VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM HOÀNG LONG BIÊN NHẬN THỨC CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT VỀ CÁC HÌNH THỨC PHẢN HỒI DƯỚI DẠNG VIẾT CỦA GIÁO VIÊN FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF TEACHER WRITTEN FEEDBACK M. Combined Programme Thesis Field: English Language Teaching Methodology (ELT) Code: 60 14 10 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTERS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING Hanoi, May 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES iii LIST OF FIGURES iv INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale for the study 1 2. Aims of the study 3 3.
Scope of the study 4 5. Definitions of terms 5 6. The significance of the study 6 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 8 I. Theoretical background to the writing process-based approach and 8 revision in the writing process I.
A new paradigm shift to writing process approach 8 I. Flower and Hayes’ (1981) Model 11 I. Bereiter and Scardamalia’s (1987) Model 13 I. White and Arndt’s (1991) Framework 14 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) I.
Revision in the writing process approach 16 I. Feedback on students’ writing 18 I. Forms of teacher feedback 20 I. The different degrees of explicitness of error correction 21 I.
The most explicit correction (Direct feedback) 22 I. Less explicit correction (Coded feedback) 25 I. The least explicit correction (Uncoded feedback) 25 I. Effects of teacher feedback 26 I.
Recommended pattern of content followed by form feedback 31 I. Students’ perspectives, practices, and problems regarding error 31 feedback CHAPTER TWO: METHODS OF THE STUDY 39 II. Introduction to Writing II course 39 II. Methods of data collection 41 II.
Attitude questionnaire 41 II. Teacher feedback used in the present study 43 II. Content feedback used in the present study 43 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) II. Form feedback used in the present study 44 II.
Data analysis 45 CHAPTER THREE: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 47 III. Research question 1: What is the students’ attitude towards 48 different types of teacher written feedback? III. The students’ attitude towards the writing assignments 48 III. The students’ attitude towards the different types of teacher 51 written feedback III.
Research question 2: To what extent are the different types of 57 teacher written feedback understood by the students? III. Research question 3: How do the students respond to the 60 different types of teacher written feedback? III. Other findings: Do the students of different proficiency levels 63 have different perspectives on the different types of teacher written feedback? III. Writing assignments 64 III.
Direct feedback 66 III. Coded feedback 66 III. Uncoded feedback 69 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS (Continued) CHAPTER FOUR: RECOMMENDATIONS 72 CONCLUSION 76 1. Limitations of the present study 77 3.
Recommendations for further studies 77 REFERENCES 79 APPENDICES 87 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES 2.1 Participants’ proficiency levels 3.1 The students’ perception of writing in English 3.2 The students’ perception regarding the encouragement to write in English 3.3 The students’ perceptions regarding the homework assignments 3.4 The students’ satisfaction of teacher feedback 3.5 The students’ perception regarding the helpfulness of teacher feedback 3.6 The students’ perceptions regarding the clarity of teacher feedback 3.7 The students’ perceptions on the suitability of teacher feedback 3.8 The students’ understanding of different types of teacher feedback 3.9 The students’ problems regarding teacher feedback 3.10 The students’ attempts to understand teacher feedback 3.11 The students’ careful thought about teacher feedback 3.12 The students’ attention to teacher feedback 3.13 The students’ attention to teacher feedback if not being assigned to revise iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.10 LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Flower and Hayes’ (1981) Model 1.2 White and Ardnt’s (1991) framework 1.3 A conceptual framework of the treatment of errors in the present study 1.4 A writing cycle in the present study iv (LUAN.10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Rationale for the study Before the 1970s, the teaching of writing in L2 primarily focused on language practice in order to help students write correctly and learn new vocabulary items (Raimes, 1991). Thus, grammatical rules were carefully taught and error correction was focused during this period. Then, in the 1970s, under the influence of native-English speaking theorists, there was a major shift in the paradigm to a process approach in which the writers themselves had to construct the texts.
Both L1 and L2 students were encouraged to construct texts by focusing on a process of discovering ideas, drafting, revising and editing (Arapoffs, 1969; Zamel, 1982). Then, in the middle of the 1980s, teachers of English as second language (ESL) emphasized the approach and philosophy associated with process writing (Reid, 1993). This approach made students concentrate on ideas, regardless of mechanics, grammar and organization, as it was assumed that if students focused primarily on topics they had chosen themselves and they were empowered to make decisions about the shaping and polishing of their own texts, “final products would improve as a natural consequence of a more enlightened process” (Ferris, 2002: 5). As the process approach played a major role in the L2 writing class, some writing theorists began to be concerned about the neglect of issues of accuracy and its effects on students, especially L2 students.
According to Eskey (1983, as cited in Ferris, 2002,p. 4), “… as the ability to correct errors is crucial in many settings and that students’ accuracy will not magically improve all by itself”, the language-based approach should not be left until the last stage of writing in order to avoid students’ fossilization of errors.10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.10 A fair amount of studies suggest L2 writing is generally shorter, less cohesive, less fluent and contains more errors than L1 writing (e., Purves, 1988, as cited in Hyland, 2003; Ferris, 2003). According to Reid (1993), making errors is a problem which occurs as an inevitable part of EFL student writing. Some scholars of writing (e., Leki, 1991; Raimes, 1983) believe that to give feedback is one of the important methods of helping student writers to improve their written works.
According to Radeki & Swales (1988), it is important for teachers to provide their feedback since studies on students’ attitudes towards feedback have found that many students do want the errors in their writing to be corrected and that they may be frustrated if this does not happen. On the other hand, there is a contradiction in continually providing feedback. Truscott (1996) contends that feedback is useless for both students and teachers because it is time-consuming and might cause many negative effects. He points out that feedback has a short-term rather than long-term improvement, and that improvement is not concerned with improvements in the accuracy of subsequent writing, but in the linguistic accuracy of one written product.
However, he notes that EFL student writers cannot make progress in correcting skills if no one points out their errors. Although the results from previous studies on teacher feedback are varied as to whether feedback can help EFL writers write effectively, it is clear that if no one points out L2 students’ errors, they will not be able to make progress in their editing skills. Compared to the number of research studies on error correction conducted in English speaking countries (e., Lee, 2004; Ferris & Roberts, 2001), in Vietnam where English is used as a foreign language, Page | 2 (LUAN.10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.10 the number has been relatively small. Also, a fair amount of research on feedback types in L2 writing has been carried out and it is worth noting that the few reported studies on teacher feedback have focused on having the students do something with their errors besides simply receiving different types of feedback.
This focus becomes an important issue because one of the problems in providing feedback comes from students’ lack of attention to the feedback, no matter how useful it is. It can be seen in some previous studies surveyed students’ preferences for error correction in college level writing classes (Cohen, 1987; Leki, 1991; Ferris, 2006; Lee, 2004), or investigated the effects of different feedback types on grammatical improvement in students’ writing (Rob, Rod & Shortheed, 1986; Fathman & Walley, 1990; Padgate, 1999; Fazio, 2001; Hyland, 2003). So far, few attempts have been made to investigate strategies dealing with the feedback or to analyze such techniques combined with different types of feedback. As such, although the beneficial aspects of teacher feedback for EFL student writing are obvious, little is known about how the students use the different types of feedback, as well as students’ perspectives; their attitude towards, their comprehension of, and their attention to different types of written feedback.
For these reasons, it is hoped that the results of this study would help in adding new information to fill some gaps in the existing body of knowledge about the effects of feedback on the improvement of EFL writing from the students’ perspectives, particularly in a real EFL context. Aims of the study The aim of the present study is to examine the students’ perspectives: their attitudes towards, their comprehension of, and their attention to Page | 3 (LUAN.10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.10 different types of teacher written feedback. Research questions Through the process of carrying out the research study, we hope to find the answer to the following questions: 1. What is the students’ attitude towards the different types of teacher written feedback? 2.
To what extent are the different types of teacher written feedback understood by the students? 3. How do the students respond to the different types of teacher written feedback? 4. Scope of the study a. The study is limited to 81 first-year undergraduate students in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University in the academic year 2009.
This study focuses on the four different types of teacher written feedback on students’ writing. The types of written feedback used in the study are (1) content feedback on the students’ first drafts; (2) direct feedback; (3) coded feedback; and (4) uncoded feedback on their second drafts. The study investigated the students’ perspectives: their attitude towards, their comprehension of, and their attention to different types of teacher written feedback given to them during the semester (more specifically, in the writing assignments).10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Definitions of terms Error refers to the learners’ production of an incorrect form which deviates from the target language.
According to Gass & Selinker (1994, as cited in Padgate, 1999), this term means “the incorrect forms … that learners produce or the deviation from a standard criterion” (1999, p. In this study, errors refer to an incorrect form which deviates from standard English grammar. Errors could be identified by comparing what learners produce with what seem to be normal or correct in the target language which correspond to them (Ellis, 1997). Teacher written feedback refers to the written responses provided after reading students’ written work.
The responses are limited to comments on grammatical errors and the content of the students’ written work. Different types of teacher feedback refer to different strategies in providing feedback. In this study, teacher feedback is divided according to the degrees of explicitness of error correction. There are four different types of teacher feedback used in the study: (a) content feedback, (b) direct feedback, (c) coded feedback, and (d) uncoded feedback.
Content feedback, according to Ashwell (2000), is aimed primarily at multiple sentence level issues such as organization, paragraphing, cohesion and relevance. The comments given to the students are personalized and referred to the students’ texts. They offer guidance or direction where necessary and the positive comments are generally mixed with guidance and criticism.