university in Vietnam.
The findings disclosed that students endorsed the benefit of OCF and desire to be corrected when making errors. Regarding feedback timing, the students preferred feedback delayed until they finish speaking. In addition, frequency and seriousness are two factors that need to be considered to decide which error should be treated. Explicit feedback was the most favored technique, while paralinguistic was not highly valued.
With regard to teachers’ practice, explicit feedback was also the most frequently used, followed by recast. Hopefully, the findings of the study have provided an insightful understanding of how OCF is perceived by students and teachers’ actual practices in the tertiary settings in Vietnam. From these empirical findings, relevant implications are suggested for better OCF provision to improve students’ speaking skill. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY. METHOD OF THE STUDY. Error! Bookmark not defined. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY.
ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY. OVERVIEW OF ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK. Definition of feedback. Oral corrective feedback.
PREVIOUS STUDIES RELEVANT TO THE PRESENT STUDY. Studies on teachers’ practice of oral corrective feedback. Studies on students’ perception of oral corrective feedback. Semi-structured interview.
DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE. DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE. RESEARCH RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Teachers’ uses of oral corrective feedback. Students’ perception of oral corrective feedback. Teachers’ uses of oral corrective feedback. Students’ perception of oral corrective feedback.
SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS .PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER WORK. 73 APPENDICES vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CF Corrective Feedback EFL English as a Foreign Language L2 Second Language OCF Oral Corrective Feedback vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.
Classifications of OCF ( Ranta and Lyster, 2007). A taxonomy of OCF strategies (Sheen and Ellis, 2001, p. Number of observed OCF moves. Frequency of OCF types.
Students’ perception of the role of OCF. Students’ preferences for OCF timing. Preferences for the Frequency of Correction for Different Types of Spoken Errors. Students’ preferences for types of OCF.
54 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The present chapter provides the rationale of the study and describes the major components of the thesis. At the beginning, the main reasons for conducting the study are presented. The aims of the thesis then are stated, and clarified by the research questions. The chapter also discusses the scope and significance of the current study.
It ends with a description of the organization of the thesis. RATIONALE It is undeniable that speaking is a fundamental skill that needs to be mastered for effective communication when studying a foreign language. However, the ability of speaking fluently is not a gift that everyone was born with. In fact, it is sharpened through the long process of instruction and practice in which committing errors is a common and unavoidable part.
The past few decades have witnessed a polarization of thought in respect of learners' errors. Some scholars and researchers regard errors as something negative that need to be eradicated at any cost. For example, Touchie (1986) considers errors committed by students to be “something undesirable which they diligently sought to prevent from occurring” (p. In contrast, some hold a positive attitude toward learners’ errors.
According to Yule (2010), an error is “not something which hinders a learner's progress, but is probably a clue to the active learning progress behind made by a learner as he or she tries out ways of communicating in the new language”(p. By the same token, Corder (1967) asserted that the errors committed by the language learners are of great importance because “they provide to the researcher evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or 2 procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language” (as cited in Phuket and Othman, 2015, p. Alongside the considerable attention paid to errors, there has been a wave of research interest surrounding the provision of corrective feedback (CF) in classrooms. The last twenty years have observed an increasing number of findings which support the effectiveness of CF.
For example, scholars such as Brooks, Schraw, and Crippen (2005) and Manson and Bruning (2000) hold the view that feedback plays a beneficial role in L2 learner’s linguistic development. Yet despite the widely accepted importance of CF and its vital part in EFL learning, it is suggested that the effectiveness of CF in language learning is influenced by an essential variable which is teachers and students’ perception (Chen et al., 2016; Evans et al. As proposed by Chen et al. (2016), there are two possible reasons why the perception of teachers and learners become an important factor influencing CF's role.
First, discrepancies in how students and teachers perceive this strategy may hamper learning effectiveness. On the other hand, students’ positive attitudes regarding teachers’ CF practice can advise teachers about “instructional best practices” (Chen et al. In addition, many language teachers and researchers agree on the fact that mismatch between student evaluations of instructional effectiveness and teachers’ perception may debilitate learning (Green, 1993; Mc Cargar, 1993, Schulz, 2001). Accordingly, it seems worthwhile to have an investigation into students’ perception concerning teachers’ practice of giving CF.
Such investigation can help teachers realize to what extent their practice matches students’ preference, which, in turn, enhances the efficacy of their CF provision. While the research on students' beliefs about CF in EFL contexts has gained prominence in foreign countries (Oladejo, 1993; Plonsky & Mills, 2006; Brown, 2009; Jean and Simard, 2011; Kaivanpanah, Alavi, & Sepehrinia, 2015), there is a paucity of research on this topic in Vietnam (Huong, 2020; Ha et al, 2021). 3 Moreover, drawing from classroom observations and personal experience, the author of this paper realize the fact that teachers tend to pay little attention to students’ thoughts and preferences when it comes to giving CF in the teaching and learning process. On that note, teacher-centered approach seems to be dominant with teaching techniques that appear to follow one-size-fits-all patterns (Mpho, 2018).
As a matter of fact, students' learning progress has been hampered, particularly in the domain of speaking. Based on the necessity for teachers to understand their students’ perception, the current gap of knowledge in the research area as well as the problem existing in my context, the researcher would like to conduct an investigation to delve into how students perceive their teachers’ practice of providing oral corrective feedback (OCF) in speaking classes. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1. Aims The overall aim of this study is to investigate the use of OCF in speaking classes, including how teachers tend to provide feedback on students’ oral errors in speaking classes and the students’ perception of the OCF.
Objectives In order to achieve this aim, the researcher tried to fulfil the following objectives: 1. To examine types of OCF usually given by teachers in speaking classes. To find out the perception of students toward the role of OCF 1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to reach the above aims, the study sought to answers for the following research questions: 4 1.
What types of OCF do the teachers usually give on students’ speaking in EFL speaking classrooms? 2. What are the students’ perceptions of OCF given by the teachers? 1. SCOPE OF THE STUDY Due to the limits of time, ability and availability of the data, this study narrows down only to discover the current practice of giving OCF in speaking lessons at Quy Nhon University and students’ perception of this practice. The respondents of this study are limited to second-year English majors of the Foreign Languages Department; therefore, their opinions might not be representative of all students at Quy Nhon University in particular and all students learning English nationwide in general.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY While there have been numerous researchers carrying out studies on OCF, there are few studies taking student’s perception of this issue into consideration. The research, thus, is conducted with the hope that its results will be useful for both EFL students and teachers. Based on these findings, teachers can adjust their ways of providing feedback to make the learning and teaching process more effective. As for students, the research is expected to raise awareness of the importance of teachers’ CF in enhancing learners’ language competence.
Acknowledging the role of OCF, students can make the most use of it in learning English.