MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY LE ANH DONG COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------------ LE ANH DONG MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THEIR WRITING IN GRADE 9 CLASSES AT DINH TIEN HOANG SECONDARY SCHOOL IN QUANG TRI MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING HUE - 2014 HUE, 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------------ LE ANH DONG A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THEIR WRITING IN GRADE 9 CLASSES AT DINH TIEN HOANG SECONDARY SCHOOL IN QUANG TRI MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60. LE PHAM HOAI HUONG HUE - 2014 -i- BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------------ LÊ ANH ĐÔNG NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHẬN THỨC VÀ THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI VIẾT CHO CÁC BÀI VIẾT CÁC LỚP KHỐI 9 TẠI TRƢỜNG TRUNG HỌC CƠ SỞ ĐINH TIÊN HOÀNG TẠI QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƢƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60140111 NGƢỜI HƢỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC PGS. LÊ PHẠM HOÀI HƢƠNG HUẾ, 2014 - ii - STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not been published elsewhere.
LE ANH DONG - iii - ABSTRACT This study was carried out to investigate students’ perceptions and attitudes towards teachers’ written feedback on their writing in grade 9 classes at Dinh Tien Hoang Secondary School in Quang Tri. A combination of both qualitative and quantitative approaches was used in this study. Data collection tools include 30 students’ writing samples, questionnaires to 60 students and interviews with 10 students. The findings of this study show the high appreciation of students towards teachers’ written feedback and the importance of teachers’ written feedback.
It is found that teacher written feedback helps students see their weaknesses and strengths and rewrite based on what was required by teachers. With regards to students’ attitudes towards the actual feedback they received, the students thought that their teachers’ comments really motivated them to write and enabled them to avoid making errors in the future writing. However, the students faced some difficulties in receiving teachers’ written feedback as they had to wait for it for too long. From the findings of the study, some pedagogical implications for teachers and students were made with regards to written feedback.
- iv - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to gratefully acknowledge my supervisor, Assoc. Le Pham Hoai Huong. I owe a debt of gratitude for her warm support and expert guidance from the very beginning to the end of my research. I doubt that this thesis would ever have become a reality without her outstanding suggestions, insightful comments on various drafts and sharp eyes in finding mistakes.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to the teachers who have given me invaluable instructions during my two years MA course at Hue College of Foreign Languages. My thanks are also sent to the teachers and students at Dinh Tien Hoang Secondary School in Quang Tri, who cooperated in my interviews and answering the questionnaire. I thank the students who let me collect at their writings. Finally, I am truly indebted to my parents, my wife and my sons for their constant love, patience and support throughout the entire writing process.
-v- TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages SUB COVER PAGES. i,ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF TABLES.
ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale of the study. Scope of the study. Structure of the thesis. 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .3 Purposes of feedback .4 Types of feedback to students’ writing .5 Forms of teacher feedback .6 Techniques of teachers’ written feedback .1 Kinds of teachers’ written feedback .2 Methods of giving written feedback .7 Forms of teacher written feedback .8 The effects of teachers’ written feedback.9 Teaching and learning writing at Dinh Tien Hoang Secondary School .3 Semi-structured interviews .5 Data collection procedure.
19 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .2 Students’ perceptions of teachers’ written feedback .3 How teachers give written feedback .1 The frequency of giving written feedback .2 Usefulness of teacher feedback .3 Teachers’ responding to students’ written work .4 Methods of giving written feedback .4 Students’ attitudes towards the actual feedback .1 Students’ opinions of teachers’ written feedback .2 Students’ evaluation of the actual written feedback they received. 36 - vii - CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .1 Summary of the key findings .3 Limitations of the study .4 Suggestions for further research. 46 - viii - LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Frequency of teachers’ written Feedback. Helpfulness of teacher feedback forms .4a Teachers’ comments on students writing papers .4b: Teachers’ positive and negative comments on students’ writing samples.
Teachers’ indication of an error in students’ writing. Students’ expectations of teachers’ corrections in their writings .1: Students’ opinions about teachers’ written feedback on their writing. Students’ evaluation of teachers’ feedback .3: Students’ responses when receiving teachers’ feedback. 35 - ix - CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study Today English is considered one of the most important factors in the trend of globalization Thus, English as a foreign language has been taught in many countries and the demand to use English fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essential among all students.
As a result, research has been carried out for years to find out the most effective ways of teaching and learning English. In Vietnam, secondary school students have to acquire four skills of English: reading, speaking, listening, writing and grammar when they study English. Among them, writing is considered the most difficult skill. Clearly, Vietnamese students are often much anxious about writing and afraid of making errors in writing classes.
Nevertheless, they need to be encouraged to see it as a means of learning, rather than demonstrating learning. In order to do this, students need to be provided with opportunities to respond to constructive feedback on their work. A review of the literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback as revision: peer feedback, self-editing and teachers’ comments as feedback (L,Keh, 1990). Because of the importance of feedback, there have been studies that focus on the topic.
As clear, concise feedback matched to standards will promote students’ achievement, feedback plays a very important role in the teaching of any language. Through feedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled and confused the reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of development ideas, or something simple like -1- inappropriate word-choice or tense. In other words, the writers have opportunities to identify their errors and correct them to make better writing. Also, the use of teacher feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature review as a potentially valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodological benefits (Merlin, 1986, Radecki and Swales, 1988, Hedge, 2000, Ferris and Roberts, 2001).
These researches believe that teacher feedback is very important and has a great influence on the success of teaching and learning writing. As a teacher of English at Dinh Tien Hoang Secondary School, the researcher has constantly searched for ways to help his students become more confident and effective writers. During writing lessons, it is found that students often make a lot of errors that increase students’ anxiety in writing lesson. With a view of language learning as a creative construction process, he shares the same opinion with Hedge (2000, p.15) in the view that error is an inevitable and positive part of that process.15) also claimed, “Learners progress faster with meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment and with an informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher”.
This means teachers’ response is an essential step in the writing process as he stated “getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the class enables learners to test hypotheses and refine their developing knowledge of the language system” (Hedge, 2001 p. That is why the researcher focuses on teacher written feedback, classes considers a complex troublesome, but important issue in writing classrooms. To have a quick view on this aspect, an observation on the writing lessons of four classes of English in the researcher’s school was conducted within a month. The result showed that all the four classes applied mostly teachers’ written feedback to respond to the students’ writings.
He wondered if the teachers’ present feedback matched with students’ preferences and how students reacted to the feedback they received. -2- All the reasons above encouraged the researcher to conduct a study to explore students’ perceptions and attitudes towards teacher written feedback and recommend teachers of English some solutions to help their students gain more achievement in writing skill through better feedback techniques. Research aims This research is designed to explore students’ perceptions and attitudes towards their teachers’ corrective feedback in writing classes. It is expected to achieve the three primary aims: - to investigate the students’ perceptions of teachers’ written feedback that they actually received.
- to investigate the teacher’s feedback-giving practice in writing classes: their responding methods, their feedback focus as well as the feedback types and forms. - to find out students’ evaluation about teachers’ actual written feedback on their writing that they received. Research questions In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, this research tried to answer the following questions. What are students’ perceptions of teacher’s written feedback in writing classes? 2.
How do teachers give written feedback in writing classes? 3. What are students’ attitudes towards the written feedback on their writing that they actually received? 1.4 Research significance The research was carried out with the hope that the results of the study would provide insights into both what teachers have actually done as they -3- respond to students’ writing and how students react to these responses. This may lead to suggestions for improving teacher feedback and helping the students to utilize it more successfully in their writing revision. Scope of the study Feedback in writing is such a broad topic that all aspects related to it can not covered in this study.
Therefore, within the scope of this thesis, this study focused only on the teacher corrective feedback in responding to the students’ writing at Dinh Tien Hoang Secondary School in Vinh Linh District Quang Tri Province. Structure of the thesis This paper consists of five chapters: - Chapter 1 is a general introduction. - Chapter 2 presents the literature review. - Chapter 3 addresses the methodology of the study.
- Chapter 4 reports data analysis and the findings. - Chapter 5 summarizes the key findings and points out the limitations of the study. It also gives some implications and suggestions for further research. -4- CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction This chapter presents the theoretical background of the study and focusses on some of the most important issues in the issues of feedback in general and the teacher’s feedback giving techniques in particular.
In addition, previous studies related to the current study are reviewed.2 Feedback Responding to student writing, including giving feedback, is one of the most controversial topics in second language instruction and theory. As the importance of feedback, it is considered a fundamental element of a process approach to writing. Therefore, there have been attempts to define the term “feedback”. According to Dreham (1995, p.160) feedback is interestingly likened to a two-bullock cart.