Elementary learners attitudes towards peer correction in english writing at VUS center

By using a questionnaire, the study investigates elementary learners’ attitudes towards a particular technique of error correction in English writing – peer correction.. The available li

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE

ELEMENTARY LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES

TOWARDS PEER CORRECTION

HO CHI MINH CITY, JANUARY 2015

Table of Contents

Abstract 2

CHAPTER 1: Introduction 3

CHAPTER 2: Literature review 5

CHAPTER 3: Methodology 7

CHAPTER 4: Results and discussion 9

CHAPTER 5: Conclusions and recommendations 11

References 12

Appendices 15

Abstract

It is known that teacher written feedback plays an important role in teaching writing skill By using a questionnaire, the study investigates elementary learners’ attitudes towards a particular technique of error correction in English writing – peer correction The questionnaire findings reveal that students have both positive and negative attitudes towards peer correction, depending on the role the students are playing For instance, when the students correct their friends’ writing, they tend to feel confident and excited; however, when the students have their writing corrected by their peers, they become unsure, worried, and scared to an extent Thus, the researcher suggests that peer correction should be applied in a proper way, with teachers’ careful supervision and monitoring

Keywords: attitudes, peer correction

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

The importance of providing feedback to learners’ writing cannot be denied in the second language learning process The available literature shows that there are various ways to provide feedback that are commonly used in teaching a language: teacher correction (with comments), error identification, commentary, teacher-student conference, peer correction, and self-

correction

Peer correction has been discussed in first language settings (George, 1984; Jacobs, 1987; McKendy, 1990; Herrington & Cadman, 1991) Witbeck (1976) concluded that peer correction leads to a "greater concern for achieving accuracy in written expression in individual students and creates a better classroom atmosphere for teaching the correctional aspects of composition" (p 325) However, in most of the studies, the importance of feedback, ways of providing and receiving feedback as well as what the effect of feedback on students' writing are perceived as crucially significant aspects (Lee, 2005; Noora, 2006) What have been neglected in such studies are the attitudes of the learners and teachers towards error correction (Katayama, 2007)

All of the above arguments have been a drive for this study to be conducted under the title of Elementary Learners’ Attitudes towards Peer Correction in English Writing at VUS

Center

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate elementary learners’ attitudes towards a type of feedback – peer correction Then, the researcher will be able to find an appropriate way to apply peer

correction into practice for better quality of learning and teaching activities

1.3 Research question

The main question of this research is “What are elementary learners’ attitudes towards peer correction in English writing at VUS Center?”

1.4 Significance of the study

There is considerable significance of this study in the English writing teaching activity at VUS Center Firstly by reading this study, teachers of English are expected to have a better view

on learners’ attitudes towards peer correction Secondly, this study will help the teachers of English decide whether to use this feedback technique in teaching writing, hoping that this study will give a contribution to writing teaching and learning activities using peer correction

approach Finally, it is expected that this study will be one of the references for other researchers

in the same field to explore more deeply about learners’ attitudes towards peer correction

1.5 Scope of the study

The study is carried out at VUS An Duong Vuong Center in District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The study only focuses on the attitudes of elementary learners towards peer correction in English writing Hopefully, the findings of the study will reflect the actual situation and help the researcher find out effective approaches to teaching English writing, using peer correction

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Language attitude

Richards, Platt and Platt (1992) have defined learners’ attitudes as “the attitudes which speakers of different languages or language varieties have towards each other’s languages or their own language.” The authors have also emphasized that language attitudes may have an effect on second language learning, and the measurement of language attitudes provides useful information for language teaching and language planning Moreover, Nunan and Lamb (1996) have concluded that “the attitude of learners towards the target language, the learning situation and the roles that they are expected to play within that learning situation will have an important effect on the learning process.”

In brief, language attitudes can be seen as the attitudes of learners towards a language and the learning situation of that language, which express the positive or negative feelings about the language learning process The importance of knowing learners’ attitudes cannot be neglected since learners may lose their language competence easily when possessing a negative attitude Hence, it is advisable for teachers to decrease the negative attitude of learners, and to promote their positive feeling with determination, courage and academic success

As a correction technique, peer correction has been backed by a lot of theories of

language teaching According to Paul Rollinson (2005), the principles operating behind applying this technique are:

1 Peer feedback is less threatening than teacher feedback because students are more comfortable with their classmates and therefore, getting corrected by own friends evokes less anxiety

2 When correction comes from the teacher, it reinforces teacher’s authority In a

traditional language class, the teacher is the authoritative figure and he/she is considered the sole source of knowledge Students play the role of just a passive receiver of information In contrast, the practice of peer feedback leads the classroom to be less dominated by the teacher

3 The involvement of peers in the correction process makes the classroom atmosphere more supportive and friendlier

Since peer correction offers opportunities to the students to be responsible for their own learning, it is also advocated by the practitioners who believe in learner autonomy Ágota Scharle and Anita Szabó (2000) have strongly suggested peer feedback to be applied for checking,

especially, students’ written work They have provided an outline of how it can be applied in classroom; once students finish writing, the teacher gives one essay (or any written work) to each student and students are asked to evaluate each other’s work They correct the errors and send notes to the respective authors about what they have corrected

In conclusion, there is evidence to consider peer correction as a technique which is a considerably “good thing” to do in class Therefore, this study is conducted to acknowledge learners’ attitudes towards peer correction and to find a good way to apply this technique into practice

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research methods

In conducting this study, the researcher used the descriptive method based on a designed questionnaire to collect data needed Elementary students whose ages range from twelve to seventeen at VUS English Center, which is a considerably popular English center, are selected and considered as the subject of the study

All of the chosen learners have been practicing peer correction for a period of four

lessons with the instruction and assistance from the teacher in charge On the next session, all of the students will be given a questionnaire to complete The questionnaires are to be collected afterwards and the data will be processed by using the SPSS 18 software

3.2 Participants and procedure

For the population of this study, twenty one students in an elementary class at VUS English center were chosen During four lessons, the class will be practicing peer correction activity with the instruction and assistance from the teacher, following an outline from Ágota Scharle and Anita Szabó (2000); once students finish writing, the teacher gives one essay (or any written work) to each student and students are asked to evaluate each other’s work They correct the errors and send notes to the respective authors about what they have corrected The next stage is design for the learners to receive an attitude questionnaire which is designed to

investigate their attitudes towards peer correction in English writing

3.3 Research tools

Questionnaire is the central tool of this quantitative research through which questions are answered by participants In order for the questionnaire to be reliable and valid, it is important that the questions are constructed properly Questions should be written so they are clear and easy to comprehend Another consideration when designing questions is whether to include open-ended, closed-ended, partially open-ended, or rating-scale questions (Jackson,

2009) Advantages and disadvantages can be found with each type:

Open-ended questions allow for a greater variety of responses from participants but are difficult to analyze statistically because the data must be coded or reduced in some

manner Closed-ended questions are easy to analyze statistically, but they seriously limit the responses that participants can give Many researchers prefer to use a Likert scale because it is very easy to analyze statistically (Jackson, 2009, p 89)

According to Jackson, it is important to emphasize that descriptive research methods can only describe a set of observations or the data collected It cannot draw conclusions from that data about which way the relationship goes Therefore, this study uses descriptive research tools and mainly describes the learners’ attitudes towards a correction activity which they have

experienced

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The graph 1 below presents the percentage of the learners’ attitudes when they had to correct their friends’ writing In details, 38.1% and 47.6% of the students felt excited and

interested in doing peer correction with others’ writing respectively However, there were nearly 30% of the learners that felt either confident or unsure towards correcting their friends’ writing Surprisingly, only 4.8% of the participants felt worried when they had to practice peer

correction; and none of them felt either bored or scared at all From the result presented, it can be concluded that when the learners had to correct their friends’ writing, most of them had positive attitudes, such as excitement, interest, and confidence

Graph 1: When I correct my friends' writing, I feel:

Similarly, the graph 2 shows the learners’ attitudes when they had their writing

corrected by peers There were 28.6% of the participants that felt interested but unsure and

worried about this activity The percentage of confident attitude was 23.8%, and the number was below 20% for the attitudes of excitement or scare The similar attitude of the learners when they correct or were corrected is the boredom feeling, with 0% presented In brief, it can be stated that

when the students had their writing corrected by their peers, a small number of them had such positive attitudes as interest and confidence At the same time, they also felt more worried and scared

Graph 2: When my friends correct my writing, I feel:

As a result, it can be concluded that the participants in this research felt more confident when they corrected their friends’ writing than the other activity When they had their work checked and corrected, the learners felt more unsure and scared From this result, the researcher feels that teachers who want to apply peer correction need to give careful instructions to the learners in a detailed way In order to be certain and ensure the quality of the learning process, teachers should monitor this correction technique; for example, teachers should check the

comments or the corrections from students so that they can modify the misunderstandings and avoid defective corrections Moreover, since the participants in this research are not fully

developed cognitively and emotionally, it is suggested that peer correction should not be applied intensively in the classroom at this level

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Two general conclusions can be drawn from the findings of this study Firstly, attitudes towards peer correction are not either positive or negative The participants’ attitudes are

significantly different when they were the correctors or were corrected by others The learners had a tendency to feel more positive when they correct their friends’ writing; but they felt scared and worried when they were corrected by peers Secondly, the fact that more than 90% of the learners considered the importance of teachers’ correction shows it is still the teacher’s main responsibility to correct learners’ mistakes

As a result, it is suggested that peer correction should be applied in a modest and proper way, with the teacher’s careful monitoring Furthermore, due to the low level of the participants

of this study, accurate findings with more detailed attitude manifestations cannot be drawn The attitudes towards peer correction thus are encouraged to be investigated with the larger

population, in a different context and with a higher level of English proficiency of learners

Word count: 1957

References

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