1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------***---------- NGUYEN THI THU HANG THE APPLICATION OF PEER FEEDBACK IN WRITING TEACHING TO THE 2ND-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION- UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES- VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI THỰC TIỄN ÁP DỤNG HÌNH THỨC PHẢN HỒI TỪ BẠN HỌC TRONG VIỆC DẠY KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 – KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ – ĐHQG HÀ NỘI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 HANOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ----------***---------- NGUYEN THI THU HANG THE APPLICATION OF PEER FEEDBACK IN WRITING TEACHING TO THE 2ND-YEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION- UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES- VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI THỰC TIỄN ÁP DỤNG HÌNH THỨC PHẢN HỒI TỪ BẠN HỌC TRONG VIỆC DẠY KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ 2 – KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ – ĐHQG HÀ NỘI M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: Dinh Hai Yen, M.Ed HANOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION OF ORINALITY .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.iv LIST OF FIGURES .vii PART I: INTRODUCTION. Rationale for the study.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Student writing analysis.
Organization of the study .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. PROCESS APPROACH TO WRITING TEACHING. An overview of process approach. Stages in a writing process.
PEER FEEDBACK IN WRITING TEACHING. Concept of peer feedback in writing. The significance of peer feedback in process writing. Requirements for effective peer feedback practice in writing teaching.
Major issues of student feedback on their peer’s writing. Focus of peer written feedback. Types of peer written feedback .10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Positive feedback versus negative feedback.
Direct versus indirect feedback. Text-specific feedback versus general feedback. METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION. Selection of participants.
The survey questionnaire. Student writing analysis. Selection of participants. METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS .15 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION.
FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS FROM STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE. Current situation of peer written feedback. General evaluation of peer written feedback. Aspects of peer written feedback.
Types of peer written feedback. Comprehensibility of peer written feedback. Support from teachers for peer feedback practice. Students’ reactions to peer written feedback.
FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS FROM STUDENT WRITING ANALYSIS. Features of peer written feedback. Amount of feedback given in certain aspects. Types of feedback used .30 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Students’ post-feedback revision .32 PART III: CONCLUSION. SUMMARY OF THE STUDY…………………………………………………………35 2. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. How is peer feedback given to the 2nd- year students' writings at the FELTE, ULIS, VNU?.
How do the 2nd- year students react to their peers’ feedback on their writings? .3 What can be done to improve the effectiveness of peer feedback practice at the faculty?. Pre-training activity. Raising students’ awareness of the importance of responsible feedback. Pre-training students to evaluate friends’ papers.
Post-feedback discussion with the whole group. Assessment of peer feedback. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES .I APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE .I APPENDIX 2: GUIDELINES FOR PEER EDITING .IV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Students‟ general evaluation of peer written feedback .16 Figure 2: Aspects of peer written feedback .17 Figure 3: Types of peer written feedback .19 Figure 4: Reasons why students do not understand peer written feedback .20 Figure 5: Support from teachers for peer feedback practice .21 Figure 6: Whether or not students revise their writings after receiving peer feedback .22 Figure 7: Reasons why students do not revise their writings .22 Figure 8: What students do to revise their writings .23 Figure 9: What students do in case they do not understand peer written feedback .24 Figure 10: Whether or not peer feedback helps students improve their writing skills .25 Figure 11: The efficiency of peer written feedback .25 Figure 12: Amount of peer feedback versus mistakes made .27 Figure 13: Mistakes pointed out versus mistakes corrected .32 Figure 14: Number of mistakes made on 1st versus 2nd draft of student writings .33 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.
RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY The teaching of English has undergone different waves of change throughout its history. With regards to writing teaching in particular, there exists a recent shift from the traditional focus on the product of writing to the process of writing (Hinkel, 2000). A writing process then includes five stages, namely prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. The process approach is said to empower its students, enabling them to make clearer decisions about the direction of their writing by means of “discussion, tasks, drafting, feedback and informed choices [thereby] encouraging students to be responsible for making improvements themselves” (Jordan, 1997, as cited in Clenton, 2006, p.
In the light of process approach, feedback plays an integral part of a student‟s writing. Beside the traditional teacher feedback, peer response proves to be an effective type of feedback as it provides chances for student writers to write for an immediate audience apart from the teacher, familiarize themselves with actual readers who critically respond to their work, boost their confidence, and work collaboratively (Hairston & Keene, 2003). Much as important peer feedback is, there have been few studies comprehensively dealing with the issue. Even with those that do, there is a lack of consensus over such matters as what peer feedback should focus on, how to enhance the effectiveness of peer feedback, etc.
The same situation could be seen in the context of teaching writing in Vietnam. In reality, there are very few studies conducted on feedback in general and peer feedback in particular. Even at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE), University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University Hanoi (ULIS,VNU), where peer feedback was applied relatively long ago, no investigation has been made into the current practice. It is, therefore, an open question whether or not current peer feedback is beneficial to students at the faculty.
The aforementioned reason urges the author, a lecturer at English 2 Division- FELTE, ULIS, VNU, to carry out the research entitled The Application of Peer Feedback in Writing Teaching to the 2nd-year Students at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education _ University of Foreign Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi. This study is an attempt to examine the real situation of peer feedback application at the FELTE and LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 to propose some suggestions for the betterment of the current practice. The yielded results are hoped to serve as a useful source of reference for those who concern about the subject matter. AIMS OF THE STUDY This study is carried out with the aims to: investigate the current practice of peer feedback on the 2nd year students‟ writings at the FELTE-ULIS-VNU find out the students‟ reactions towards peer feedback and their suggestions for improving the situation propose some recommendations for the betterment of peer feedback practice at the FELTE.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS In order to achieve the abovementioned aims, the study will be conducted to answer three research questions: How is peer feedback given to the 2nd- year students' writings at the FELTE, ULIS, VNU? How do the 2nd- year students react to their peers‟ feedback on their writings? What can be done to improve the effectiveness of peer feedback practice at the faculty? 4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The research will deal with peer written feedback on the 2nd-year student writings at the FELTE- ULIS- VNU. The subjects selected for this study are not general English learners but the 2 nd- year English majored students at the faculty. Moreover, the research examines only peers‟ written feedback but not other types of feedback such as student conference or oral comments, since written feedback is the dominating type of peer feedback at the FELTE.
METHODS OF THE STUDY Quantitative approach is utilized in this study so as to achieve the desired aims. In details, the following methods are employed: 5. Survey questionnaire A survey questionnaire is done with 200 2nd-year students at the FELTE-ULIS-VNU. The data gained from the questionnaire not only help deepen the understanding of the current situation of LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 peer feedback but also serve as the foundation for some pedagogical implications for the practice of peer written feedback at the faculty.
Student writing analysis Thirty papers already responded by students and the revised versions are thoroughly analyzed so as to give the researcher an in-depth look at how peer feedback is given to the 2nd -year student writings at the FELTE and how students react to their friends‟ feedback. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The research includes three parts as follows: Part I provides a brief introduction to the issue and an overview of the paper. Part II includes three chapters, namely Literature Review (Chapter 1), Research Methodology (Chapter 2) and Data Analysis and Discussion (Chapter 3). In greater details, Chapter 1 reviews the theoretical backgrounds to writing teaching in general and peer feedback on writing in particular.
Chapter 2 describes the methods used to carry out the study. Chapter 3 presents and analyzes the data collected from the questionnaires and from students‟ writings. Part III summarizes the main issues so far touched upon in the research, some suggestions for the betterment of peer feedback on students‟ writings at the FELTE, ULIS, VNU, the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further studies. Following the chapters are the references and appendices.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter, which reviews the overall background concerning the study, will serve as the theoretical foundation on which the study is based. In this chapter, the researcher will review the beliefs and studies on the issues most relevant to the study - process writing and peer feedback in writing teaching. PROCESS APPROACH TO WRITING TEACHING Together with the shift in linguistic theory and practice, writing teaching has also undergone a number of changes, most outstanding of which was the shift of focus from the product to the process approach (Joe, 2006). This section is aimed at presenting the nature of this new approach as well as the major stages of a writing process.
An overview of process approach The conventional teaching of writing may have largely been known to ESL/EFL teachers and students as focusing on sentence-level and correctness rather than communicative aspects of the writing piece itself. This approach has received a lot of criticism because it ignores the actual processes used by students to produce a piece of writing. Instead, it focuses on imitating and producing a perfect product, which, in turn, leads to the restriction of creativity (Clenton, 2006). It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that process approach began to replace product approach.
Writing is now viewed as a multistage process with intervention as needed, and is evaluated according to how well it can fulfill the writer‟s intentions (Reid, 1993). The purpose of writing, as stated by Stewart (1988, as cited in Joe, 2006, p. 48), is a written communication with the writer himself/herself, with his/her fellow learners, with his/her teacher and with his/her intended readers.