MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY --------------------------------- TRAN THI HOANG OANH EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF TEACHER’S FEEDBACK ON EFL LEARNERS’ IMPROVING WRITING ACCURACY A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL Ho Chi Minh City, 2021 Tai Lieu Chat Luong MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY ------------------------------ TRAN THI HOANG OANH EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF TEACHER’S FEEDBACK ON EFL LEARNERS’ IMPROVING WRITING ACCURACY Major: TESOL Major number: 8140111 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL Supervisor: Dr. Nguyen Vu Phuong Ho Chi Minh City, 2021 I STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis entitled: “ Examining the impact of teacher’s feedback on EFL learners’ improving writing accuracy” is my orginal work. All sources used in the study have been documented. The piece of work has not been submitted for any certificates in universities, training bases or elsewhere.
Ho Chi Minh City, 2021 Tran Thi Hoang Oanh II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Being able to complete my thesis, I am greatly indebted to some people for supporting me throughout the study. I owe my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Vu Phuong a debt of profound gratitude for his patience and expert guidance during the process of conducting the research. His detailed critique contributed to facilitating my professional development and inspired me to work on this thesis.
I would be grateful to 12 students participating in this study. Their engagement and willingness to express their personal views as to the intervention. Data collection could not be completed without their support. Finally, many of the sincere thanks are given to my family members for their encouragement and belief in my capacity.
This thesis is expected to dedicate to my father, who has accompanied me in the whole period of my language learning. III ABSTRACT Abstract English version The study was carried out to examine the impact of direct-indirect corrective feedback on writing accuracy in Vietnamese context. Reports on the approach of action research were obtained from responses of pre-intermediate learners in a language center and the results of their writing texts. In the 4-month study, all of the errors were treated with both direct and indirect feedback as the intervention.
Multiple research instruments as testing, think-aloud and interview were employed to collect data. The data was then analyzed with the thematic method to interpret recurrent themes related to research questions. The findings indicated different changes in learners’ improving writing accuracy, benefits of the intervention coupled with challenges perceived by participants during the investigation. It was reported that some achieved potential improvements, whereas the number of errors kept unchanged in the others’ works.
In terms of the benefits, the intervention promoted learners’ reflection, new comprehensions, increased confidence, active engagement and enhanced interaction. Nonetheless, several challenges have still remained like misunderstanding indicated errors, limited capability for self- correction and negative attitudes to error correction. The data also reflected that individual differences influenced their writing outcomes and responses to the intervention. As regards the study’s mplications in the pedagogical setting, research findings also revealed the guidances for better practice.
To be more specific, it offered ideas of teacher’s facilitating knowledge development through corrective feedback appropriately according to learners’ needs, individual differences. Establishing the effective communication in classroom and running training courses for academics were also suggested. Furthermore, On the basis of limitations and results of the study, there were some recommendations for further research regarding academics’ perception towards the intervention and the impact of teacher’s corrective feedback on learner’s writing accuracy over a longer period. IV Abstract Vietnamese version Bài nghiên cứu này được thực hiện nhằm mục đích kiểm tra tác động của những phản hồi trực tiếp và gián tiếp từ phía giáo viên lên sự chính xác của bài viết do người học thực hiện trong bối cảnh Việt Nam.
Thông tin được thu thập từ phần đánh giá nhận xét của người học ở trình độ sơ cấp tại một trung tâm ngoại ngữ và kết quả bài làm của họ với cách tiếp cận của phương pháp nghiên cứu hành động. Trong suốt thời gian bốn tháng thực hiện nghiên cứu, tất cả lỗi sai trong bài viết của người học đều được can thiệp bởi cả phản hồi trực tiếp và gián tiếp. Nhiều công cụ nghiên cứu như cho học sinh làm bài kiểm tra, phỏng vấn, đọc to suy nghĩ được sử dụng để khai thác dữ liệu. Sau đó, dữ liệu này được phân tích theo phương pháp chuyên đề nhằm phân nhóm các thông tin trùng lặp liên quan đến câu hỏi nghiên cứu.
Kết thúc quá trình nghiên cứu, các phát hiện đã chỉ ra những thay đổi tích cực trong việc cải thiện độ chính xác của bài viết, nhận thức của người học cùng với những thử thách mà bản thân họ cảm nhận được. Nói cách khác, việc can thiệp của những phản hồi trực tiếp và gián tiếp đã thúc đẩy sự phản xạ, những hiểu biết mới, tăng cường sự tự tin, tích cực và tương tác của người học trong lớp. Tuy nhiên, một số thách thức vẫn còn tồn tại như hiểu sai lỗi được chỉ ra, khả năng tự sửa hạn chế và thái độ tiêu cực trong việc sửa bài. Dữ liệu cũng phản ánh sự khác biệt của từng cá nhân ảnh hưởng đến kết quả bài viết và phản ứng của họ đối với sự can thiệp của đối tượng nghiên cứu.
Liên quan đến ứng dụng của nghiên cứu trong môi trường sư phạm, kết quả khảo sát được đã góp phần vạch ra các định hướng cho việc thực hiện hoạt động dạy và học đạt hiệu quả hơn. Cụ thể, trong quá trình giáo viên tạo điều kiện phát triển kiến thức cho học sinh thông qua phần phản hồi sửa lỗi, cần có những điều chỉnh phù hợp với nhu cầu và sự riêng biệt của mỗi người học. Ngoài ra, việc xây dựng kênh giao tiếp hiệu quả và tổ chức các khóa đào tạo cho giáo viên cũng nên được cân nhắc. Hơn thế nữa, dựa trên cơ sở của những hạn chế và kết quả thu được, bài luận đưa ra đề xuất cho các nghiên cứu sâu hơn liên quan đến nhận thức của giáo viên đối với việc cung cấp phản hồi trực tiếp và gián tiếp cho việc sửa V lỗi cũng như ảnh hưởng của điều này lên sự chỉnh chu, chính xác của các bài viết thực hiện bởi người học trong thời gian dài.
VI CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. III LIST OF TABLES. XI LIST OF FIGURES. Rationale for the study.
Aims of the study. Focus of the study. Direct and indirect feedback. Challenges of direct-indirect feedback.
Benefits of direct- indirect feedback. Learner’s perception of direct and indirect feedback. Impacts of feedback on writing accuracy. Challenges of feedback on writing accuracy.
Benefits of feedback on writing accuracy. Conditions for effective feedback. Choice of approach. Study context and participants.
Data collection and data analysis. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Benefits of the intervention. Promoted reflection and new comprehensions.
Changes in EFL learners’ writing accuracy. Challenges of implementing the intervention. Misunderstanding over error meanings and limited capacities for self-correction. Negative attitude towards revising written work.
Perceptions of EFL learners towards the intervention. Agreement with the combination of direct and indirect feedback for error correction. Disagreement with the implementation of indirect feedback for error correction in writing. Benefits of the intervention.
Promoted reflection and new comprehensions. Changes of EFL learners’ writing accuracy. Challenges of implementing the intervention. Misunderstanding over error meanings and limited capacities for self-correction.
Negative attitudes towards revising written work. Perceptions of EFL learners towards the intervention. Agreement with the combination of direct and indirect feedback for error correction. Disagreement with the implementation of indirect feedback for error correction in writing.
Addressing research questions. To what extent does the implementation of teacher’s direct and indirect corrective feedback affect EFL learner’s writing accuracy?. What are the benefits of implementing direct and indirect error correction that were obtained by EFL learners?. What are the challenges perceived by EFL learners when direct and indirect corrective feedback for errors were employed ?.
Summary of the findings. 105 XI LIST OF TABLES Table 3. Profiles of participants in the study. The contrast of the total number of errors between both drafts of test 1 and test 4 in CYCLE 1 and CYCLE 2.
The number of completed writing. The number of 2nd draft submissions. The contrast of the total number of errors between both drafts of test 1 and test 4 in CYCLE 1 and CYCLE 2. The contrast of the number of errors between both drafts of test 1 and test 4 in CYCLE 1 and CYCLE 2 according to types of error.
Comparison of the number of errors in the pre-test and post test of certain participants in CYCLE 1 and CYCLE 2. 57 XII LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 : Project of proactive action research. 22 Figure 2 : Process of the intervention application. 28 Figure 3 : Procedures of research method.
29 XIII ABBREVIATIONS CF Corrective feedback EFL English as a foreign language INT Interview L2 Second language TA Think-aloud WCF Written corrective feedback 1 CHAPTER 1. Global context Given the importance of English in modern lives, English proficiency has been evidently deemed a prime requirement for almost every profession and one of the main criteria for work promotion (Nunan, 2003). Amid four skills of English, the common way to assess language capacity is writing, especially in terms of the field of academy (White, 1987). In fact, corrective feedback is regarded as the most preferable and ubiquitous strategy for writing teaching employed by a vast majority of academics (Ferris, 1997).
The effectiveness of this approach has been under extensive investigation so far. However, it has remained a controversial topic. It is widely argued that correction feedback has a positive impact on language learning, especially writing accuracy enhancement (Liu, 2008). Moreover, some proponents (e., Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Ferris, 2006; Bitchener, 2008) held the view that error correction plays a pivotal role in improving learners utilization of appropriate forms, while others (e., Truscott, 1996; Ivanic, Clark & Rimmershaw, 2000; Chandler, 2003) contended that it has detrimental effects as well.
However, these controversial arguments have been inconclusive (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Therefore, the main objective in this study is to examine the impact of corrective feedback on language acquisition, especially writing accuracy improvement. In the meantime, both explicit feedback and implicit feedback are of paramount importance, possessing relatively conflicting procedures and resulting in different consequences. It is stated that the most obvious effect of direct feedback is the restriction of unambiguous error correction ( Ferris, Liu, Sinha, & Senna, 2013).
Thus, it is much more straightforward for learners to recognize the grammatical gap in target language, as opposed to indirect feedback, language learners are believed to be incentivised to reflect on the indications given by the instructor though 2 indirect feedback (Pollard, 1990). Consistently, Bitchener (2012) emphasized that students’ reflections on implicit feedback probably calls for cognitive development. It is, therefore, understandable that these two approaches are equally indispensable. Vietnamese context In educational context of Vietnam, English has increasingly occupied an influential position as a means of international communication especially since the integration of this nation into commercial organizations worldwide like (World Trade Organization (WTO), ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), etc.
Because of growing demands for higher education, external trade and employment, there have been mounting concerns over English teaching. Nevertheless, recent tests administered by Educational Testing Service (ETS) produced unfavorable outcomes of writing and revealed that the far most problematic aspect of Vietnamese students when sitting for English tests. This matter can be explained by triggers of both writing teaching and learners themselves.