MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TRAN THI KIM HANG AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF PEER ASSESSMENT IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT HAI LANG UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TRAN THI KIM HANG AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF PEER ASSESSMENT IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT HAI LANG UPPER-SECONDARY SCHOOL IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN HO HOANG THUY, Ph.D HUE, 2016 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ TRẦN THỊ KIM HẰNG ĐIỀU TRA CẢM NHẬN VÀ VIỆC THỰC HÀNH “BẠN HỌC ĐÁNH GIÁ” CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH ĐỐI VỚI HỌC SINH KHỐI 10 Ở TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG HẢI LĂNG TỈNH QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. NGUYỄN HỒ HOÀNG THỦY HUE, 2016 ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Signed: ………………………… Tran Thi Kim Hang Date: ………………………….
iii ABSTRACT In recent years, peer-assessment has been proved to provide students with multiple benefits during their learning process. However, only few studies on the application of peer assessment have been conducted in Vietnam. As an effort to improve the quality of speaking lessons as well as gain insights into peer assessment implementation, the research aims at exploring learners’ perceptions and practices of this kind of assessment in English speaking lessons. The data were collected by means of questionnaires and in-depth interviews.
The findings show that the learners have not had much experience of peer assessment in their English lessons. After experimental periods with applying peer assessment activities in English speaking classes, the learners expressed their satisfactions and excitement about these activities. In particular, both teachers and students highly appreciated the significant benefits of peer assessment. Furthermore, through the observations over the experimental periods, peer assessment application is supposed to make classrooms become more autonomous and learner-centred.
However, peer assessment-integrated speaking classes still face some challenges such as unfair feeling, lack of experience, misunderstanding, among others. The analysis also revealed that students’ views are often congruent with those presented in the peer assessment literature, despite the particular context of this investigation. It is suggested that peer assessment should be applied more frequently for high school students, especially in English speaking skill. Furthermore, it would be great if activities relating to peer assessment could be more widely applied across language skill lessons and subjects.
iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not be completed without the support and guidance of many people, to all of whom I am profoundly indebted. First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my venerable supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Ho Hoang Thuy for the whole-hearted guidance and support she has given me on the stages of this research. I am also grateful to two teachers of English at Hai Lang upper-secondary school who were willing to assist me with useful comments and create favorable conditions for me to carry out this study.
Furthermore, I would like to thank all Grade 10 students as participants in my experimental classes who were enthusiastic to complete the questionnaires and take part in the interviews with precious information relevant to my research. Last but not least, I owe my debt of gratitude to my beloved family and friends for their support, encouragement and kind assistance during the course of this research. v TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP .v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
ix LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY. AIMS OF THE STUDY. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY. STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY .4 CHAPTER II-LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of peer assessment. Benefits of peer assessment.
Disadvantages of peer assessment. TEACHERS AND STUDENTS’ VIEWS ON PEER ASSESSMENT. Teacher’s perceptions of peer assessment. Student’s perceptions of peer assessment.
FACTORS AFFECTING PEER ASSESSMENT. Interpersonal variables affecting peer assessment. Inter-rater reliability of peer assessment. THE PRACTICES OF PEER ASSESSMENT IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS.
Potentials of using peer assessment in English speaking lessons. Difficulties of using peer assessment in English speaking lessons. REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY.25 vi CHAPTER III-METHODOLOGY. CONTEXT OF THE STUDY.
New textbook Tieng Anh 10. Peer-assessment form. Rationale for the data collection methods. Design of data collection instruments.
The interview protocol. Procedure for the data collection. Delivering the questionnaire. 35 CHAPTER IV-FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Students’ perceptions of peer assessment in English speaking lessons. Students’ perceptions of the importance of English speaking skill. Assessors to students’ performance in English subject. Students’ experience of using peer assessment in an English speaking class.
Students’ prediction about the effectiveness of peer assessment before it is implemented. Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of peer assessment after it is implemented. 40 Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of peer assessment after it is implemented. Students’ expectations about the application of peer assessment in speaking lessons.
The practices of peer assessment in English speaking lessons. The benefits and challenges of peer assessment application in English speaking lessons. The benefits of applying peer assessment in English speaking lessons. The challenges of applying peer assessment in English speaking lessons.
Research Question 1: What are Grade 10 students’ perceptions of peer assessment in English speaking lessons?. Research Question 2: How is peer assessment conducted in English speaking lessons?. Research Question 3: What are the benefits and challenges of applying peer assessment in English speaking lessons?. 58 CHAPTER V-CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS.
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS. For the teachers. For the students. For the policy makers.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES. 77 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL : English as a Foreign Language sd : Standard Deviation ix LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Students’ attitudes towards the importance of English speaking skill.
Students’ experience of using peer assessment in English speaking class. Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of peer assessment after it is implemented. Students’ expectations about the peer assessment implementation. The practices of peer assessment in English speaking lessons.
The benefits of peer assessment in English speaking lessons. The challenges of peer assessment in English speaking lessons .51 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Assessors to students’ performance in English subject. Students' prediction about the effectiveness of peer assessment before it is implemented.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Undoubtedly, English has become a language of global communication. It is the dominant international language in science, aviation, entertainment, communications, diplomacy and other fields. In other words, English is an important tool for operating on the world stage. In fact, English is so widely spoken; it is referred to as, the “lingua franca” of the modern era (Jenkins, 2000).
In this modern society, we know that studying English has become an essential demand for everyone and English is a compulsory subject in the curriculum in most countries. Over the past few decades, teaching foreign languages has witnessed tremendous changes. However, the teacher’s aim has not much altered, that is, helping students to communicate spontaneously in the foreign language. It is suggested that Communicative Language Teaching is a better method of teaching a foreign language since it helps students “know when and how to say what to whom” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p.
121) and gets them involved and participate in an anxiety free atmosphere. For this reason, the Ministry of Education and Training has ceaselessly innovated English textbooks towards Communicative Approach. In this context, the new textbooks Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 11 which focus on basic skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) also require innovations from teachers’ methodology. After using Tieng Anh 10 (new version), I found that all parts are well designed in terms of both content and teaching methods.
However, I suppose that its methods for assessment seem not to be satisfactorily innovated. I see that assessment and testing now are totally controlled and fixed by the teacher, which does not match the updated teaching techniques. Furthermore, in recent years, the focus of classroom teaching in the classroom has gradually changed from a teacher-centered approach to a student- centered approach (Bound, 1995). In order to create a more student-centered 1 classroom, there should be an effective assessment measure implemented to make students more active and they are able to reflect on their own learning.
Peer feedback is one of the main components of metacognition and can be one of the ways to promote students’ participation and performance. From the students’ points of view, classroom assessment information is not merely information “about” himself or herself. Rather, it forms a major part of his or her learning life, becoming part of the lessons he or she is expected to learn, the relationship she or he has with the teacher and the subject matter, and relationships with peers (Brookhart, 2003). While assessment practices can have a profound impact on learning, most assessment is implemented with little or no input from the students themselves (Stefani, 1998).
The practice of peer assessment has been recognized as having possibly enormous benefits in terms of learning gain, and is increasingly being used in higher education to involve students more actively in the assessment process (Race, Brown & Smith, 2005). However, few studies of peer assessment appear to have involved EFL students into evaluating their peers’ proficiency of spoken English. Also, in reality, in many schools in Quang Tri, peer assessment is not popular and has not been appropriately exploited. The main reason is that new achievements and discoveries on peer assessment have not been introduced and discussed seriously as well as applied appropriately into the lesson.
This is the reason why the current study was conducted. I discovered that speaking lessons in Tieng Anh 10 have many strong points compared to the old book. Using peer assessment in English speaking skill will bring about great benefits in English teaching and learning. The researcher of this study thought that in an EFL context, the inclusion of peer assessment of oral presentation skills would benefit students by enhancing their understanding of the type and diversity of errors and this would also indicate the potential obstacles which are posed by these errors in communication.
If students could be successfully trained to judge their peers’ oral presentation, this would have a positive impact on self-correction (Ahangary et al. 2 As a teacher of English, I always wonder how to make assessment during students’ learning process become effective and creative. Thus I have had interest in learning about kinds of assessment which can be useful, interesting, motivating in English speaking lessons. The investigation reported here focuses on students’ views of a peer assessment framework used in a particular context of Grade 10.
Particularly, I also wish to figure out the advantages and disadvantages of this method during its implementation. Since then, the application of peer assessment can be used more suitably and effectively in English classes. The results obtained from this research can provide a positive outlook on English speaking class.