VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LE VAN MAY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT YEN THUAN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN TUYEN QUANG THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI THÔNG TIN CHỮA LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG MÔN VIẾT Ở TRƯỜNG THCS YÊN THUẬN - HÀM YÊN - TUYÊN QUANG MA. MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE 0780110 HA NOI - 2011 1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LE VAN MAY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT YEN THUAN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN TUYEN QUANG THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI THÔNG TIN CHỮA LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG MÔN VIẾT Ở TRƯỜNG THCS YÊN THUẬN - HÀM YÊN - TUYÊN QUANG MA. MINOR THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE 0780110 HA NOI - 2011 2 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF PROJECT REPORT I certify my authority of the Study Project Report submitted entitled Students’ Attitudes towards Teachers’ Corrective Feedback in Writing At Yen Thuan secondary school – Ham Yen - Tuyen Quang in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Hanoi, may 2011 Le van may ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3 First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my superior Do Xuan Khoi, M.A. 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 sincere thanks to the headmaster, the teachers of English Group and the students at Yen Thuan secondary school Ham Yen - Tuyen Quang 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 wife, my parents and my children for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement. 4 ABSTRACT Many language educators and researchers (e.g., Nunan; 1987; Horwitz, 1988; Schulz, 2001) claim that matching the expectations of teachers and students is important for successful language learning. Accordingly, it is beneficial for teachers to discover their students’ perceptions toward the feedback they received. This study investigates the students’ attitudes towards teachers’ corrective feedback at Yen Thuan secondary school Ham Yen- Tuyen Quang. The participants included 4 teachers of English and 100 students from Grade 7 to 8. The data were collected from survey questionnaires for students, the direct interview with four teachers and teachers’ commentary on the students’ written work. The results show that there is a slight mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and students’ preferences for teacher corrective feedback regarding feedback types and forms, various features of writing, and error correction techniques. Also, it is important for teachers to be aware of the impact of their feedback practices on students’ expectations and attitudes. On this basis, the study recommends a number of directions for teachers to help them improve their feedback practices more effectively. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Certification………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements……………………………………………… ……… ii Abstract………………………………………………………………….… iii PART ONE - INTRODUCTION 8 1.1. Rationale of the study 8 1.2. Aims of the study 10 1.3. Research questions 10 1.4. Scope of the study 10 1.5. Methods of the study 11 1.6.Design of the study 11 PART TWO. DEVELOPMENT 12 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 12 1.1.Theoretical backgrounds of feedback 13 1.1.1.Definitions of feedback 13 1.1.2. The importance of feedback in L2 writing 14 1.1.2.Types of feedback to students’ writing 15 1.1.2.1.Self-editing 16 1.1.2.2.Peer feedback 16 1.1.2.3. Teacher’s feedback 18 1.2.The focus of teacher feedback 19 1.2.1.Types of teacher feedback 19 1.2.1.1.Marginal versus end feedback 20 1.2.1.2.Positive versus negative feedback 20 1.2.1.3.Text – specific versus general feedback 21 1.2.1.4.Feedback focus on form versus on content 21 1.2.2.Forms of teacher feedback 22 1.2.3.Major issues in giving teacher’s feedback 23 2.1.Context of the study 25 2.1.1.The setting of the study 25 2.1.2.The writing program 26 2.1.2.1.Overview of the textbooks 26 2.1.2.2.The teaching of writing skill 27 2.2. The study 28 2.2.1.Methodology 28 2.2.1.1.The subjects 28 2.2.1.2.The instruments: 29 2.2.1.3. Data collection methods 30 2.2.2.Data analysis 30 2.2.2.1.Data analysis of classroom observation 30 2.2.2.2.Data analysis of direct interview between the researcher and four teachers 31 2.2.2.2.1.Teachers’ demographic information 31 2.2.2.2.2. Analysis of the interview 32 2.2.2.3.Observation of teacher commentary on the students’ drafts 35 2.2.2.4.Data analysis of student’s survey questionnaire 36 6 2.2.2.4.1.Students’ demographic information 36 2.2.2.4.2.Analysis of students’ survey questionnaire 36 2.2.3.Findings and discussion 43 CHAPTER THREE: RECOMMENDATION AND SUGGESTIONS 48 PART THREE. CONCLUSIONS 50 3.1. Summary 50 3.2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 51 References Appendices 7 PART ONE - INTRODUCTION 1.1. Rationale of the study Today English is considered one of the most important factors to the trend of globalization in all fields of life over the world. Thus, English as Second Language has been taught in many countries and the demand to use English fluently as well as to acquire four basic skills is becoming essential among all students. As a result, methodology has been studied for years to find out the most effective ways of teaching and learning English. In Vietnam, secondary school students have to acquire four skills of English as reading, speaking, listening and writing when they study English. Among them, writing is considered the most difficult skill. Clearly, Vietnamese students are often much anxious about writing and afraid of making errors in writing classrooms. Nevertheless, they need to be encouraged to see it as a means of learning, rather than demonstrating learning. In order to do this, students need to be provided with opportunities to respond to constructive feedback on their work. A review of the literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback as revision: peer feedback, self-editing and teachers’ comments as feedback. Because of the importance of feedback, there have been a lot of studies that focus on all aspects relating to feedback. As clear, concise feedback matched to standards will promote students’ achievement, feedback plays a very important role in the teaching of any language. Through feedback, the writer learns where he or she has misled and confused the reader by not supplying enough information, illogical organization, lack of development ideas, or something simple like inappropriate word-choice or tense. In other words, the writers have opportunities to identify their errors and correct them to make better writing. Also, the use of teacher feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature review as a 8 potentially valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodological benefits ( Merlin, (1986), Radecki and Swales (1988), Hedge (2000), Ferris and Roberts (2001)). They all believe that teacher feedback is very important and has a great influence on the success of teaching and learning writing. As a teacher of English at Yen Thuan secondary school, the researcher is constantly searching for ways to help his students become more confident and effective writers. During writing lessons, she finds that her students often make a lot of errors that increase students’ anxiety in writing lesson. With a view of language learning as a creative construction process, she shares an agreement with Hedge (2000) in the view that error is an inevitable and positive part of that process (p.15). Hedge also claimed that “learners progress faster with meaningful language practice in a rich linguistic environment and with an informed policy of error correction on the part of the teacher” (p.15). This means teacher-response is an essential step in the writing process as he stated “getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the class enables learners to test hypotheses and refine their developing knowledge of the language system” (p.13). That is why the researcher focuses on teacher corrective feedback, which she considers a complex troublesome, but important issue in writing classrooms. To have a quick view on this aspect, an observation on the writing lessons of four teachers of English in the researcher’s school was conducted within a month. The result showed that all the four teachers applied mostly teacher corrective feedback to respond to the students’ writings. She wondered if the teachers’ present feedback matched with students’ preferences and how students reacted to the feedback they received. All above encouraged the researcher to conduct a survey to explore students’ attitudes towards teacher corrective feedback and recommend 9 teachers of English some suggested solutions to help their students gain more achievement in writing skill. 1.2. Aims of the study. This research is designed to explore students’ attitudes toward their teachers’ corrective feedback at . It is expected to achieve the three primary aims: (i) to investigate the teacher feedback-giving practice in writing classes: their responding methods, their feedback focus as well as the feedback types and forms. (ii) to investigate the students’ perceptions of the feedback they receive and their recommendations for improving it. (iii) to find out students’ preferences for teachers’ corrective feedback as well as to propose some recommendations and suggestions for the teachers to improve their practice in order to respond to the students writing more effectively. 1.3. Research questions In order to achieve the mentioned aims above, the following research questions will be included in the study: 1. How do the teachers respond to the students’ writing? 2. What are the students’ opinions on the feedback they received? 3. What are EFL students’ preferences for teachers’ corrective feedback techniques? 1.4. Scope of the study Feedback in writing is such a broad topic that the researcher cannot discuss all the aspects related. Therefore, within the framework of a minor thesis, this study focuses only on the teacher corrective feedback in 10 [...]... includes four basic syntactic forms: question, statement, imperative, and exclamation They have different pragmatic aims such as giving or asking for further information, making requests for revision, giving positive feedback about what the students has done well 23 In EFL writing classrooms, these forms can be used to provide feedback to the students’ works However, despite their advantages, each form... them to write without teacher there to correct their errors Further, structuring face-to-face discussion into the feedback process provides students the opportunity to engage in constructive controversy which may lead to insights and greater task engagement (Johnson & Johnson, 1987) Peer feedback on student writing has been advocated for second language learners Jacobs (1987) discussed the benefits... (2000) shared an agreement in the case that “getting feedback from the teacher and from other students in the class enables learners to test hypothesis and refine their developing knowledge of the language system.” (p.13) In this case, good feedback not only stimulates students for revision but also motivates them to maintain their interest in writing In addition, provision of comments helps individualize... silence and write something invaluable That’s too bad.” In terms of feedback forms, all teachers said that they often used statement and imperative when responding to students’ papers They thought it was easy for them to write short, clear comments with such feedback forms They said, “My students do not like to receive a question or an exclamation in their paper They want some things in detail How can I . UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LE VAN MAY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT YEN THUAN SECONDARY. HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LE VAN MAY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN WRITING AT YEN THUAN SECONDARY. Tuyen Quang in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Hanoi, may 2011 Le van may ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3 First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my superior