MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN PHAN NHẬT NGUYÊN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of TESOL BA RIA – VUNG TAU, 2021 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN PHAN NHẬT NGUYÊN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of TESOL SUPERVISOR: ASSOC. NGUYỄN TẤT THẮNG BA RIA – VUNG TAU, 2021 i The thesis entitled CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY was successfully defended and approved on ………. at Ba Ria Vung Tau University Academic supervisor: Assoc. Nguyen Tat Thang Examination Committee 1.
Phạm Hữu Đức Chair 2.Dương Mỹ Thẩm Reader 1 3.Lê Lan Phương Reader 2 4. Phan Thế Hưng Member 5. Nguyễn Hoàng Tuấn Secretary Member On behalf of the Examination Committee Chair (full name, title, signature) ii BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE Ba Ria Vung Tau, March 2021 MASTER’S THESIS REPORT Student’s name: NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN Sex: Female Date of birth: June 7th, 1995 Place of birth: Lam Dong Province Major: TESOL Student’s code: 18110097 I- Thesis title: CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY II-Objectives and contents: The study aims at investigating the way that teachers at Dalat University treat students’ errors in their writing and students’ attitudes towards corrective feedback in writing. The specific objectives are as follows: - To find out the strategies that teachers at Dalat University use when giving corrective feedback in students’ writing.
- To discover students’ attitudes towards written corrective feedback. This study was conducted at Da Lat university. In order to find out strategies that teachers at Dalat University used when giving corrective feedback in students’ writing, the researcher collected 60 students’ writing pieces for analysis. With an aim of discovering iii students’ attitudes towards written corrective feedback, the researcher asked 271 students to answer the questionnaire and 12 students to join in the interview.
The researcher utilized the mixed-method approach to collect the data. In terms of data analysis, the author used SPSS software and content analysis to analyze the data. III- Starting date: (as stated in the Decision issued by the University ) IV- Completing date:. V- Academic supervisor: ASSOC.
NGUYEN TAT THANG ACADEMIC SUPERVISOR FACULTY DEAN ((full name, signature) ((full name, signature) iv STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the thesis “CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY” is my work. No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgment in the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. Ba Ria – Vung Tau, March 2021 NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN v RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I, Nguyen Phan Nhat Nguyen, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages accept the requirement of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction for theses. Ba Ria – Vung Tau, March 2021 NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all those who assisted me to complete this research. Firstly, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to Assoc. Nguyễn Tất Thắng for his guidance and supervision as well as for providing invaluable information.
Without his help, this thesis would not have been possible. Furthermore, my gratefulness is given to my parents for their encouragement and supports which allow me to complete this research. My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleagues at DLU who assisted me to carry out this thesis and to the second-year English-majored students at DLU for giving me such attention and time. This research could be completed thanks to their help.
vii ABSTRACT The study searched for the written corrective feedback (WCF) practices of DLU teachers and the attitudes of English-majored students towards WCF. In order to find out which corrective feedback types were used by DLU teachers, 60 samples of students’ writing were collected for analysis. 271 second-year English-majored students from the Faculty of Foreign Languages participated in the study. In order to collect data from the students, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were applied.
The study illustrated that a combination of WCF types was applied by the teachers at DLU including direct WCF, indirect WCF and metalinguistic WCF. Among the three types of WCF, indirect WCF was used most frequently. Besides, the study found that teachers at DLU applied unfocused written corrective feedback when dealing with students’ errors. In terms of the attitudes of DLU students towards WCF, the study is based on Wenden's (1991) framework.
Three components of attitude involving cognitive, affective, behavior components were investigated. To be more specific, the study looked for students’ thinking about the importance of WCF, students’ feeling about WCF and students’ reactions when receiving WCF. With the aim of improving the effectiveness of WCF in teaching, some implications for teachers and stakeholders were also included in the study. Key words: error, writing, corrective feedback, written corrective feedback, students’ attitudes viii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .iv RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS.vii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
viii LIST OF TABLES .xii LIST OF CHARTS. xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS. Background to the Study. Statement of the Problem.
Research Purposes and Objectives of The Study. Scope of the Study. Significance of the Study. Definition of key terms.
Organization of The Thesis. The Role of Errors. Types of Errors. Whether Errors Should be Corrected .1 Negative Perspectives towards Corrective Feedback.
Positive Perspectives towards Corrective Feedback. The Best Time to Give Corrective Feedback. The Types of Errors that Should be Corrected. The Best Way to Give Corrective Feedback.
The Person Who Should Give Corrective Feedback. Written Corrective Feedback. The Role of Written Corrective Feedback. Direct and Indirect Written Corrective Feedback.
Focused and Unfocused Written Corrective Feedback. Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback. Studies on Written Corrective Feedback Practices. Studies on Students’ Attitudes towards Written Corrective Feedback.
Students’ Writing Pieces. Data Analysis Procedure. Validity and Reliability. 47 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.
The Practices of Teachers’ Written Corrective Feedback. Indirect Written Corrective Feedback. Direct Written Corrective Feedback. Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback.
Focused and Unfocused Written Corrective Feedback. Students’ Attitudes towards Written Corrective Feedback. Cognitive Beliefs of Students towards Written Corrective Feedback. Affective States of Students towards Written Corrective Feedback.
The Person that Students Like to Give Them Corrective Feedback. The Amount of Feedback that Students Liked to Receive. The Written Corrective Feedback Techniques that Students Preferred. Behavioral Component of Students’ Attitudes towards WCF.
76 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. Implications for Teachers. Implications for Stakeholders. Recommendations for Further Research.
92 xi APPENDIX 1: THE SPECIFICATION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE. 92 APPENDIX 2: THE SPECIFICATION OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS. 95 APPENDIX 3: AN EXAMPLE OF A STUDENT’S WRITING. 100 APPENDIX 6: VIETNAMESE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT.
103 APPENDIX 7: ENGLISH INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT. 111 xii LIST OF TABLES Table 3. 1: Reliability of the questionnaire. 1: Students’ attitudes towards the necessity of WCF.
2: Students attitudes towards the effect of WCF on their writing skill. 3: The effect of WCF on students' self-learning. 4: Students’ attitudes towards the helpfulness of WCF. 5: Students’ liking to WCF.
6: Students’ preference level on the person giving WCF. 7: Students’ preference level on the amount of WCF. 8: Students’ preference level on different types of WCF. 9: The frequency of activities that students do when receiving WCF.
67 xiii LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4. 1: Written corrective feedback used by the teachers. 2: Whether students commit errors again after receiving WCF. 3: Students’ agreement level about the statement “Written corrective feedback helps me notice my weaknesses”.
4: The effect of WCF on students’ learning motivation. 5: Students’ preference level on correcting errors by themselves. 6: How often do students learn more about their errors. 69 xiv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language CF Corrective Feedback WCF Written Corrective Feedback DLU Da Lat University SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.
Background to the Study According to The Economist, English is the most widely spoken language worldwide. Among English speakers, a significant number of people use it as a second language. With the integration of Vietnam into the global economy, the Vietnamese are required to be able to use English fluently. Therefore, teaching and learning English have become the top priority.
Among major language skills, writing is considered a challenging one for various Vietnamese students. Mustafa, Mulya, and Syamsul (2017) say that it is hard to compose good writing not only with language learners but also with native speakers. Expecting non-native writers to produce a piece of writing without any errors is unrealistic (Valdés, 1992, cited in Ferris, 2011). Errors are inevitable when an individual learns a foreign language.
Many researchers have carried out studies to find out the role of errors and how to deal with errors. “Errors can be taken as red flags; they provide windows onto a system that is, evidence of the state of a learner’s knowledge of the L2” (Gass & Selinker, 2008:102). By looking at errors, teachers can see “how much that learners have learnt”, researchers can see “how language is learned”, and learners can use error as “devices by which the learner discovered the rules of the target language” (Ellis, 2003:48). According to Krashen (1982), errors should be corrected for two reasons.
Firstly, if error correction works, it will have an impact on learners’ study competence because learners will be informed that their current understanding of a certain rule is wrong. 2 Nevertheless, Krashen (1982) notes that errors should be treated but not all times and not all rules. Teachers have been putting efforts into finding out an effective way to deal with errors. However, many teachers have to admit that correcting students’ written and spoken errors is one of the toughest challenges in language acquisition (Amara, 2015).
There are many techniques that teachers can use when giving corrective feedback; however, one of the commonly used is to write down the correct forms in students’ incorrect production (Hendrickson, 1980). This technique will cost teachers lots of time; moreover, it disturbs students when receiving “many words crossed out, new words added, and an array of marginal comments” (Hendrickson, 1980:216-217). When learning a second language, students usually pay too much attention to grammar and vocabulary errors, so they are not dared to use a new language, and they find ways to keep away from making any mistakes. As for teachers, they focus on providing feedback on errors while they are teaching.
Because of these two reasons, it seems that learners’ learning achievement and efficiency are lower (Wei Zuo, 2017). Besides, teachers have given corrective feedback without considering the validity of a certain kind of feedback in terms of fostering “the process of L2 acquisition and L2 proficiency in general” (Botha, 1987:46). Teachers’ corrective feedback aims to facilitate students to recognize their errors and avoid repeating the same error. However, this kind of feedback is not efficient.