VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ HẢI ĐOÀN THE STUDENTS’ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’WRITTEN FEEDBACK STRATEGIES ON THEIR WRITINGS AT VOCATIONAL COLLEGE OF POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS (Thái độ của sinh viên đối với cách thức phản hồi dưới dạng viết của giáo viên trên bài viết của sinh viên trường Cao đẳng nghề Bưu Chính Viễn Thông) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ HẢI ĐOÀN THE STUDENTS’ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’WRITTEN FEEDBACK STRATEGIES ON THEIR WRITINGS AT VOCATIONAL COLLEGE OF POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS (Thái độ của sinh viên đối với cách thức phản hồi dưới dạng viết của giáo viên trên bài viết của sinh viên trường Cao đẳng nghề Bưu Chính Viễn Thông) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc. Lê Hùng Tiến HANOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, Lê Hải Đoàn, hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and I have provided fully documented references to the work of others.
In addition, this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in other formal courses in any other university. I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library. Hanoi, 2016 Lê Hải Đoàn i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Associate Professor, Doctor Le Hung Tien, for the support, guidance and valuable critical feedback. His help, stimulating suggestion and encouragement helped me a lot right from the beginning to the end of this study.
I would like acknowledge my thanks to the students at Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications in Hanoi who helped me a lot and showed great willingness to take part in my survey. My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates for valuable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement. Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my parents and friends for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study investigates the students‘ attitudes towards teachers‘ written feedback at Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications in Hanoi.
The participants included 80 non-English major freshmen. The data were collected from survey questionnaire and the interview with 12 students at different level of English proficiency. The results show that the students highly valued the importance of teacher‘s feedback and had different attitudes towards each type of them; especially they prefer direct feedback to the others. It is suggested that the use of direct should be maintained regularly, so as to not only satisfy student‘s interests on writing, but also improve students‘ writing fluency by practicing writing.
In terms of the students‘ comprehension of teacher written feedback, the results show that most of them had difficulty in understanding uncoded and content feedback. Based on their responses about the ways they deal with the feedback, they are divided into two groups: independent students who themselves tried to understand teacher written feedback through books or internet and dependent students who asked their teacher or friends for help. Thus, it is expected that the research results can provide EFL writing teachers with pedagogical implications to improve EFL students‘ writing performance. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENT. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATION TERMS. vi LIST OF TABLES .vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Method of the study.
Design of the study. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Theoretical background of L2 writing. Definition of L2 writing.
Feedback on student‘s writings. Teachers‘ feedback versus peers ‗feedback. Theoretical background of teacher written feedback. Feedback on grammatical errors.
Feedback on content. Students‘ perceptions of teacher written feedback. Definition of attitude. Students‘ attitudes towards teacher written feedback.
19 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Context of the study. Methods of data collection. Teacher written feedback used in this study.
Data Collection Procedure. 24 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Answer to Research Question 1. Answer to Research Question 2.
Answer to Research Question 3. Limitations of the study. Recommendations for further studies. I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATION TERMS L2 Second language ESL English as a Second Language EFL English as a Foreign Language vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1.
Types of grammatical error Table 2. Types of written feedback Table 3. Student‘ frequency of writing in High school and College Table 4. The students‘ attitudes towards the importance of teacher‘s written feedback Table 4.2 : The students‘ satisfaction with teacher‘ written feedback Table 4.3 The students‘ perception with regard to the helpfulness of teacher written feedback Table 4.4: The students‘ perceptions with regard to the clarity of teacher written feedback Table 4.5 : The students‘ perceptions towards the suitability of teacher written feedback Table 4.6 : The students‘ preference towards teacher‘ written feedback Table 4.7 : The students‘ comprehension of the teacher written feedback.8 : The students‘ attempt to understand the teacher written feedback.9 : The students‘ problem regarding teacher written feedback Table 4.10 : The students‘ attention to teacher written feedback Table 4.11 : The student‘s careful thought to teacher written feedback Table 4.12 : The students‘ attention to teacher written feedback if not being asked to revise vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study ―What is the shortest word in the English language that contains the letters: abcdef? Answer: Feedback. Don't forget that feedback is one of the essential elements of good communication.‖ (Anonymous) English writing, going with global development, has become an important instrument for students to get better jobs. Advice, evaluation, grades - none of these may give the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals in writing. Moreover, marking student‘ writing is always considered one of the most difficult tasks for an English teacher.
After receiving students‘ written work, teacher starts correcting errors, rearranging word order, leaving comments and eventually giving the mark. Some researchers in writing (Leki, 1991; Raimes, 1983) have belief in that giving feedback is one of the important methods for teachers to help the student writers improve their writing pieces. Up to now, feedback used in educational context is considered as an essential part of the teaching and learning process to improve knowledge and skill acquisition. Although many studies have been written on the subject of error correction in writing and the question about its‘ effectiveness is open-ended, we have to admit that students want feedback and teachers feel obliged to provide it.
Moreover, many studies give more attention to the importance of feedback, the ways of providing and receiving feedback and how feedback has effect on students‘ writing. We can see in the study of Lee (2005), Noora (2006).―What have been neglected in those studies are preferences and attitudes of the learners and teachers towards error correction‖ (Katayama,2007). He also stated:― Differences in learners‖ learning styles affected the learning environment by either supporting or inhibiting their intentional cognition and active engagement‖. In addition, ―matching the learning styles of the students and the teaching style of the teacher would help improve students‘ learning, attitudes, behavior, and motivation‖ (Ferris, 2003).
1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Also, a large number of studies on feedback types have been carried out; however, a few ones pay attention to the ways the students deal with the errors after receiving feedback from their teachers. It can be seen in some previous studies investigated the effects of different types of feedback on grammatical improvement in students‘ writing (Fathman & Walley,1990; Padgate,1999; Hyland,2003) or surveyed students‘ preferences for error correction (Cohen, 1987; Leki, 1991; Ferris, 2006). Therefore, it is crucial to find out the feedback through which students prefer receiving, their attitudes towards, their comprehension of and their attention to different types of teacher written feedback. It is hoped that the results of this study would help teachers to be more effective in teaching English.
Aims of the study The aim of the present study is to examine the students‘ attitudes towards teachers‘ written feedback strategies. Moreover, the study aims to find out whether the students understand the written feedback as intended by their teacher. Finally, the study aims to find out the students‘ strategies for handling feedback after they received their writings. Research questions To achieve the purposes of the study, the following questions were developed: 1.
What are the students’ attitudes towards teacher’ written feedback strategies? 2. To what extent do the students understand teacher written feedback? 3. How do the students handle the feedback they receive? 4. Significance of the study Feedback is an essential component of any English language writing course that second language students expect to receive.
It is necessary in the students‘ whole writing process. There exists a conflict between teacher written feedback on compositions and the learner‘s interest. This mismatch between the needs of the students and those of the teachers can affect the practical effectiveness of the written feedback. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Under these circumstances, it is necessary to let students write drafts and teachers can give comments to fix errors before an official version can be made.
Therefore, both teachers and students need to work more at establishing agreement on their interpretation of feedback and at improving the students‘ writing strategies by obtaining maximal benefit from the feedback they receive. The present study investigated students‘ attitudes towards the different types of teacher written feedback. It was expected that this study might provide an insight into how the students perceived the teacher written feedback strategies. This was mainly related to the language learning process that could be of potential value for English as a Foreign Language teachers.
Scope of the study The study is limited to 80 non-English major freshmen at Vocational College of Posts and Telecommunications in 2015.This study focuses on the four different types of teacher written feedback strategies: direct feedback, coded feedback and uncoded feedback and content feedback. Method of the study Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this survey research in order to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is investigated. A survey questionnaire was administered to 80 non-English major freshmen at Vocational college of Posts and Telecommunications to collect their opinions towards teacher written feedback. An interview conducted with the participation of 12 non-English major freshmen selected from survey population to explore further issues being investigated.
Design of the study This study is composed of three following parts: Part 1: Introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, the significance, the scope, and the design of the study. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part 2: Development is organized around three chapters as follows: Chapter 1- Literature review, conceptualizes the framework of the study through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of writing in second language, types of grammatical errors and feedback. Chapter 2 - Methodology, presents the context, the methodology used in this study including the subject, the data collection instruments, data collection procedure, and data analysis Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussions consists of a comprehensive analysis of the data and a discussion on the findings of this study. Part 3: Conclusion, offers a summary of the findings, recommendations, limitations, and future directions for further study.