Using peer written feedback in improving students’ paragraph writing skills

Therefore, peer feedback is frequently applied but its effectiveness is yet undetermined. With an aim to have a deeper insight into this issue, a research on two classes of Vietnam Maritime University (VIMARU) in Hai Phong was carried out.

STUDENTS’ PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS

Le Thi Minh Phuong 1 Phan Thi Mai Huong 2

1 INTRODUCTION

Within the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently considered one of the important dominant tools in enhancing the process of learning English writing According

to Hyland (1990), providing effective written feedback is one of the most important tasks for English writing teachers Ferris (1995) shares the same belief when claimed that teacher feedback has been indicated to be desirable for the development of student writing Bitchener, Young & Cameron (2005) debate that written feedback should be provided as it

is often neglected and misunderstood by students

There are some main reasons why a lot of teachers have chosen to use peer written feedback in the writing classroom First, peer feedback has great influence on the success

of teaching and learning In this method, students exchange their papers to their peers It means that there are more opportunities for collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate This is very necessary to the progress of teaching and learning English Second, peer feedback is essential to the teaching and learning writing because peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can do revision effectively on the basis of the comments from peer readers Last, it is found that when students become critical readers of others’ writings, they will be more critical readers and revisers of their own writings However, using peer written feedback is not easy because students’ level of English proficiency is not always the same and this method also takes a lot of time from teachers and students

Therefore, peer feedback is frequently applied but its effectiveness is yet undetermined With an aim to have a deeper insight into this issue, a research on two classes of Vietnam Maritime University (VIMARU) in Hai Phong was carried out By applying survey approach and analyzing documents of 80 third-year students, the writer learned more about the way students give feedback in paragraph writing, the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback; and the effectiveness of this tool, hence, have a better decision whether to use this method in teaching the writing skills in the future or not

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition

Various researchers define the term “feedback” in different ways, among which the definition from Hyland & Hyland (2006) is one of the most comprehensive Hyland views

1 MA., Vietnam Maritime University

2 MA., Vietnam Maritime University

feedback is crucial for both encouraging and consolidating learning and this significance has also been recognized in the area of second language writing Indeed, “feedback is a key component of second language writing programs around the world, with product, process and genre approaches all employing it as a central part of their instructional repertoires” (Hyland & Hyland, 2006: 15)

According to Chaudron (1988:33), feedback which is contrasted with the narrower notion of correction is therefore “an evitable constituent of classroom interaction” and “from the teacher’s point of view, the provision of feedback is a major means by which to inform learners of their accuracy of both their formal target language production of their classroom behavior and knowledge” It is a significant concern of students and teachers alike and both feel it is an important part of the writing process (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Ferris, 2002)

It is therefore not surprising that much has been written about the issue both in teacher education and second language research literature

2.2 Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing

2.2.1 Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing

Peer feedback in many famous researchers’ point of view has a lot of advantages that help to make the teaching and learning of writing more effective

One of key advantages of peer feedback is that both givers and receivers of feedback improved their writing ability and also enhanced their critical thinking skills Peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can and do revision effectively on the basis of comments from peer readers And when students become critical readers of others’ writing, they will be more critical readers and revisers of the own writings In addition, Lundstrom and Baker (2009) carried out a study in a similar context to investigate whether it is receivers

or givers of peer feedback who benefit most The authors point out that although the givers and receivers of feedback benefitted equally, students who gave feedback surpassed their peers in their writing abilities This strongly implies that students are able to look at their own writing in a more critical manner while they participate in the process of providing feedback

Peer written feedback also gives the teacher a better chance of closely following the progress of individuals and groups (Rollinson, 2005) First, peer written feedback helps teachers check if students are giving the proper type of feedback and can provide actual examples of positive and negative feedback, which is difficult to do with accuracy and depth in oral feedback Second, when writing assignments are turned in accompanied by the previous draft(s) and the peers’ comments, it is easier for teacher to ascertain which ideas originated with the student author and how well the student was able to respond to and incorporate the feedback and suggestions from peers, something that would not even

be possible with What is more, teacher’ time may be saved by eliminating certain editing task, especially in large classes, thus freeing them for more helpful instructions and guidance

(Rollinson, 2005) Also, in large classes, teachers often do not have enough time to write students with thorough feedback because peer reviewers will notice different aspects of the paper

2.3.2 Argument against peer written feedback in teaching and learning of writing

While some of the above studies suggest positive aspects of peer feedback, other researchers point out that peer review is a difficult task According to them, this is due to various reasons

A major problem with peer response is that students find it hard to identify problem areas and may even offer inaccurate or misleading advice (Horowitz, 1986) Students also find it difficult to judge the validity of their peers’ comments (Leki, 1990) Aspects such

as cultural and educational backgrounds as well as a lack of training are significant factors that can contribute to the success or failure of peer feedback (Leki, 1992; Nelson & Carson, 2006)

Another issue requiring some consideration is that student characteristics Rollinson (2005) also affirms that many students may not easily accept the idea that their peers are qualified enough to evaluate their writing, so they may need a significant amount of initial persuasion of the value of peer written feedback Besides, some students may feel uncomfortable to give critical comments either because they want to maintain group harmony or because they were reluctant to claim a degree of authority

2.3 Using written comments in peer feedback in writing

There are various tools can be applied in peer feedback in writing such as oral comments, using checklists etc However, in this study, the researchers focus on students’ practice of giving written peer-feedback, the difficulties they might encounter, and whether the practice is effective in improving their writing skill

In the written comment method, students, after reading their peers’ writings, give comments by writing down their notes or ideas on those Written comments that take the form of a paraphrase of the ideas, expresses, praises, questions, or suggestions are more productive than an end comment like “Good”, “Not Bad”, “Well done”

An effective way for students to provide feedback to their peers is written comments

on assignments and assessments Written feedback is concrete and permanent Their peers can read and reread the feedback to better understand and then improve their writing sheets better Shepherd (2005) and Black et al (2004) point out that students are more likely to meet their learning goals when commenting focus on the specifics of the learning task and the student’s learning issues The best comments help the student think about what he is doing well, identify what he needs to do to improve and understand how to improve

In this research, data was gathered through the analysis of the content of the feedback provided by peers For that purpose, a guideline of analysis have been designed based on the proposal of Nicol (2011) which evaluated the feedback through the following categories:

- Task development

Feedback is centered on the objectives of the task

Feedback is oriented towards the learning results

Feedback could be transferred to other learning tasks or practical activities

Feedback is balanced between the negative and positive aspects of assignment Feedback enhances students’ reflection

Feedback stimulates the students’ implication and engagement with the task

Feedback refers to the students’ competences

- Formal aspects

Language correctness

Structural aspects of the assignment

Use of norms of written communication

Ability to produce changes

- Motivational aspects

Feedback is able to motivate and improve students’ self-esteem

Assertiveness

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In order to accomplish the objectives, exploratory research was conducted between February to March 2020, among a non-random sample of 80 students from VIMARU undergraduate programs in third-year English major The participants were all the students involved in the subject Writing 2 which types of paragraph writing imparted in the first year During the course, students have been introduced and involved in an experience based on the use of peer-assessment During this process, learners revise first draft of their peer’s piece of writing and give peer-feedback with the first time of free writing and the second time based on a given form In order to perform this task, at the beginning of the course specific guidelines on how they have to provide feedback, what kind of feedback they could provide and also they have been trained on the procedure

At the end of the experience, a guideline for the analysis of the feedback has been designed Data was also collected through the administration of two questionnaires: one for students and another for the teachers

3.1 Research questions

With such aforementioned aims, the study was carried out in order to answer these three research questions:

1 What types of feedback do the third-year students of VIMARU provide to their peers?

2 What are the benefits of using peer assessment in writing from the students and teachers’ perspective?

3 What are the shortcomings of using peer assessment in writing from the students and teachers’ perspective?

In order to obtain adequate information, this study used two methods including document analysis of students’ peer written feedback and survey questionnaire for students

3.2 Data collection and analysis procedure

The author divided the process of the data collection into 2 stages

At the first stage, 80 students were asked to complete the feedback form Each one of the indicators in the feedback form is evaluated with a Likert scale from 1 (less) to 4 (a lot) The guideline was validated and piloted by the research team At the end of the process, all students provided a total of 237 feedback units

Data gathered through semantic analysis was completed with information obtained through two questionnaires: one for the teacher and the other for the students Both contained closes items, in which each item had to be evaluated in a scale from 1 to 4 The participants could also freely express their opinions in an open section of the questionnaire

The two questionnaires contain items organized around the following aspects:

a Satisfaction in relation to the activity: satisfaction with regard to the frequency of the feedback, to the workload, to the training received at the beginning of the activity

b Aspects related to the feedback received: feedback helps to develop competences,

to enhance the learning process, to improve future learning, and to improve engagement with learning

All 80 students involved in the experience have answered the questionnaires at the end of the process In addition, all four teachers teaching the subject were also asked to complete the questionnaires

4 DATA ANALYSIS

This part demonstrates the result of data gathered from both teachers and students and the semantic analysis responses obtained from the final evaluation questionnaires

The results are divided in two main sections: on the one hand, a descriptive analysis

of the type of feedback that the students have given to their colleagues; and on the other hand, the data of the questionnaires of the students and teachers on their experience of peer-assessment developed in the classroom

4.1 Student’s practice of giving peer written feedback

4.1.1 Feedback on paragraph organization

The four main points in paragraph organization the students were expected to give feedback to are the topic sentence, supporting ideas, the conclusion and the coherence of the whole paragraph Students were informed to focus on these four main points when giving feedback to their peers The data analysis shows that not many students focused on the mistakes related to the paragraph organization

From the data analysis, it is revealed that percentage of students who gave feedback

on coherence is the least (only 20%) Coming after is conclusion (30 %) The percentage of

students who gave feedback on supporting ideas was higher but not much which takes up only 35% And the highest percentage of area students gave feedback on was topic sentence

It makes up 45%

And among 9 students gave feedback on paragraph organization, there is 3 students (30%) providing suggestions for their peers to correct the mistakes while the rest did not

4.1.2 Feedback on grammar

In contrast to paragraph organization, all students paid attention to grammar when they gave feedback to their peers They indicated the mistakes for their peers by underlining the mistakes and using the symbols to call out the name of mistakes

Although all students indicated the mistakes of grammar, not all of them provided suggestion for correcting mistakes 55% the students provided suggestion while 45% of them did not

The most common mistakes related to grammar that students made were use of verbs, articles, preposition and punctuation Therefore, only these kinds of mistakes were examined more closely to see how students gave feedback on grammar

There are totally 138 indicated mistakes of the four types However, the mistakes indicated in each type have different percentage The highest percentage belongs to the mistakes related to the use of verbs (72%) The number of mistakes related to articles and preposition are nearly the same (one is 8% and the other is 7%) The number of punctuation mistakes indicated is the lowest It is only 5%

Among 138 mistakes indicated, students only provided 61 suggestions (44%) And there are only 53 correct suggestions and the rest are incorrect Although the percentage of the indicated punctuation mistakes is the lowest, the percentage of the correct suggestion for it is the highest (50% equally to the article (50%) In contrast, the percentage of correct suggestions for verb mistakes is lowest (11%) while the percentage of correct suggestion for mistakes related to the use of preposition is 40 %

4.1.3 Feedback on vocabulary

Beside grammar, vocabulary is also important to students when they want to improve their writing Therefore, students pay much attention to vocabulary when giving written feedback to their peers’ writing It is reason why all students indicated the mistakes and used symbols to call out the names of mistakes However, after showing the mistakes, not all of students provided suggestions to correct the mistakes The percentages of suggestion provided makes up only 38% while 62% did not

Of all the vocabulary mistakes in writing, the most mistakes that students made were those related to word form, word order, word choice Therefore, only these kinds of mistakes were examined more closely to see whether the feedback actually helped students improve their use of vocabulary in writing or not

There are totally 292 indicated mistakes of the four types However, the mistakes

indicated in each type have different percentage The highest percentage belongs to the mistakes related to the word choice (57%) The percentage of mistakes related to word form

is 24% And the rest is the word order

Among 292 mistakes indicated, students only provided 80 suggestions And there are only 56 correct suggestions and the rest are incorrect The percentage of the word choice it is the highest (85%) The percentage of correct suggestions for word order mistakes is lowest (10%) The percentage of correct suggestion for mistakes related to the word form is 20%

4.1.4 General comments feedback

The data show that not all students gave general comments on their peers’ writing sheets Only 65% of them gave while 35% did not However, students tended

to give short statements or general comments not specific They are usually “Good”,

“good content”, “good idea” “very good”, “Not bad”, “Need improved”, “To many mistakes”, “bad writing”

4.1.5 Students’ using the checklist when giving feedback

Analysis of the students’ feedback showed that all the students followed the checklist when giving feedback to their peers 12 of them (15%) gave some specific comments with clear suggestions for improvement concerning both the organization and the lexico-grammatical mistakes (although the feedback givers themselves made several mistakes while giving their comments), e.g.: “This topic sentence is very good That’s interesting memory Your written have many mistakes about tense You should use the past simple tense in your written The reader can understand the relationship between the ideas in the paragraph It’s a paragraph so you shouldn’t write with essay form” (feedback on Phung Thi Hoa’s writing)

However, for most of the students (85%), the feedback is general, without much specific desirable information The students pointed out the mistakes but not all gave specific suggestions for their peer correcting the writings For example, when they

gave their general comments, they only wrote “content is very simple, and it isn’t clear” without giving the reasons why the content is simple or in what ways it is not

clear, and how to make the content sophisticated and clearer

4.2 Students’ difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers’ writings

Analysis of this session is to answer question 2 and is based on the students’ responses to the questionnaire When giving feedback to their peers’ writing, students were encouraged to indicate the mistakes and provide correct suggestions Therefore, this survey questionnaire was used to examine the difficulties students coped with when indicating the mistakes and providing correct suggestions And of course, in this part, the author only focusses on the difficulties directly related to the paragraph writing only

4.2.1 Students’ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings

As shown in the table below, with different aspect students have different levels

of agreement

(Percentage of students)

Students’ difficulties in

indicating the mistakes related

to or commenting on:

Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

a The grammatical structure of

b The controlling idea conveyed

c Whether the topic sentence is

d The relevance of the supporting

Table: Students’ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings

4.2.2 Students’ difficulties in providing suggestion the mistakes in the peers’ writings

When giving the feedback to their peers’ writing, beside help the peer indicates the mistake, the students also are encouraged to provide suggestion to help their peers improve the writing sheets Therefore, this part would investigate the difficulties students coped with when providing suggestion to improve the mistakes

(Percentage of students)

Students’ difficulties in providing

suggestion the mistakes related to Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

a The grammatical structure of the

b The controlling idea conveyed in

c Whether the topic sentence is too

d The relevance of the supporting

f The use of verbs 4 12 4 20 40

Table: Students’ difficulties in providing suggestion the mistakes in the peers’ writings

4.2.3 Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback

Like paragraph organization, in order to find out answer for the question whether peers written feedback helps students improve their writing or not, the author compared between the students’ first drafts and their second ones The author focuses on the mistakes indicated in the first drafts and the way they were corrected in the second ones

Types of mistakes indicated in the first draftsThe number of mistakes The number of mistakes changed correctly in the second drafts

Table: Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback

4.2.4 Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback

Types of mistakes The number of mistakes indicated in the first drafts The number of mistakes changed correctly in the second drafts

Table: Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving written feedback

5 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

5.1 Findings

Firstly, the data shows out that when giving the feedback to their peers ‘writing, with four main areas (paragraph organization, grammar, vocabulary and general written comment), students tended to pay much attention to the grammar and vocabulary All of students indicated the mistakes related to grammar and vocabulary And besides, a great number of students also give suggestions to correct those mistakes Students pay little attention to paragraph organization About the general written comment, students did not know how to give useful comment to help their peers to improve their writing

The second, the data shows the difficulties of students when giving feedback to their

peers’ writing The percentage of students who had difficulties in indicating the mistakes and

in providing suggestions to improve mistakes is higher than the percentage of those who did not In addition, there were still a large number of students who stayed neutral

The last is the result related to the improvement after receiving the feedback from their peer According to the data, there was little improvement in paragraph organization

of the second draft About grammar and vocabulary, with the written feedback from their peers, students improved their writing much However, the percentage of grammar is higher

5.2 Implications for teaching of writing using peer written feedback.

5.2.1 Pre-training activity

First, the teacher should train their students the way to evaluate their writing The teacher should introduce a checklist with the basic criteria for students to follow Base

on this set of criteria, students could decide whether their writing is good or not While introducing those criteria, teacher should explain each criterion specially and clearly to avoid misunderstanding and ambiguity For example, the teacher can provide students with some examples or small tasks and then ask them to work individually, in pairs or groups

to decide whether they are good paragraph or not In this way, students not only know what they should focus when giving comments on their peers’ writing, but also know which aspects they should pay attention to when creating a paragraph

Secondly, the teacher should raise the students’ awareness of importance of peer written feedback to their writing and ask them not only to revise their own work but also give their friends comments with greater responsibility The teacher should show that they themselves highly appreciate the work of giving peer feedback and promise to give critical responders some bonus remarks

5.2.2 Intervention activity

The intervention activity is an on-going activity which means that the teacher has

a great responsibility for maintaining a close contact with students and intervene in their process of practicing peer written feedback because although students can provide their friends helpful feedback, they still encounter with a lot of difficulties which need to be solved with the teacher’ help The teacher can move around or sit beside students to provide support and sometimes can express their own opinion of students’ work or students’ way of commenting In this way, both students and teacher can get benefits from the on-going process because the students can have chance to ask their teacher about some misunderstanding problems and the teacher can have an overall picture of peer written feedback activity

5.2.3 Communicative discussion after peer written feedback activity

Teacher can pick out some typical writing mistakes and problems and give students chances to comment and make suggestions on such mistakes The teacher can give the writers time to raise questions about their uncertainties about peer feedback and the reviewers have chances to give full explanation for their comments This activity helps students understand more about each other