APPLICATION OF PROCESS WRITING TO IMPROVE COLLEGE STUDENTS’COMPOSITION SKILL

This study looks into the impact of process writing to improve K18 Englishcourse’s writing fluency and their writing accuracy to find out effective methodsof teaching English writing ski

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

This study looks into the impact of process writing to improve K18 Englishcourse’s writing fluency and their writing accuracy to find out effective methods

of teaching English writing skill to K18 English course at Bình Phước Teacher’sTraining College The study investigates students’ participation in processwriting, their fluency and accuracy in writing ability, together with usefulimplication to the teaching of writing skill at Bình Phước Twenty students ofK18 English course participated in the study Each student had to write fourdrafts, so eighty ones were collected to be evaluated and analyzed The findings

of the research show that the implementation of process writing in teachingwriting can improve students’ writing quality Students made many errors in thefirst drafts However, after receiving the teacher’s feedback and rewriting thedrafts, students made significant improvements in their writing The studyconcludes by recommendations of using process writing in teaching paragraphs

at colleges

I would like to express my appreciation to the people who have helped me

to complete this thesis First and foremost, I would like to express my deepthank to my supervisor, Dr Trần Bá Tiến who has supported me with hisenthusiasm and knowledge I attribute the level of my master degree to his greatsupport and constant and helpful advice on my study

My thanks also go to 20 students of K18 English course at Bình PhướcCollege Finally, many thanks are for my family, whose support has been veryimportant to me, this thesis would not have been successfully completed withouttheir support and encouragement

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES……… vi

LIST OF FIGURES……… vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rational 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Significance of the study 2

1.6 Scope of the study 3

1.7 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4

2.1 Theoretical background for the study 4

2.1.1 Writing skill 4

2.1.2 Principles of teaching writing 5

2.1.3 Approaches to teaching writing 7

2.1.3.1 The Grammar- Syntax- Organization Approach 7

2.1.3.2 The Free- Writing Approach 7

2.1.3.3 The Paragraph-Pattern Approach 8

2.1.3.4 The Genre Approach 8

2.1.3.5 The Product Approach 10

2.1.3.6 The Process Approach 10

2.1.3.7 Process Approach versus Product Approach 11

2.1.4.1 Prewriting……… 13

2.1.4.2 Drafting……….13

2.1.4.3 Reviewing/ Revising……… 13

2.1.4.4 Editing……… 15

2.1.4.5 Publication………15

2.1.5 Providing feedback to students’ writing……… 16

2.2 Review of previous studies related to the current research………22

2.3 Summary……… 26

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY …27

3.1 Context of the study ……… 27

3.2 An overview of the textbook “Effective Academic writing 1 by Alice Savage”………27

3.3 Participants …27

3.4 Data collection instrument …28

3.5 Procedures of data collection …28

3.6 Procedures of data analysis …29

3.7 Summary……… 29

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 31

4.1 The results 31

4.1.1 Students’ writing achievement in content and organization aspect31 4.1.2 Students’ writing achievement in vocabulary and language use …32 4.1.3 Students’ writing achievement in mechanical aspect …32

4.2 Findings of the study 33

4.2.1 Overall improvement of students’ writing 33

4.2.2 Improvement in the number of the paragraph errors of the students’draft……… 39

4.2.4 Number of the errors in vocabulary and language use aspect 40

4.2.5 Number of mechanical errors 43

4.3 Discussions 44

4.4 Teaching implications 49

4.5 Summary 51

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 52

5.1 Recapitulation of major findings 52

5.2 Conclusion 53

5.3 Limitations of the study 54

5.4 Suggestions for the further study 55

REFERENCES 56

Table Page

Table 2.1: Comparison of Process approach and Product Approach…………11

Table 4.1: Errors in content and organization in 3 drafts………31

Table 4.2: Errors in vocabulary and language use of the students’ drafts… 32

Table 4.3: Mechanical errors in the students’ drafts……… 33

Table 4.4: Number of paragraphs in the first drafts 39

Table 4.5: Number of paragraphs in the second drafts 39

Table 4.6: Number of paragraphs in the third drafts 39

Table 4.7: Number of the error in content and organization of the students’ drafts……….40

Table 4.8: Errors in vocabulary and language use of the second drafts .…41 Table 4.9: Errors in vocabulary and language use in the third drafts …42

Table 4.10: Errors in vocabulary and language use in the final drafts …43

Table 4.11: Number of error types in mechanical aspect …44

Figure Page

Figure 2.1: Stages in Writing Process (Hyland, 2003)………12

Codes/symbols Meaning

1 W.C The words are inapplicable with sentences/

meaning

3 V.T Verb tense or GR = more general grammar

problemsWrong tense/ use another tense

5 Art Use article a, an or the for singular noun

6 ^ There is a missing word needing to insert

8 S/V A Subject and verb do not agree

9 ?(question mark) Unclear meaning Write in another way to make

the meaning clearer

10 W.O The words in this sentence are in the wrong order

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, English is a required subject for students at colleges inVietnam Theoretically, the curricula and teaching philosophy arecommunicatively oriented with four skills equally developed In practice,writing is a largely ignored area due to the wash back of examinations Most ofimportant tests including graduation and university entrance exams do not have

a writing component As a result, students only focus on learning grammar andvocabulary They have considerable difficulty in learning the writing skill.Writing was traditionally considered as a product, which means thatstudents write a composition and the teacher provides comments and givescorrection and the students do not have to rewrite the draft The present trendregards writing as a process That is, students write multiple drafts before thecompleting final draft The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired skill;

it must be practiced and learned through experience Writing is a complexcombination of skills that is best taught by breaking down the process Thewriting process involves series of steps to follow in producing a finished piece

of writing By breaking down writing step-by-step, the mystery is removed andwriter’s block is reduced Most importantly, students discover the benefits ofconstructive feedback on their writing, and they progressively master, and evenenjoy writing Although this idea is not new in theory, how to apply it in practice

is not easy Being a teacher of English at a college, I see the reality of teachingwriting skill in my setting I have, therefore, decided to conduct a study on thisarea to improve the teaching practice in my college

The study deals with the use of writing process to improve K18 Englishcourse’s writing skill at Binh Phuoc Teacher’s Training College It focuses on

the students’ revising and editing the drafts after they receive feedback from theteacher and the changes made to each paper between the first and final drafts.The text type was opinion essay.

1.2 Aims of the study

This study attempts to find out measures to improve the quality of teachingwriting to students at Binh Phuoc Teacher’s Training College It specificallyaims to:

- To investigate the impact of process writing on first year English students’writing fluency and accuracy

- To find out effective methods of teaching English writing skill to first yearstudents at Binh Phuoc Teacher’s Training College

1.4 Methods of the study

A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is employed in thestudy The study involves the analysis of students’ writing, interviews, reflexivejournals, and statistical data Multiple drafts approach is used for error treatmentand content development Interviews and reflective journals provide in-depthinformation that supplements the analysis of writing drafts

1.5 Significance of the study

The study looks into students’ writing and their common problems Thefindings can help practitioners improve their teaching quality, and the study tries

to find out how fluent and accurate students’ writings are The process writingapproach itself is not new; nonetheless, its application in local schools mayrequire adaption The study is also an attempt to find out how to apply thewriting process in practice effectively and to discover the benefits ofconstructive feedback on their writing The research results can make theoreticaland practical contributions to English language education

1.6 Scope of the study

The study deals with the use of writing process to improve K18 Englishcourse’s writing skill at Binh Phuoc Teacher’s Training College The studentsare in their first year of study

1.7 Organization of the study

Besides the abstract, references, and appendices, the study is organized asfollows

Chapter 1: Introduction provides an introduction and an overview of the

research It presents the rationale for the research, defines the aims, researchquestions, methods, significance, scope and organization of the study

Chapter 2: Theoretical background discusses previous related research

and presents the theoretical background for the study It deals with the writingskill, writing process and feedback on students’ writing This part also providesdescription, summary, and critical evaluation of each work quoted

Chapter 3: Methodology presents the detailed procedure of the study: the

methodology, population selection, data collection and analysis

Chapter 4: Data analysis and discussion deals with the major findingsdrawn out from the research It includes further discussion of the themes thatarise from the data analysis and a response to the research questions based onthe literature and the study

Chapter 5: Conclusion

Main points and contents of the study will be summarized based on theresults of the study The implication of the study and the recommendation forfurther research will be presented

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter covers the theoretical issues related to the study It reviews theworks of foreign and Vietnamese scholars and researchers, and discussestheoretical issues to lay the foundation for the data analysis and implicationchapters

2.1 Theoretical background for the study

2.1.1 Writing skill

Writing is one of the four skills in language acquisition It has been defined

in many ways, which show different viewpoints of the authors According to

“Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary” (1989), writing is to “make letters or other symbols on a surface (usually paper), especially with a pen or pencil” Writing, for Crystal (1995: 257), is ‘‘… a way of communicating which uses a system of visual marks made on some kind of surface’’ Hedge (2000:302) contends that writing is “a complex process which is neither easy nor spontaneous for many second language learners” This proposition concurs with Ur’s point of view (1996: 161) “Most people acquire the spoken language (at least their own mother tongue) intuitively, whereas the written form is in most cases deliberately taught and learned”

Writing has a number of functions It is used to facilitate communication asletters, newspapers, advertisements; each of them carries out a specific purpose.According to Nunan (1991: 84), writing serves four main functions Firstly, it isused primarily for action such as the public signs on roads and stations, productlabels and instructions on food or tools, recipes, maps, bills, etc Secondly, it isfor social contact as letters, postcards, greeting cards and personalcorrespondence Thirdly, writing provides the readers with information as

newspapers and magazines, non-fiction books (textbooks, public notices,guidebooks, etc) Finally, written language entertains the readers with comicstrips, fiction books, poetry and drama.

In educational settings, teaching and learning writing also play animportant role in developing students’ compositional ability White (1981)indicates a number of reasons why writing occupies a place in the languagesyllabus The first reason is that writing is the commonest way of examiningstudents’ performance in English Consequently, students’ writing ability is a key

to examination success Second, in the eyes of both parents and students, writinghelps them see what has been done and what has been achieved during theprocess of learning Furthermore, in classroom, writing may be used as onetechnique to help the lesson interesting In addition, teachers may use writing as

a testing device to provide feedback on what students have learned Students’writing can be the useful evidence of successes or failures in learning The lastreason is that our writing will be judged by the readers in parts of style, contentand logic This requires the writers to spend a great deal of care and thought onthe process of writing

For that reason, writing also helps students learn (Rames, 1983) Writingreinforces the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that students havelearned Moreover, when students write, they have chances to go beyond whatthey have just learned to say They can discover the language Finally, in theprocess of writing, students necessarily become involved with new language andthe effort to express ideas The constant use of eye, hand and brain helpsreinforce learning With all the roles mentioned above, we can see that writing is

an important skill in teaching and learning languages at any levels

2.1.2 Principles of teaching writing

Teaching how to write effectively is one of the crucial life-long skills that

instructors impart to their students It is a matter of prescribing a set ofpredetermined tasks or exercises to the students When teaching a writingcourse, instructors not only teach about how to develop ideas in writing, but alsopay proper attention to how to write English sentences grammatically andsystematically The effectiveness of writing instruction depends on both teachingcompositions and assessment Self-evaluation is an essential component that must

be imbedded in the process In assessing students’ compositions, teachers shouldrespond to their writing based on criteria that have been communicated and taught

to students and responses to errors To respond the error the teacher can use afeedback that contains specific criteria

According to Graham and Perin (2007), a set of recommendedapproaches for teaching writing to adolescent students include the 11instructional methods below:

1 Writing strategies involves teaching students strategies for planning,revising, and editing their compositions

2 Summarization involves explicitly and systematically teaching studentshow to summarize texts

3 Collaborative writing uses instructional arrangements in whichadolescents work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions

4 Specific product goals are a method in which students are assignedspecific, reachable goals for their writing

5 Word processing uses computers and word-processors as instructionalsupports for writing assignments

6 Sentence combining involves teaching students to construct morecomplex, sophisticated sentences

7 Prewriting engages students in activities designed to help them generate

or organize ideas for their composition

8 Inquiry activities engage students in analyzing immediate, concrete data

to help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task

9 The process writing approach interweaves a number of writinginstructional activities in a workshop environment that stresses extended writingopportunities, writing for authentic audiences, personalized instruction, andcycles of writing

10 Study of models provides students with opportunities to read, analyze,and emulate models of good writing

11 Writing for content learning uses writing as a tool for learning contentmaterial

2.1.3 Approaches to teaching writing

Various methods of teaching composition have been employed in languageteaching They can be categorized into two major approaches, namely theprocess and the product approach

2.1.3.1 The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach

This approach stresses on simultaneous work on more than onecomposition feature This approach originates from the idea that writing shouldnot ever be taught separated from other skills which are learnt sequentially.Thus, students are trained to pay much their attention to organize; they shouldalso work on the necessary grammar and syntax This approach helps studentssee the connection between the purpose of their piece of writing and the forms

of language that are needed to convey messages Through this approach,teachers may emphasize their students’ grammatical and discourse competence

2.1.3.2 The Free-Writing Approach

Different from the Controlled -to- Free Approach, this approach stresseswriting quantity rather than quality The emphasis in this approach is on content

and fluency rather than on accuracy and form It is partly illustrated by the factthat students are often given the topics and self-manage to write with onlyminimal teachers’ correction Teachers may start their classes by asking students

to write freely about a particular topic without concern about grammar andspelling within a short while In free-writing approach, it is important thatteachers allow students to express what they want to say and focus on thestudents’ own creativity and self- discovery In addition, one more importantfeature of this approach is that little is done with errors because according toRaimes, teachers do not correct students’ free-writing but only comment on thecontent Some students volunteer to read their writing to the class, whichprovides a real audience for students Nevertheless, the concern for accuracy,syntax, and mechanics are seen as of little importance in this approach In thisregard, the free-writing approach has limitations in preparing EFL students for

academic writing In conclusion, the free-writing approach considers content as the most important instead of accurate forms of languages.

2.1.3.3 The Paragraph –Pattern Approach

Instead of emphasis on accuracy of grammar or fluency of content, thisapproach stresses on organization Classroom procedures associated with thistradition have tended to focus students’ attention primarily on ‘form’ Studentsare asked to read and analyze a model text and then write another piece ofwriting that has the same organization with the original one Besides, somecommon writing activities, within this tradition, require students to groupprovided relevant facts, rearrange them in the logical order to form an outline,and then write a complete text based on that outline In short, this tradition seeswriting as basically a matter of arranging sentences and paragraphs intoparticular patterns Typical organizational principles for materials includeparagraph structuring, particularly related to functional categories, and the use of

a range of linking devices Sentence-level and grammar practice is not omittedbut is set in the context of a longer and purposeful belief of language.

2.1.3.4 The Genre Approach

In the 1980s the genre approach became popular along with the notionthat student writers could benefit from studying different types of written texts.Derewianka (1992) defines genre as the schematic structure of a text whichhelps it to achieve its purpose Texts differ in terms of their purpose, anddifferent cultures achieve their purposes through language in different ways.Texts also differ according to particular situation in which they are being used

In essence, genre theory is a theory of language use The genre-basedwriting teaching is actually developed on the basis of child language studiesundertaken within the systematic functional model that shows how youngchildren learn language and how, in particular they learn to develop texts.(Halliday, 1975, Paiter, 1986, Oldenberg, 1987) These studies demonstrate that

in the course of adult care-takers and children interaction, adults are constantlymodeling genres in their discourse with young children So we must find ways

to introduce strategies familiar to students from their experience of learning totalk Usually in the course of learning, the adults and the children share the sameexperiences Therefore, the classroom genre for teaching genres should includethe three basic stages: modeling, joint construction and independentconstruction Sawyer and Watson (1982) stresses that learning to write islearning to control genres Genres are identified by their generic structures.Students should learn first of all the structure, but the emphasis on structuresshould not detract from the essential emphasis on meaning Rothery’s (1985)suggestion for a genre-based approach to teaching writing includes the followingsteps:

1 Introducing a genre: modeling a genre by reading to the whole class,

2 Focusing on a genre: modeling a genre explicitly by naming its stages,

3 Jointly negotiating a genre: teacher and class jointly composing the genreunder focus,

4 Researching: selecting material; assessing information before writing,independent construction: students individually construct the genre

It should be noted that the genre approach sees writing as “predominantlylinguistic” They also emphasizes that writing in the genre approach “varies withthe social context in which it is produced.” At the heart of the approach therefore

is the view that witting process should offer students explanations of the waylanguage functions in social contexts (Hyland, 2003) According to Grossmann(2009, p.7), the language chosen in writing will be chosen by several elementswhich are not only the “purpose” of the writing but also “the subject matter, therelationships between the writer and the audience, the pattern of organization”.Therefore, the teacher plays an important role in providing model language andfacilitating the learner’s understanding of the writing purpose and context.Hyland (2003) proposes that the teacher takes an authoritative role to scaffold orsupport learners as they move towards their potential level of performance untilthey gain autonomy

2.1.3.5 The Product Approach

The product oriented approach focuses on the end result of the learning

process, what is expected from the learner is to do as fluent and competent user

of the language (Nunan, 1991: 86) This is a traditional approach, in whichstudents focus on the study of model texts Priority is given to accuracy andconversations are taken from the model

The product approach aims at making the students competent in thelanguage when they write relevant and coherent pieces of writing It focuses onthe final product of the writers and the texts written by the students are based on

models provided by the teacher Brown (2001) notes that significant attentionwas paid to “model” compositions that students would emulate and on how well

a student’s final product measured up against a list of criteria that includedcontent, organization, vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanicalconsiderations such as spelling and punctuation

2.1.3.6 The Process Approach

Writing in process approaches is seen as predominantly to do withlinguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and there is much less emphasis

on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar and text structure.There are different views on the stages that writers go through in producing apiece of writing, but a typical model identifies four stages: prewriting;composing/drafting; revising; and editing (Tribble 1996: 39) This is a cyclicalprocess in which writers may return to pre-writing activities, for example, afterdoing some editing or revising A typical prewriting activity in the processapproach would be for learners to brainstorm on the topic of houses At thecomposing/drafting stage they would select and structure the result of thebrainstorming session to provide a plan of a description of a house This wouldguide the first draft of a description of a particular house After discussion,learners might revise the first draft working individually or in groups Finally,the learners would edit or proof-read the text In process approaches, the teacherprimarily facilitates the learners’ writing, and providing input or stimulus isconsidered to be less important Like babies and young children who develop,rather than learn, their mother tongue, second language learners develop, ratherthan consciously learn, writing skills Teachers draw out the learners’ potential.Process approaches have a somewhat monolithic view of writing The process ofwriting is seen as the same regardless of what is being written and who iswriting So while the amount of pre-writing in producing a postcard to a friend

and in writing an academic essay are different (Tribble 1996: 104), this is notreflected in much process teaching

2.1.3.7 Process Approach versus Product Approach

There are certain differences between the two approaches to teachingcomposition The product approach pays much attention to the study of themodel text provided by the teacher The result of the learning process depends

on the final product The process approach, in contrast, focuses on the writingprocess rather than the final product It argues that the final draft of the writer isthe result of many stages In the process approach, students have time to writeand rewrite the composition before handing the final In the process ofcomposing the writing, they can change, rearrange, add or delete any words orsentences that make their thoughts more clearly, more effectively and in a moreinteresting way

The main differences between two approaches are outlined by Steele(2007) in the table below:

 Text as a resource for comparison

 Ideas as starting point

 More than one draft

 More global, focus on purpose,

theme, text type, i.e., reader is

emphasized

 Collaborative

 Emphasis on creative process

 Imitate model text

 Organization of ideas more important than ideas themselves

 One draft

 Features highlighted including controlled practice of those features

 Individual

 Emphasis on end product

Table 2.1: Comparison of Process Approach and Product Approach

It should be noted that certain genres may lend themselves more favorably

to one approach than the other Formal letters or postcards, for instance, inwhich the features are very fixed, would be perhaps more suited to a product-driven approach, in which focus on the layout, style, organization and grammarcould greatly help students in dealing with this type of writing task Othergenres, such as descriptive and narrative essays, may be more suitable withprocess-driven approaches, which focus on a process of idea generation Writingmultiple drafts before an effective product is created and exchanging of textshelp the students to direct their writing to their reader, therefore making a moresuccessful text

2.1.4 The Process of writing

The process of writing comes through several stages before reaching thefinal draft It is a process that involves six distinct steps: prewriting, drafting,responding, revising, editing and publishing It is known as a recursive process.While writers are revising, they might have to return to the prewriting step todevelop and expand their ideas The following is a figure illustrating recursivenature of writing and the stages of writing process

Figure 2.1: Stages in Writing Process (Hyland, 2003)

2.1.4.1 Prewriting

In this stage, students involve the activities such as reading, brainstorming,mind mapping, discussing, fast writing, questioning, interviewing, whichencourage them to generate ideas before they write their sentences in the firstdraft Then, students try to order their data and arrange them according to theirpriorities that mean which idea is going to be the first, which is the second, and

so on

The prewriting stage is divided into three steps The first step is to put theideas into objectives according to the main idea and eliminate all the irrelevantones The second step relies on putting a topic sentence to each of the objectivesmade in the first step and the topic sentence must reflect the whole objectivesthat is when the reader reads the topic sentence, he can infer what is coming.The last step in the first stage is to order the objectives according to what thewriter thinks is appropriate to be the first, second and so on

2.1.4.2 Drafting

Drafting is to start writing according to the ideas planned before The result

of brainstorming session provides opinions about topic Oshima and Hogue(2002; 28) call this stage as writing and revising drafts They argue that no piece

of writing is perfect the first time and the writer has to write and revise severaldrafts until he/she produces the final draft In the first step, the composition might

be written without considering grammar, punctuation, or spelling and noimportance to the structure Students may add new information in the draftingstage; there is no matter to hesitate because the focus is on ideas, purpose,coherence and relevance, unity, sufficient supporting ideas and concludingsentences As a last step in the drafting stage, the student checks the grammar,spelling and punctuation mistakes

2.1.4.3 Reviewing /Revising

Revising is the stage where the writer comes through his/her final draft andtries to define the different lapses and corrects them in a second draft All goodwriters go through several steps of the revision because they want to make theirwriting the best it can At this point, they consider what they have written, getfeedback from others, and then make changes They can scratch out unnecessary

or irrelevant information, squeeze ideas that they want to add into the margin,and even cut up and re-paste the paper to change the order or make addition.According to Oshima and Hogue (2002; 29), during the first revision we shouldconcern mainly with content and organization This is how to proceed:

Read over the paragraph carefully for a general overview Focus on thegeneral aspects of the paper and make notes in the margin

Check to see that you have achieved your stated purpose

Check for general logic and coherence

Check to make sure that the paragraph has a topic and that the topicsentence has a central (main) focus

Check for unity Cross any sentence that does not support the topicsentence

Check to make sure that the topic sentence is developed with sufficientsupporting details Be certain that each paragraph gives the readers enoughinformation to understand the main idea

Check the use of transitional signals

Finally, does your paragraph have or need a concluding sentence? If youwrote a final comment, is it on the topic?

The next revision is to check for grammar, sentence structure, spelling, andpunctuation This checking is specific as following: (Oshima and Hogue, 2002;

Change vocabulary words as necessary.

In this stage, the students review a draft to check errors based on thefeedback from himself or herself and teacher or peers The writers need to makechanges to another draft before having someone else read it and offer furtherfeedback and suggestions Thus, drafting and revising could theoretically becompleted and repeated indefinitely

2.1.4.4 Editing

Editing is an important step because it helps moving from the stage ofrevising where there are many incomplete ideas, incorrect spelling andunstructured sentences to the stage of correcting all the final draft Oncerevisions are made and changes to major traits of a writing project are complete,editing must take place as “a diamond is polished after being shaped” Whereasrevisions are easily guided by any peer reviewer, editing changes may requirethe assistance of someone who is knowledgeable about grammar This is wherethe role of teacher in giving direct and indirect feedback will be applied

According to Trimbur (1999: 680), the reason that the writers must learn toedit their work is not simply to avoid grammatical errors, misspellings, and poorstyle as if writing were a matter of abiding by the law There are two further reasonsfor editing that are important to understand The first reason is that the correctness

of writing influences readers The sentence errors, punctuation mistakes,

misspelling words, and stylistic lapses can distract readers and undermine a writer’scredibility The second reason is that sentences are basic units of meaning thatexpress the relationship among ideas Writers edit their work not just to make surethe grammatical correctness of sentences but also to clarify what they are trying

to say For these reasons, editing involves working with sentences to make apiece of writing persuasive to readers

2.1.4.5 Publication

This stage takes place when a product of the writing process is shared withits intended audience Publication can occur in a variety of forums as well asnumerous times for a single product The rewards of the writing process areoften revealed at the publication stage, when readers of a product express thatthe purpose of a written project has been fulfilled The writers realize thepayments of their hard work at the publication stage

2.1.5 Providing feedback to students’ writing

2.1.5.1 Feedback

In language teaching, feedback is information conveyed to the learner

about his or her performance of the learning task, usually with the objective ofimproving their performance (Ur, 1996: 242) It is seen by Larsen-Freeman

(2003: 123) as “evaluative information available to learners concerning their linguistic performance.” In writing, feedback is the comments that the teacher

gives the students about their writing Feedback plays a central role in writingdevelopment It helps the students realize what their strengths and weakness are.The most important aspect while giving feedback is adopting a positiveattitude to students’ writing It takes a lot of time and effort to write, so it is onlyfair that student writing is responded suitably Positive comments can help buildstudent confidence and create good feeling for the next writing class If thestudent receives only negative feedback, he may easily be discouraged from

trying to form complex structures and using new vocabulary However, feedbacksessions can be a beneficial experience for the student if the teacher shows thestrong points as well Furthermore, teacher should consider the students’mistakes on part of language use and content and organization equally Ur(1996: 171) notes that mistake correction is part of the language teaching, butoveruse of correction can be discouraging and demoralizing Too muchemphasis on language mistakes can distract both learners’ and teachers’ attentionfrom the equally important aspects of content and organization.

Feedback on writing is most valuable to students’ writing developmentwhen students can use the feedback to revise and edit their writing Based on thegiven feedback, students can improve their writings, besides they will learn how

to evaluate themselves Consequently, this helps them feel more confident ontheir performance

2.1.5.2 Strategies for providing corrective feedback

There are six strategies for providing corrective feedback (adapted fromRod Ellis, 2007)

- Direct corrective feedback

With the direct corrective feedback, the teacher provides the student withthe correct form of the errors This can use the form of crossing out anunnecessary word, phrase, or morpheme, inserting a missing word, or writingthe correct form above or near to the wrong form The following exampleillustrates the direct correction

Example 1 (from Ellis, 2007: 99)

- Indirect corrective feedback

Indirect corrective feedback involves indicating the location of the error butwithout providing the correct form This can take the form of underlining orcircling the errors, using cursors to show omissions in the student’s text orplacing a cross in the margin next to the line containing the error This strategyguides students to learn by providing problem solving and encouraging them toself-correct their writing

A dog stole X bone from X butcher He escaped with X having X X bone.When the dog was going X through X X bridge over X the X river he found Xdog in the river

X = missing word

X X = wrong word

- Metalinguistic corrective feedback

Metalinguistic corrective feedback involves providing learners with someform of explicit comment about the errors they have made The explicitcomment can take two forms: using error codes or providing metalinguisticexplanations of the errors In the first form, the teacher writes codes above thelocation of the error or in the margin In the second form, teacher numbers theerrors in text and writes a grammatical description for each numbered error atthe bottom of the text

Art Art WW Art

A dog stole ^ bone from ^ butcher He escaped with having bone When thedog

Prep Art Art

Was going through bridge over the river he found ^ dog in the river

Example 3 (from Ellis, 2007: 101)

Art x 3;WW A dog stole bone from butcher He escaped with havingbone.

Prep.; art When the dog was going through bridge over the river heArt found dog in the river

Example 4 (from Ellis, 2007: 101)

(1) (2) (3)

A dog stole bone from butcher He escaped with having bone When thedog

(4) (5) (6)

was going through bridge over the river he found dog in the river

(1), (2), (5), and (6)—you need ‘a’ before the noun when a person or thing

is mentioned for the first time

(3)—you need ‘the’ before the noun when the person or thing has beenmentioned previously

(4)—you need ‘over’ when you go across the surface of something; youuse ‘through’ when you go inside something (e.g ‘go through the forest’)

Example 5 (from Ellis, 2007: 102)

Correction codes/symbols seem to be the most popular way to deal withlearners' written work They involve placing little symbols beside the problemthat there is in the piece and letting the student try to work out what the correct

version might be The useful correction codes are shown in the table below

symbols

Meaning

1 W.C The words are inapplicable with sentences/ meaning

3 V.T Verb tense or GR = more general grammar problems

Wrong tense/ use another tense

4 SP Wrong spelling

5 Art Use article a, an or the for singular noun

6 ^ There is a missing word needed to insert

10 W.O The words in this sentence are in the wrong order

Table 2.2: Correction codes/ symbols

An example of using correction symbols is given below

SP W.f

He lives in a big hause, but he often feels boring

- Focused versus unfocused corrective feedback

With focused corrective feedback, teacher selects one or two types of errors

to correct This provides students with the chance to understand the nature of theerror Whereas, unfocused corrective feedback strategy involves correcting all ofthe students’ errors This has the advantage of addressing a range of errors

2.1.5.3 How to respond to and correct students’ writing

According Brown (2001: 355), writing is the extensive planning stage soerror treatment can begin in the drafting and revising stages The teacher shouldtake the role of consultant when responding to students’ writing This means thatthe teachers just identify the error and provide the students opportunity to fixerrors themselves

- Guidelines for responding to students’ writing are below:

* Guidelines for responding to the first draft (from Brown 2001: 355)

a Resist the temptation to treat minor (local) grammatical errors; major(global) errors within relevant paragraphs- can at this stage be indicated eitherdirectly (say, by underlining) or indirectly

b Generally resist the temptation to rewrite a student’s sentences

c Comment holistically in term of the clarity of the overall thesis and thegeneral structural organization

d Comment on the introductory paragraph

e Comment on features that appear to be irrelevant to the topic

f Question clearly inadequate word choices and awkward expressionwithin those paragraphs/ sentences that are relevant to the topic

* For the subsequent drafts, teachers’ response can include all of the aboveexcept that (a) changes its character slightly

- Guidelines for writing comments on students’ writing:

a Write comments that help students focus on meaning and communicationrather than just form and grammar

b Write notes in the margins of the paper and write a sentence or shortparagraph at the end of the paper, summarizing your marginal comments

c Use questions rather than giving too much advice

d Always find something positive to write on the paper, and make it

specific For example: nice introduction, good description, good/ interestingidea, good information, etc.

2.1.5.4 The role of teacher in providing feedback to students’ writing

Writing is a process of composing from the first draft to the final draft.Students cannot write alone They need the guidance and advisor to make theirwriting better Therefore, they need someone to check the errors of the writingthat they themselves cannot realize This help can be from peer or teacher

Although peer feedback can be helpful to students at any time, teacherfeedback is eventually needed to provide the whole viewing on students’ errors.With complicated errors, teacher feedback is more trusted than student feedback.Before giving feedback, teacher should be a reader and as advisor forstudents The teacher offers guidance in helping students to engage in thethinking process of composing in a spirit of respect students’ ideas He/ she mustnot impose his or her own thoughts on students’ writing Before the final draft is

handed in, “the role of a consultant will be the most productive way to respond”

(Brown, 2001: 355)

When responding to students’ writing, the teacher is there as a facilitator.The teacher offers self-correction opportunity for students by providing indirectfeedback on student’s errors In addition, students are able to express their ideasmore clearly in writing and to get clarification on any comments that teachershave made to their writing

2.1.5.5 Evaluation of student writing

In assessing the students’ writing quality, Jacob (1981: 67) suggests fivecomponents or criteria to evaluate the students’ writing quality: content,organization, vocabulary, language use (grammar) and mechanics

Content of writing must be knowledgeable, substantive, thorough

development of thesis and relevant to assigned topic Organization of writingmust be fluent expression, clearly stated/supported idea, well organized, logicalsequencing and cohesive Vocabulary of writing must be sophisticated range,effective word choice and usage, word form mastery, and appropriate register.With the language use (grammar) in writing activity, the students will create thesentences based on their ideas and the words in the sentences must be arrangedgrammatically which deals with tenses and agreement The last is mechanics ofwriting that consists of spelling and punctuation (capital letter, period, questionmark, exclamation mark, comma, semi colon, and apostrophe).

According to Brown (2001), there are six categories for evaluating writing.They are content, organization, discourse, syntax, vocabulary and mechanics Toevaluate the students’ writing, the teacher should be a judge and a guide at the

same time He argues, “The key to being a judge is fairness and explicitness in what you take into account in your evaluation” The feedback that the teacher

gives should be clear and explicit enough for students to understand That alsoprovides the suggestions and advices for students to deal with their errors

2.2 Review of previous studies related to the current research

The process writing approach has been dominant in EFL/ESL compositionclasses for over two decades now (Brown, 2001; Gordon, 1996; Johnston, 1996;Muncie, 1999) Central to the method is the role of teacher feedback whichhelps students to improve their writing through several stages of composing.Although a multitude of research projects concerning the issue have been done,the findings still seem to be inconclusive (Chandler, 2004; Ferris & Robert,2001; Ferris, 2004; Guenette, 2007; Muncie, 2000) The following section willshed light on the different views on the writing process, and to investigate whataspects of writing are most influenced by teacher’s feedback

Muncie (2002) investigated students’ vocabulary development in process

writing Using the Lexical Frequency Profile (LFP), she analyzed four drafts,including a timed composition which aimed to measure the students’ normalvocabulary range, the first and the final timed drafts, and the mid-draft (notiming) of a composition written through process writing She found that therewas no significant difference between LFPs among the three timedcompositions However, the participants used a higher percentage of moresophisticated vocabulary in the (no timing) free revisions between the first andthe final draft She contends that process writing (even without teacherfeedback) can be a good way to help students extend vocabulary Her researchresult seems to be supported by Ferris and Roberts (2001), who also found thatthe control group (no teacher feedback) was more successful in editing wordchoice errors than other categories, including verbs, noun endings, articles andsentence structure (although it was outperformed by the experiment groups,which receive teacher feedback) In terms of grammar, Young

and Cameron’s (2005) research revealed that the group which received nofeedback also had some improvements in the use of past tense and the definitearticle It is therefore evident that process writing can, to some extent, helpstudents self-edit their rewrites

In a related studies, a heated debate of corrective feedback was raised byTruscott (1996), who claims that feedback on forms should be abandoned since

it does more harm than good (as cited in Ferris, 2004) This view, however, ischallenged by many subsequent publications Lyster, Lightbown and Spada(1999) refer to different studies to point out Truscott’s weaknesses in hisreasoning Chandler (2004), also in response to Truscott (1996), investigates theeffect of feedback on fluency and accuracy by doing experimental research ontwo groups of students The longitudinal study of Young and Cameron (2005)focuses on the improvement of accuracy in new pieces of writing Further, the

question of explicitness in feedback was addressed by Ferris and Roberts (2001),who attempted to answer the question how explicit error feedback should be tohelp students to self-edit their compositions In a similar vein, Sheen (2007)compared feedback with metalinguistic comments and with that withoutmetalinguistic comments to see what type of response is more effective

Nevertheless, teacher mid-draft feedback as mentioned above is criticized

by Muncie (2000), who claims that if the teacher gives mid-draft feedback, ithinders students’ creativeness since they tend to strictly follow what the teachersuggests She argues that such feedback does not have long-term benefits Inorder to avoid what she calls “overshadowing role of evaluator”, sherecommends using peer mid-draft feedback so that the writer has total choiceover which recommendations to use To support her claim, she administered aquestionnaire to 29 upper-intermediate students at a Japanese university so as toelicit students’ attitude to types of feedback A five-scale questionnaire rangingfrom 1 (not at all useful) to 5 (extremely useful) was employed to elicit theirresponses It was revealed that the average rate was 4.03 for peer mid-draftfeedback, and 90% (26 out of 29) reported amendments to their rewrites afterreceiving peer feedback However, 65% reported that they did not utilizesuggestions from their peers This, according to her, implies that they had morefreedom over

Using or not using their partner’s comments while they would mostlyfollow the teacher’s recommendations She suggests that the teacher should givefinal-draft feedback and students should write a summary with the title “How Ican improve future compositions” This summary will keep reminding them torefer back to the directions while writing the next compositions Her claim, Ithink, is premature since she does have enough empirical evidence to argue thatmid-draft feedback given by the teacher does not have long-term effects

Moreover, she did not look at the essays to see to what extent the subsequentdrafts had improved.

Fathman and Whalley’s study (1990) involved 72 students who wererequired to write a composition about a sequence of a story in 30 minutes Fourtypes of feedback were provided, including zero, content, form, and content andform The feedback on form involved underlining all grammar errors, feedback

on content was composed of general comments The original writing andrewrites were graded by two independent raters based on the number ofgrammar errors in each essay Their writing was also graded holistically forcontent based on four criteria: organization, description, coherence, andcreativity The results show that content and form feedback provided at the sametime was as effective as when they were given separately They argue that itmight not be necessary to have multiple drafting since revision and editing can

be done simultaneously However, this suggestion, which discards multi-draftcomposition, seems to be ungrounded because they have not conducted anylongitudinal research to test the claim With a similar research question andmethod, Ashwell (2000) conducted a study with 50 Japanese students Theywere asked to write a 500-word composition with two drafts before the finalversion Four different patterns of teacher feedback were given: (1) content-focused feedback on draft 1, then form-focused feedback on draft 2, (2) thereverse direction (3) both types given simultaneously, and (4) no feedback at all.The form feedback included circling or underlining grammatical, lexical andmechanical errors The content feedback mainly focused on multiple sentencelevel issue, organization, cohesion and relevance The compositions wereassessed by English native-speaker scorers He found that pattern 1, contentfeedback followed by form feedback, was not superior to the reverse pattern orthe mixed pattern In addition, content quality was not significantly influenced