VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* PHẠM THỊ HỒNG PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS AMONG THIRD- YEAR STUDENTS OF HANAM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (HCE) Thực hành phản hồ i theo că ̣p trong ki ̃ năng viế t đoa ̣n của sinh viên năm thứ 3 trường Cao Đẳ ng Sư Pha ̣m Hà Nam M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI, 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* PHẠM THỊ HỒNG PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS AMONG THIRD- YEAR STUDENTS OF HANAM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (HCE) Thực hành phản hồ i theo că ̣p trong ki ̃ năng viế t đoa ̣n của sinh viên năm thứ 3 trường Cao Đẳ ng Sư Pha ̣m Hà Nam M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. HUỲNH ANH TUẤN HANOI, 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I confirm that this is my own research, and that has not been published or submitted for any other degrees.
Student‟s signature Phạm Thị Hồng i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The main aim of this minor thesis is to examine the way in which the third- year students of HCE give feedback to their peer‟s written paragraphs, the difficulties students might encounter when responding to their peer‟s writing, to find out whether the method is effective. In order to get adequate information for the study, document analysis of students‟ peer written feedback and survey method were applied. The participants involved in the study were 20 third- year students from 2 classes of HCE. The data analyzing suggests that the students gave feedback on all areas of the paragraph especially on grammar and vocabulary.
And, the study results also reveal that peer feedback is effective to the students‟ learning of writing. Although the peer written feedback to students‟ writing brings the certain effectiveness, a large number of HCE still have difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peer‟s writing and in giving suggestion to overcome those mistakes. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On completing this thesis, I own profound indebtedness to so many people, without whose contribution and spiritual support I could not have accomplished it. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr.
Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, for his scholarly instruction critical comments, great encouragement and valuable materials, without which the thesis would not have been completed. I would like to send my heart-felt gratitude to the teachers at the Foreign Language Department of Hanam College of Education (HCE) who have supported me by giving useful advice and providing me with their useful teaching materials. My sincere thanks also go to the third-year students of HCE for their patience and willingness to do my survey questionnaire. Moreover, I would like to send my gratitude to my family and my friends for encouraging me and supporting me during the time of the thesis.
Without them, I would not have been able to complete this thesis. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES Table 1: Students‟ giving feedback on grammar Table 2: Examples of students‟ giving feedback on grammar Table 3: Students‟ giving feedback on vocabulary Table 4: Examples of students‟ giving feedback on vocabulary Table 5: Students‟ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers‟ writings Table 6: Students‟ difficulties in providing suggestion the mistakes in the peers‟ writings Table 7: Students‟ improvement in the paragraph organization after receiving peer written feedback Table 8: Students‟ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback Table 9: Students‟ improvement in vocabulary after receiving written feedback iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The percentage of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization Figure 2: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the grammatical mistakes Figure 3: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the vocabulary mistakes. Figure 4: The percentage of students who gave general written comments v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP. iii LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES.
iv LIST OF FIGURES .v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Aims and objectives of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Organization of the thesis.6 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW. Types of feedback to students‟ writing.
Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing. Arguments in favor of students‟ peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing. Argument against peer written feedback in teaching and learning of writing11 1. Different types of peer feedback in writing.
Using the checklists .13 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.14 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Data collection procedure. Data analysis method .19 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS. Student‟s practice of giving peer written feedback.
Feedback on paragraph organization. Feedback on grammar. Feedback on vocabulary. General comments feedback.
Students‟ using the checklist when giving feedback. Students‟ difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers‟ writings 28 3. Students‟ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers‟ writings 28 3. Improvement of students‟ writing after receiving peer written feedback.
Students‟ improvement in paragraph organization after receiving peer written feedback. Students‟ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback. Students‟ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Implications for teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback.
Implications for teaching of writing using peer written feedback. Implication for learning of writing using peer written feedback .43 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Limitation of the study. I viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study English is an international language and considered to be one of the key factors which any country needs on the way of developing. Students after graduating are the labor force of each country. Therefore, the demand to use English frequently is very necessary to all students in general and students in Hanam College of Education (HCE) in particular. Among the four skills, writing seems to be the most difficult.
As an English teacher, I deeply feel the responsibilities to help students improve their skills, especially writing skill. There are many ways which can be applied to improve the students‟ writing skills, and peer feedback is one of them. According to Hyland (1990), providing effective written feedback is one of the most important tasks for English writing teachers. Ferris (1995) shares the same belief: teacher feedback has been indicated to be desirable for the development of student writing.
Bitchener, Young & Cameron (2005) debate that written feedback should be provided as it is often neglected and misunderstood by students. Other linguists such as Dochy, Segers, & Sluijsmans (1999) strongly hold it that students peer feedback has many pros over cons and peer learning and assessment help students develop communication skills, the ability to collaborate, critical thinking, and habits of life-long learning. In the peer feedback method, students write the first draft and exchange it with their peers. Then, they read each other‟s papers and give feedback, usually based on the checklist from the teacher.
The checklist focuses on some areas of the writing such as organization, grammar and vocabulary, etc. The selection of the areas to be included in each specific feedback method depends on the characteristics of the students. The use of peer feedback, especially peer written feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature as a valuable aid by many researchers. There are some main reasons why a lot of teachers have chosen to use 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com peer written feedback in the writing classroom.
First, peer feedback has great influence on the success of teaching and learning. In this method, students exchange their papers to their peers. It means that there are more opportunities for collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate. This is very necessary to the progress of teaching and learning English.
Second, peer feedback is essential to the teaching and learning writing because peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can do revision effectively on the basis of the comments from peer readers. Last, it is found that when students become critical readers of others‟ writings, they will be more critical readers and revisers of the own writings. However, using peer written feedback is not easy because students‟ level of English proficiency is not always the same and this method also takes a lot of time from teachers and students. Recently, every school and university in Vietnam has tried to apply the latest methodology in teaching language skills in general and in teaching writing skill in particular in order to make language teaching and learning as effective as possible.
HCE is not an exception. HCE was founded 50 years ago. However, the faculty of foreign languages has just been founded for only 7 years. Working in such a young faculty, the English teachers of the college have to cope with a lot of challenges.
To overcome these, the teachers have tried their best to study and apply the latest and most effective method to their teaching the four skills in general and the writing skill in particular. Many methods have been applied to teach the writing skills. One of them is the peer written feedback. This method has been applied for the third- year students for one year.
This research was done to investigate how students give feedback in paragraph writing skill among the third-year students of HCE; to examine the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback; and to find out whether the method is effective From these, the author could have a clear idea about the application of this method in teaching English and decide whether to use this method in teaching the writing skills in the future or not. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The text book named “Academic Writing” (By Liz and Roar, Third edition) is used to teach writing paragraph at HCE. This textbook consists of 14 lessons with specific forms of paragraph. At the end of each lesson, students are usually asked to write a paragraph based on the specific form of paragraph (compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution, narrative, etc.) to revise what they have learnt.
A huge amount of feedback from the teacher is required. In order to ease the teachers‟ burden in giving feedback to students‟ writing and make this process meaningful to students‟ learning, a new way of giving feedback, peer feedback was introduced. Aims and objectives of the study This research aims at investigating students‟ peer written feedback in paragraph writing skills among the third-year students of HCE to have a clear idea whether this method is suitable with the students and could be used in the further or not. This aim of the research is specified by the following objectives.
The first is to examine the students‟ current practice of giving peer written feedback; the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback, and to find out whether the method is effective. The second is to propose some implication for teaching and learning using peer written feedback and provide some suggestions for further study. Scope of the study Apparently, there are many various techniques of feedback in writing such as teachers‟ written feedback, self-correction, peer feedback and oral conferences.