VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES ON ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AT NEW ORIENTAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE SCHOOL A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By TO VU LE NGAN Supervised by LE THI THANH, PHD. HO CHI MINH CITY, NOVEMBER 2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES ON ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AT NEW ORIENTAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE SCHOOL A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By TO VU LE NGAN Supervised by LE THI THANH, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, NOVEMBER 2022 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following people, without whom I would not have been able to complete this research, and without whom I would not have made it through my master degree. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Ms.
Le Thi Thanh, who generously provided knowledge and expertise. This research could not have undertaken without her valuable guidance and encouragement. I am also grateful to my classmates, my colleagues and my participants for their data and feedback. Thanks should also go to the librarians, research assistants, and study participants from the university, who impacted and inspired me.
Lastly, my biggest thanks to my family and best friends for all the support you have shown me through this research. For my father and mother, I’m always proud of being their daughter. And for my best friends, I’m grateful that they spend time listening to my sharing. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the master thesis submitted today entitled: “Teachers’ perceptions and students’ preferences on oral corrective feedback in English speaking classes: a comparative study at new oriental foreign language school” and that I have not used any sources other than those listed in the bibliography and identified as references.
I further declare that I have not submitted this thesis at any other institution in order to obtain a degree. Ho Chi Minh City, 2022 To Vu Le Ngan ii RETENTION OF USE I hereby state that I, To Vu Le Ngan, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’ Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original copy of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction of theses. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as foreign language L2: Second language OCF: Oral corrective feedback ESL: English as second language SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences iv LIST OF TABLES Table 2.
Demographic Profile of Teacher Participants. Demographic Profile of Student Participants. The Link between Research Questions and Research Instruments. Description of Questionnaires.
Description of Interviews. Value of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Teachers’ Perceptions. Value of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Learners’ Preferences. Strategies of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Teachers’ Perceptions.
Strategies of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Learners’ Preferences. Timing of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Teachers’ Perceptions. Timing of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Learners’ Preferences. Sources of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Teachers’ Perceptions.
Sources of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Learners’ Preferences. Focus of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Teachers’ Perceptions. Focus of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Learners’ Preferences. Amount of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Teachers’ Perceptions.
Amount of OCF in EFL Speaking Classes: Learners’ Preferences. Teachers’ Perceptions about OCF in EFL Speaking Classes. Learners’ Preferences about OCF in EFL Speaking Classes. 55 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
30 vi Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY. ii RETENTION OF USE. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
iv LIST OF TABLES. v LIST OF FIGURES. Background to the Study. Statement of Problem.
Significance of the Study. Organization of the Thesis.- 9 - CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of Speaking skill. The Important Role of Speaking Skill.
Introduction to Feedback and Error Correction. Oral Corrective Feedback. Definition of Oral Corrective Feedback. Value of Oral Corrective Feedback.
Strategies of Oral Corrective Feedback. Timing of Oral Corrective Feedback. Sources of Oral Corrective Feedback. Focus of Oral Corrective Feedback.
Amount of Oral Corrective Feedback. Teachers’ Perceptions on Oral Corrective Feedback. Rationale to Exploring Teachers’ Perceptions. Studies on Teachers’ Perceptions about Oral Corrective Feedback.
Students’ Preferences about Oral Corrective Feedback. Rationale to Exploring Students’ Preferences. Studies on Students’ Preferences about Oral Corrective Feedback. Previous Studies on Relationships between Teachers’ Perceptions and Students’ Preferences of Oral Corrective Feedback.
Data Collection and Analysis. Data Collection Procedures. Data Analytical Framework .- 44 - CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .1 Value of Oral Corrective Feedback. Strategies of Oral Corrective Feedback.
Timing of Oral Corrective Feedback .4 Sources of Oral Corrective Feedback. Focus of Oral Corrective Feedback. Amount of Oral Corrective Feedback. Discussion on Research Question 1.
Discussion on Research Question 2 .- 69 - CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS, IMPLICATIONS.- 83 - -3- ABSTRACT Oral corrective feedback plays an pivotal role because it contributes to the development of speaking skills among language learners. However, the existence of many studies showing the teachers’ perceptions, beliefs and the students’ preferences in giving oral corrective feedback have been undertaken at the New Oriental Foreign Language School. Therefore, the objective of this study is to see the findings about the relationship between teachers’ perceptions and students’ preferences on different aspects of oral corrective feedback. This study focuses solely on quantitative and qualitative data respectively collected from the questionnaires and interviews for the investigated phenomena in 2021.
The findings show that 18 English teachers and 102 students who were at pre-intermediate level appreciated the importance of providing and receiving oral corrective feedback in speaking classes. Besides, both teachers and students approved peer correction and feedback amount as well as providing and receiving oral corrective feedback on phonological and lexical errors. However, regarding the strategies, while teachers preferred repetition, clarification check for providing oral corrective feedback, students favored explicit correction and recasts. About the feedback timing, the immediacy of oral corrective feedback was preferred by teachers, but not by students.
Lastly, self-correction was disliked by students whereas teachers preferred it. Key word: Oral corrective feedback, teachers’ perceptions, students’ preferences, EFL, English-speaking class, comparison -4- CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Background to the Study As a matter of fact, speaking is always the most stretching task for the Vietnamese students who have been mainly and persistently undergone by the Grammar-Translation Method at high schools (Le, 2018). Making impeccable English oral productions is impossible since they often incur phonological, grammatical, lexical, and discursive errors (Le, 2018).
In addition to offering the students with several opportunities for speaking practice, providing them with appropriate feedback from which they are able to learn from their mistakes is of great significance (Lyster, Saito, & Sato, 2013), that is, “the teachers’ responses to learners’ erroneous utterances” (p. In essence, feedback provision is one of the most important instructional practices because its core mission is to propose “good models of speaking and interaction” (Goh, 2014, p. 23) to language learners. In short, corrective feedback is viewed as a part of input, which “can help learners notice their errors and create form-meaning connections, thus aiding acquisition” (Ellis, 2009, p., Ozmen & Aydin, 2015; Roothooft & Breeze, 2016; Li, 2017; Le, 2018; Alkhammash & Gulnaz, 2019) have indicated that teachers’ perceptions play a central role in a teachers’ selection and prioritization of goals and actions on oral corrective feedback.
Maba (2017) defines teachers’ perceptions as responses or opinions that are a process of the individuals to receive or know about something through the senses. Teachers’ perceptions about corrective feedback may involve their pedagogical beliefs including “attitudes, views, opinions and stances teachers hold about the utility of corrective feedback in language learning and teaching and how it should be implemented in the classroom. It is generally accepted that teachers’ perceptions as well as beliefs influence their goals, procedures, materials, classroom interaction patterns, their roles (Kuzborska, 2011). Accordingly, Richards, Gallo and Renandya (2001) confirm that to understand how teachers approach their work, the perceptions and beliefs they operate from should be -5- understood.
However, few studies have attempted to investigate EFL teachers’ perceptions about their provided oral corrective feedback in their real classroom practices (Fallah & Nazari, 2019). Therefore, it urges the researcher to discover how the teachers perceive in the arena of oral corrective feedback provision. Individual learner differences (e. age, gender, aptitude, motivation, cognitive style, learning strategies, and personality) play a crucial role in the acquisition of second language in general (Zafar & Meenakshi, 2012) and in receiving oral corrective feedback in particular (Park, 2010).
Noticeably, students’ age is viewed as the most dominant contributory factor of their preferences for second language acquisition in general (Hummel, 2014) and for oral corrective feedback in particular (Lyster & Saito, 2010). That is to say, students at each age point have different learning styles and preferences for teaching instructions (Katayama, 2007) and for oral corrective feedback provision (Lyster & Saito, 2010; Lyster, Saito & Sato, 2013). Understanding students’ preferences on oral corrective feedback is crucial for maximizing the effectiveness of feedback on developing students’ speaking ability (Lyster, Saito & Sato, 2013; Le, 2018; Luu, 2020). Lyster, Saito and Sato (2013) believe in the importance of the research on oral corrective feedback preferences, “as it informs practitioners of learners’ perspectives and, subsequently, may lead to more effective teaching practice when combined with results from the corrective feedback effectiveness research” (p.
Thus, it becomes vital to investigate the language learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in their speaking classes. According to Shahrani (2013), teachers’ understanding of students’ preferences about their corrective feedback is a necessary consideration in the feedback process. This helps teachers to become more aware of any misunderstood practices of giving corrective feedback, helping them to modify and improve their practices. It might also motivate students to respond actively to their teachers’ feedback.
Nevertheless, whether there is always alignment between teachers’ perceptions and the students’ preferences of oral corrective feedback realm has been -6- open to debate up to now. Surprisingly, the amount of research on this relationship appeared to be little, especially in the Vietnamese context (Le, 2018), which encourages the researcher to make an endeavor to add the exploration of this linkage between these two constructs to the current study. This investigation will be helpful to provide pedagogical implications for bridging the gap “between a teacher’s intention and a student’s interpretation” (Han, 2002, p. 72), and “between a teacher’s correction and a student’s readiness for it” (Han, 2002, p.
117) and for maximizing the value of oral on developing the students’ speaking ability. Statement of Problem For most people, mastering speaking skill is the most important aspect of learning a second or foreign language, and the ability to make a conversation in English is deemed to be difficult (Ur, 1996; Leong & Ahmadi, 2017). Therefore, teaching and learning this productive skill has to be constant temporally and spatially. It means that beside being engaged into in-class lessons, learners also should be embedded with out-of-class learning environment.
Beside linguistic knowledge for communication skills received at high schools, learners need to spend more time to sharpen English communication ability in real-life contexts.