Peer feedback perceptions and practice in efl tertiary writing classes a study at bac lieu university

Student name: Truong Thi Nhu Y Sex: Female Date of birth: 21/04/1991 Place of birth: Bac Lieu I- Thesis title: Peer Feedback Perceptions and Practice in EFL Tertiary Writing Classes: A

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

-

TRUONG THI NHU Y

PEER FEEDBACK PERCEPTIONS AND

CLASSES: A STUDY AT BAC LIEU

UNIVERSITY

Major: English Language Course code: 60220201

HO CHI MINH CITY, October/ 2020

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

-

PEER FEEDBACK PERCEPTIONS AND

CLASSES: A STUDY AT BAC LIEU

UNIVERSITY

Submitted to the Faculty of English Language

in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in English Language

The thesis entitled Peer Feedback Perceptions and Practice in EFL Tertiary Writing Classes: A Study at Bac Lieu University was successfully defended and

approved on November 5th, 2020 at Hochiminh City University of Technology (HUTECH)

3 Nguyen Dang Nguyen, Ph.D

4 Tran Quoc Thao, Ph.D

5 Dinh Van Son, Ph.D

Chair Reader 1 Reader 2 Member Secretary Member

Student name: Truong Thi Nhu Y Sex: Female

Date of birth: 21/04/1991 Place of birth: Bac Lieu

I- Thesis title:

Peer Feedback Perceptions and Practice in EFL Tertiary Writing Classes: A Study

at Bac Lieu University

II- Objectives and contents:

The current study aims at (1) discovering how peer feedback is used in the EFL

writing classes at Bac Lieu University (BLU) and (2) finding out the teachers’ and

students’ perceptions towards the advantages and disadvantages of peer feedback in

the EFL writing class at BLU 97 English-majored students and 4 teachers were

involved in this study Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from

questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations The findings revealed that

peer feedback was employed in four writing classes and that it is beneficial for

students in terms of self-reflection promotion, confidence and motivation

development, writing competence improvement and improvement of skills in

providing feedback Furthermore, peer feedback is considered to be time-consuming

and less reliable than those of teachers

III- Starting date: 30/03/2020

IV- Completing date: 15/09/2020

V- Academic supervisor: Le Van Tuyen, Ph D

ACADEMIC SUPERVISOR FACULTY DEAN

(full name, signature) (full name, signature)

i

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled:

PEER FEEDBACK PERCETIONS AND PRACTICE IN EFL TERTIARY WRITING CLASSES: A STUDY AT BAC LIEU UNIVERSITY

In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Faculty of English Language, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology

Ho Chi Minh City, October 2020

TRUONG THI NHU Y

ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, TRUONG THI NHU Y, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (English Language) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction for theses

Ho Chi Minh City, October 2020

Signature

TRUONG THI NHU Y

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mr Le Van Tuyen,

Ph D for his invaluable support, useful guidance and accurate comments I am truly grateful to his advice as well as suggestions right from the beginning when this study was only in its formative phase Without his help, thus thesis paper could hardly been finished

I would also like to send my gratefulness to lecturers of HUTECH teaching staff and Post-graduate Institute for their tirelessly devoting lessons and supports to enrich my knowledge over the past two years

I would also express my gratitude to teachers of English division at Bac Lieu University for their constructive and insights responses and continuous support as well as great assistance for this paper

Especially, I am grateful to the students in four classes for their actively and enthusiastically taking part in completing writing tasks and answering the survey questionnaire and interview

Lastly, my special thanks go to my friends and my family who have been by my side and encouraged me a lot so that I could complete my study

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ABSTRACT

English is now an international language that is used worldwide for numerous purposes To be proficient at English language, a person needs to master English language skills Among the four English skills, for ages, writing has been considered the most challenging for not only natives but also for non-native English students Vietnamese students are of no exception At Bac Lieu University (BLU), more specifically, many teaching strategies have been applied to help students overcome obstacles in the process of learning to write English Among these, peer feedback appears to be one of the methods which always attract teachers’ attention This study, therefore, aims at exploring whether peer feedback is employed and find out teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards the use of peer feedback in writing lessons 97 English-majored students and 4 teachers were involved in this study Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations The findings revealed that peer feedback was employed in four writing classes and that it is perceived to be beneficial for students

in terms of self-reflection promotion, confidence and motivation development, writing competence improvement and improvement of skills in providing feedback

At the meantime, peer feedback is thought to be time-consuming and less qualifying than those of teachers Based on the findings, suggestions for further related research are included as well It is expected that this study will shed light in researching on related field of study at BLU

Keywords: EFL, writing skills, peer feedback, perceptions, English-majored

students, tertiary level

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS III ABSTRACT IV TABLE OF CONTENTS V LIST OF TABLES IX LIST OF FIGURES X LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS XI

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Statement of the problem 3

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study 5

1.4 Research questions 6

1.5 Scope of the study 6

1.6 Significance of the study 6

1.7 Definitions of key terms 7

1.8 The organization of the thesis 8

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 Introduction 10

2.2 Teaching and Learning English Writing Skills 10

2.2.1 Teaching English Writing Skills 10

2.2.2 Learning English Writing Skills 11

2.3 Errors in writing 11

2.3.1 Definitions of errors in writing 11

2.3.2 Types of written errors 12

2.4 Corrective Feedback in Writing 13

2.4.1 Methods of Giving Written Corrective Feedback in Writing 13

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2.4.1.1 Explicit / Direct Corrective Feedback 13

2.4.1.2 Implicit / Indirect Corrective Feedback 15

2.4.2 Teacher Corrective Feedback 16

2.4.3 Peer Feedback 18

2.4.4 Practice of peer feedback 19

2.4.5 Self correction 21

2.5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Peer Corrective Feedback 22

2.5.1 Advantages of peer corrective feedback 22

2.5.1.1 Students’ self-reflection promotion 23

2.5.1.2 Students’ confidence and motivation development 24

2.5.1.3 Students’ writing competence improvement 25

2.5.1.4 Students’ improvement of skills in providing feedback 26

2.5.2 Disadvantages of Peer Corrective Feedback 27

2.5.2.1 Low reliability of feedback 27

2.5.2.2 Being harmful for friendship 28

2.5.2.3 Being time-consuming 29

2.6 Error Correction Codes 29

2.7 Previous studies 30

2.8 Conceptual Framework 35

2.9 Summary 37

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 38

3.1 Research design 38

3.2 Research site 38

3.3 Sample and sampling procedures 40

3.4 Instruments 42

3.4.1 Classroom observations 43

3.4.2 Questionnaire 43

3.4.3 Interviews 45

3.5 Data collection procedures 46

3.6 Data analysis procedures 48

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3.7 Reliability and validity 50

3.8 Description of writing course 52

3.8.1 Writing 4: Interactions 2- Writing (Sliver edition) 52

3.8.2 Writing 6: Mosaic 1-Writing (Silver edition) 52

CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 54

4.1 Introduction 54

4.2 Results of the study 54

4.2.1 Practice of peer feedback in English writing classes 54

4.2.2 Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of peer feedback in tertiary English writing classes 65

4.2.2.1 Students’ perceptions towards practice of peer feedback 66

4.2.2.2 Students’ perceptions towards the advantages of peer feedback 68

4.2.2.3 Students’ perceptions towards the disadvantages of peer feedback 81

4.3 Discussions 85

4.3.1 Practice of peer feedback 85

4.3.2 Students’ perceptions of practice of peer feedback 87

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 92

5.1 Summary of the main findings of the thesis 92

5.2 Pedagogical implications 93

5.2.1 For EFL teachers 93

5.2.2 For EFL students 94

5.3 Limitations 94

5.4 Recommendations for further research 95

REFERENCES 97

APPENDICES 109

APPENDIX A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (ENGLISH VERSION) 109

APPENDIX B QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS (VIETNAMESE VERSION) 113 APPENDIX C STUDENT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (ENGLISH VERSION) 117

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APPENDIX D STUDENT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (VIETNAMESE

VERSION) 118

APPENDIX E TEACHER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (ENGLISH VERSION) 119 APPENDIX F TEACHER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS(VIETNAMESE VERSION) 120

APPENDIX G EXCERPTS OF STUDENT INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (ENGLISH VERSION) 121

APPENDIX H EXCERPTS OF TEACHER INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (ENGLISH VERSION) 125

APPENDIX I CLASSROOM OBSERVATION CHECKLIST 128

APPENDIX J WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK CHECKLIST 134

APPENDIX K PLAGIARISM CHECKING REPORT 136

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 3.1: Demographic information of the student respondents 40

Table 3.2: Demographic information of the teacher respondents 41

Table 3.3: Frequency of classroom observations 47

Table 3.4: Cronbach’s alpha indexes of the questionnaire items for rq2 and in total 51

Table 3.5: Cronbach’s alpha indexes of the questionnaire items about advantages and disadvantages in total 51

Table 3.6: Cronbach’s alpha indexes of the questionnaire items in 4 categories about advantages 52

Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics of mistake correction 59

Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of methods of correction 59

Table 4.3: Descriptive statistics of frequency of mistake correction 61

Table 4.4: Descriptive statistics of the time for correction 62

Table 4.5: Descriptive statistics of teacher’s correction instruction 63

Table 4.6: Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards giving and receiving feedback 66

Table 4.7: Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards students’ self-reflection promotion 68

Table 4.8: Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards students’ confidence and motivation development 71

Table 4.9: Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards students’ writing competence improvement 74

Table 4.10: Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards students’ improvement of skills in providing feedback 79

Table 4.11: Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions towards the disadvantages of peer feedback 81

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LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework of the study 36

Figure 4.1 Teacher’s correction of mistakes in writing lessons 59

Figure 4.2 Frequency of methods of correction 60

Figure 4.3 Frequency of mistake correction 61

Figure 4.4 The time for correction 62

Figure 4.5 Teacher’s correction instruction 63

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

BLU: Bac Lieu University

CF: Corrective feedback

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ESL: English as a Second Language

L2: Second Language

PCF: Peer corrective feedback

TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

WCF: Written corrective feedback

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

With the increasing use of English these days, language skills play important roles in language learning process Among four main language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing, writing has its own value and significance for those who want to master the language Altstaedter (2016) indicated that writing, typically considered as one of the four skills that students need to master when learning a foreign language, has partly been included in the curricula in foreign language teaching and learning traditionally Additionally, Hui and Lin (2009) stated that, at the beginning of second millennium, free writing is one of the primary methods that human beings not only use to convey their thoughts but also communicate with one another

Over the past few decades, second language acquisition researchers have had various views on the role and treatment of errors Some strongly believe that errors prevent students from second language development and should be definitely ruled out Others think that errors are beneficial because they play an important role in the target language development In order to have a clear understanding of this issue, different viewpoints will be reported below

In an influential review article, Truscott (1996) claimed that corrective feedback (CF) is of no effectiveness and should be completely eliminated due to its problems of insincere learning, learnability and harmful side-effects In order to support or object to Truscott’s (1996) viewpoint, various empirical studies have been done to investigate the effectiveness of CF on language learning Some studies (Kepner, 1991; Polio, Fleck, & Leder, 1998), at early stage, failed to prove that CF could assist students to foster their writing accuracy In fact, as Truscott (1996) confirmed, a real control group which did not receive any CF is necessary when investigating the effects of feedback Because the control group in these studies did

not receive non-CF treatments, so the findings of these studies cannot be referred to answer the question about the effectiveness Other studies (Ashwell, 2000; Ferris & Roberts, 2001) also probed into CF but only regarding positive effects of CF However, these studies were troubled because of the mistake in the design for testing texts revisions and old pieces of writing Truscott (2007) emphasized that accuracy improvement in revision may be unreal learning and, thus, sheds no light

on the linguistic form acquisition in the long run As a result, the findings of these studies can only be adapted to investigate the effects of CF on revision instead of learning

Twenty years ago, Nelson (1998) suggested that the person most commonly correcting students’ composition in writing classes was the teacher It is reported that traditional teacher comments on students’ writings caused meaningless and unproductive outcomes (Kim & Kim, 2005) During the last decade, nevertheless, a dramatic shift has occurred A common respondent to students’ writing, particularly

in the first drafts, are other students who are considered peers When working in pairs or groups, by this way, students read and respond to their peer’s drafts This increases in the use of peer response derived from numerous sources In the field of TESOL, it is likely that the writing as process approach has been the most vital source It is characterized by prewriting tasks, multiple drafts, and peer feedback on drafts Within process-oriented classroom context, peer response is identified as a pedagogical activity in which student writers help each other discover what they want to express (Zamel, 1982) Moreover, Rollinson (2004) indicated that being traditionally accustomed to receiving instruction in details from teachers forces the students to write for their teacher only, actually not for themselves In that context, the teacher was the only audience responding to their writing products Teachers also became overwhelmed by the task of giving feedback and correcting the students' writing

Nowadays, English is considered as one of crucial factors that help our country make faster development of industrialization and modernization Therefore,

the demand for being proficient at using English is becoming vital among students throughout the whole country In recent decades, thus, learning and teaching English attract much attention from not only researchers but also administrators in Vietnam where English is taught as a foreign language Universities in Vietnam have been making great efforts to facilitate students to reach that goal A great deal

of teaching methods have been employed to develop students’ competence of writing as much as possible In the constant search for methods to fasten and enhance the learning process, many learning strategies had been conducted The main aim is to address effective teaching tools and to apply them in classes in order

to ease and benefit language learning One of the most common tools employed in EFL writing classes these days is peer feedback Students’ writings are read and corrected by their peers when they make mistakes while producing output in the target language, not their teachers any longer As we know, peer feedback is a familiar topic which attracted the attention of not only researchers but also teachers Ellis (2009) suggested that peer feedback relates a response to mistakes produced

by students Moreover, it has been widely considered as the way of involving students in process of sharing ideas, providing and receiving constructive comments

to improve their writing work (Farrah, 2012) Bitchener (2005), Sheen (2006) and Bitchener and Knoch (2008) believed that peer feedback is an effective tool in language learning because it helps develop students’ roles in in-class activities Bitchener (2008) also claimed that the effect of receiving feedback is a significant part of the acquisition process; thus, the discovery of which type of feedback works better as a learning tool should be noticed in EFL teaching

1.2 Statement of the problem

English writing skill is considered as the most difficult for Asian students; and Vietnamese students are of no exception in this case, including students at Bac Lieu University Nunan (2001) stated that, “In terms of skills, producing a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is to do in language It is something most native speakers never master” (p.158) Indeed, it is

always believed that the ability to master writing is the chief goal of the majority of students In fact, successful language acquisition through writing requires resistant practice Writing is considered the most challenging because of its characteristics and teaching methods Therefore, EFL teachers need to consider teaching to write

as a skill by taking into consideration the features and methodology that help students learn to write academically For students, achieving to be proficient in writing skills is a long run process and challenging Problems commonly observed are related to individual awareness and attitudes to learn to write in particular In high school curriculum, students could only focus on grammar competence by having learned the rules of grammatical structures and did related exercise that came later Differently, in the environment of university academy, apart from grammar, they are required to deal with writing Writing simple sentences and paragraphs are for first year students For those who are in second and third year, mastering specific types of essay are required instead This is likely to be a very new language skill, so it is difficult for them to be good at Thus, they lack language competence to produce high quality writing performance As a result, they normally produced poor writing work in English

Furthermore, it is probably because they lack motivation and enthusiasm in their language learning A typical feature observed is that they hesitated to give teachers their writing products and spent a great deal of time finishing writing tasks

It is also seen that they feel scared of being criticized or given comments by their teachers This negative attitude disrupts not only instructional plan but also makes it hard for teachers to facilitate active learning among students (Soo, 2013) As a result, it prevents students from progress, and of course learning outcomes might not be achieved Building students’ attitudes is an important part of teacher’s focus

of duty Teachers should learn from both theories and practical experience on how

to build positive students’ awareness To deal with it, teachers have to struggle in discovering ways to break the uncomfortable feeling in writing in order that they can minimize the behavior of reluctance and passiveness

Many studies have been conducted in order to investigate the impact of feedback depending on whether it comes from the teacher or from a peer student among college students (Braine, 2003; Yang, 2006; Ganji, 2009) Research about the value of feedback has indicated that it is effective and that its effects are still maintained over time Various educational researchers have explored the cognitive benefits of using feedback as a part of learning and found that effective feedback enhances both the giver’s and the receiver’s learning and development (Chandler, 2003; Bitchener & Ferris, 2012) However, fewer have focused on teachers and students’ attitudes towards the advantages and disadvantages of peer feedback in an EFL writing classes Particularly in Bac Lieu university context, the possibility of using peer feedback in writing classes has still not been explored by EFL teachers

It is completely a new tool in EFL writing classes to assess students’ writing Teachers get used to directly and traditionally giving comments on their students’ writing Therefore, they put no faith in effectiveness of peer feedback in their teaching

Taking everything into consideration, this study makes an effort to fill the gap in research by investigating how peer feedback is employed by EFL teachers within Bac Lieu University context as well as addressing teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the advantages and disadvantages of the use of peer feedback in writing classes

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study

This study aims at exploring how peer feedback is used and investigating teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards advantages and disadvantages of the use of peer feedback in the EFL writing class To put it specifically, this study is an attempt to:

 discover how peer feedback is used in the EFL writing class at BLU

 find out the teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards peer feedback in the EFL writing class at BLU

1.5 Scope of the study

In terms of peer feedback, a great deal of dimensions can be investigated including effectiveness of peer feedback in teaching grammar and writing, perceptions of students, teaching techniques and so on The current study, however, focused on investigating teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards the advantages

as well as the disadvantages of peer feedback in teaching and learning writing instead of researching its effect

As for research site, the current study was conducted at Foreign Language Division of Education Faculty at Bac Lieu University The population of the study included around 100 participants from both the second year and the third year English majored students who have quite enough overall knowledge and writing skills and 4 EFL teachers who are currently teaching writing classes

1.6 Significance of the study

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of peer feedback in EFL writing classes It is expected to be theoretically and practically significant

At a theoretically level, the current study examines the employment of peer feedback in EFL writing classes and highlighting the perceptions of not only teachers but also students towards its application It may contribute to the existence

knowledge of peer feedback and enrich the literature of the field of foreign language teaching and writing It can help

At a practically level, the current study will hopefully be a reference for writing teachers who would like to conduct peer feedback as a tool to enhance students’ writing skills The findings of the study are expected to be a useful source

of reference for the teachers to apply peer feedback in the English writing classes at Bac Lieu University Since then, the use of peer feedback among students may somehow be suggested to be conducted in a larger scope in the future in Bac Lieu University where opportunities to use English outside the classroom are limited and peer feedback in English writing class have not been commonly employed It is likely to encourage both teachers and students to raise awareness of the significance

of the role of peers and the value of peer feedback to students’ changes in their performance in production of foreign language learning, especially English writing

1.7 Definitions of key terms

EFL Writing class

It is a foreign language class in which students deal with writing skills The main activities of students in this class is that they take part in writing tasks such as writing sentences, paragraphs, essays, articles, etc

Peer

Peer is considered a person who is the same age or who has the same social status as you do In this study, peers are those who are the second year and third year students majored in English in EFL classes

Peer feedback

Evaluation or assessment from peers, not form teachers In this study, peer feedback are comments or corrections among students

Perception

The way a person notices or think of something, especially with the senses Perception refers to the way sensory information is organized, interpreted, and consciously experienced In this study’s context, perception is what teachers and students perceived towards the use of peer feedback applied in an EFL writing class

Practice

A way of doing something that is organized In this context, practice is the way teachers organize peer correction activities in writing classes

Use of peer feedback

It is the application of techniques of peer feedback used among students to access their peers’ drafts or composition It also refers to the strategies teachers apply to train students the way to give and receive feedback

1.8 The organization of the thesis

The current thesis includes 5 chapters as follows:

Chapter 2 Literature Review

This chapter intentionally presents theoretical background which is considered literature foundation for the researcher to refer and reasonably follow the track of researching Aspects related to teaching and learning writing, previous studies

researching the advantages and disadvantages of peer corrective feedback are included in order to support the field being researched in this thesis

Chapter 3 Methodology

This chapter presents the research methods employed in this study More specifically, this chapter informatively provides the site where this study was conducted, the population of the study, and stages of data collection of the study Three main instruments in this study including questionnaire, interview and classroom observation are clearly identified as well

Chapter 4 Results and Discussions

This chapter is a presentation of data collected from the questionnaire, interview and classroom observation, and discussions based on the findings of the study The findings are displayed to answers to the two research questions in order Following

up the findings is discussions which scientifically analyze the results of the study

Chapter 5 Conclusion

This last chapter is a summary concluding the main findings of the study Then, implications, limitations and recommendations for further research are also provided

on advantages and disadvantages of peer corrective feedback are included The chapter ends with the summary of what have been presented

2.2 Teaching and Learning English Writing Skills

2.2.1 Teaching English Writing Skills

Teaching English writing skills is a large field in the universe of English teaching that draws much attention of English teachers Grabe and Kaplan (1996) suggested that writing is a sort of technology, a set of skills which are required to be practiced and make progress with appropriate teaching methods of teachers Pearsall and Cunningham (1988) stated that the teaching of writing is a challenge work which needs multiple efforts from language teachers to facilitate students effectively Commonly, teaching writing is acknowledged as a process that comprises a change in the teachers’ approach and practices (Murray, 2003)

Teaching writing needs a great deal of investments from the side of teachers Teaching students to write means teaching them to master flow of sentence structures, way to express ideas and how to avoid errors in their writing paper Therefore, teacher should be able to use appropriate teaching techniques and practices so that students make progress According to Raimes (1991), the success the teaching of writing lays on the form, content, writer and reader during the practices in the classrooms Teachers play important role in organizing and facilitating students throughout the writing practice sessions

2.2.2 Learning English Writing Skills

Writing is a bridge that relates the writer with his/her audience by numerous types of language (Jalaludin, 2011) It plays a significant role in our personal and professional lives In academy, writing has become a central and inevitable part as a measure for academic proficiency In this language skill, students have to attempt to gain more management over improvement of their writing competence (Hamed, 2012) Of all language skills, as we know, writing is one of the most difficult and complicated Thus, to be proficient in writing is not an easy duty for students for sure Browne (2007) addressed that writing is a complex activity which includes what one wants to express and how to put ideas in a logical way Therefore, to master writing skill, a students need to think deeply on what she intends to write, what range of vocabulary she wishes to use and how to organize ideas coherently

Learning to write requires self- awareness from the side of students There are many strategies for effective English writing skills learning Among learning strategies, peer review is acknowledged as a formative process, engaging various cognitive, meta-cognitive, and interactive tasks and activities (Mulder, Pearce, & Baik, 2014) In order to provide constructive feedback, at the beginning of the process, students have to gain a clear understanding of the duty and the criteria the teacher provides After that, they review their peers’ work, address their strengths and mistakes, offer feedback, solutions, and assist their peers’ achievement of goals

of their learning how to write In return, students receive comments on their writing paper The next stage is the time when students compare their peers’ products with their own, then evaluate strengths and weaknesses of their own products to improve their writing quality

2.3 Errors in writing

2.3.1 Definitions of errors in writing

Writing in English is perceived one of the most sophisticated among fours skills of English Even native speakers fail to write a good piece of writing

Obviously, it is a difficult job task for EFL students Therefore, making errors in writing tasks is inevitable Whereas the issue of errors in language learning is vital, research in this field is still inconclusive The definition of error could still be perceived from various points of view Many researchers perceived errors in writing

in different ways

Richards and Schmidt (2002) defined an error as language use in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language considers as mistakes or incomplete learning Likewise, Eun-pyo (2002) suggested an error refers to a both overt and covert systematic error of competence that differs from the target language standard Also, Norrish (1987) suggested that an error is a systematic deviation when a student has not learn something and makes it incorrect Similarly, Cunningsworth (1987) confirmed that errors are systematic deviations from the norms of the language being studied Ellis (1996) and Brown (2002) distinguished between covert and overt errors They advocated that covert errors are correct in grammar but could not be understood within the communication context while overt ones are defined to be the apparently ungrammatical sentences

Furthermore, errors is likely to be classified as interlingual and intralingual (Richards & Schmidt, 2002) According to them, former errors are probably considered as transfer errors which is the consequence of a learner’s mother tongue features, including, grammatical, lexical or pragmatic errors On the contrary, the latter errors belong to overgeneralisation in the target language This is due to the ignorance of rules and wrong concepts of hypothesis Additionally, Ellis (1996) stated that overgeneralisation errors occur when students produce false structures based on other structures of the target language Meanwhile, the ignorance of rules

is considered as the use of rules in inappropriate contexts

2.3.2 Types of written errors

Errors encountered in both ESL and EFL students’ writing work are categorized into different categories Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982) classified

writing errors into six various categories including grammatical morphemes omission, double marking of semantic features, irregular rules, wrong part of speech, use of more than two forms alternatively

James (1998) generated five categories of written errors First, it is grammatical errors namely adjectives, adverbs, articles, nouns, possession, pronouns, prepositions and verbs Second, other category is the substance errors such as capitalization, punctuation and spelling Third, word formation and word selection belong to lexical errors The forth one belongs to syntactic errors including coordination, sentence structure and ordering The fifth is semantic errors comprising of ambiguous communication and miscommunication

In a study, meanwhile, Hengwichitkul (2006) pointed out errors at the sentential level namely punctuation, tenses, subject-verb agreement, passive voice, relative clauses, parts of speech, participial phrases, parallel structure, run-ons and fragments More specifically, Runkati (2013) divided the errors encountered in her study into two main types: sentential level and word level The former type of errors are tenses, subject-verb agreement, fragments, word order, run-ons, and punctuation The latter includes articles, prepositions, nouns, numbers and word choice, capital letters

2.4 Corrective Feedback in Writing

2.4.1 Methods of Giving Written Corrective Feedback in Writing

2.4.1.1 Explicit / Direct Corrective Feedback

In the case of direct corrective feedback, the teacher provides the correct form to the students, which is ideal and convenient for students who have low level

of language proficiency and those who are unable to self-correct as well as do not know what the correct form is Various forms includes: (1) crossing out unnecessary words (when the teacher omits any wrong addition from students’ original texts, phrase or morpheme), (2) inserting a missing word, phrase or morpheme (when the teacher adds any missing items on students’ original texts) and (3) writing the

correct form above or near to the erroneous form (when the teacher rewrites a word, phrase or a sentence, providing he correct spelling, structure or form on students’ original texts) (Ferris, 2006) Direct corrective feedback can cover a variety of problems in students’ texts It is beneficial in a way that it provides students with explicit guidance about how to correct their mistakes Moreover, Bitchener and Ferris (2012) also pointed out that direct corrective feedback tries to help students make changes in their writing and improve their writing performance in future tasks Ferris and Roberts (2001) also revealed that it is beneficial in solving errors

of prepositions as well as other issues related to lexical level Furthermore, she concluded that it is also effective in the end of the writing process to help students concentrate on the remaining errors in their texts and improve their future writing

To some extents, Shintani and Ellis (2013) expressed that direct corrective feedback is more likely to support learning when students have low knowledge competence of a grammatical structures They concluded that based on direct correction, students are able to remember longer grammatical features in at sentential level, thus, avoid making the same mistakes in future performance Also, Chandler (2003) discussed that direct corrective feedback enables students to perceive the correct form immediately while indirect corrective feedback does not show students about the accuracy of their hypothesized corrections This is suitable

in case of students have limited or poor writing competence With explicit corrective feedback, teachers can simply indicate that an error has been made or they can give metalinguistic feedback in details (Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006) With explicit corrective feedback, students have an opportunity to understand what specific errors should be corrected

Explicit corrective feedback has widely been examined in numerous studies Sheen (2007), in a recent study, revealed that direct corrective feedback may be practical and helpful in promoting students’ acquisition of grammatical features in particular However, Ellis (2009) suggested that direct corrective feedback requires minimal practicing from the side of the students, not only from the teachers

Therefore, it may not contribute to long term learning process Yilmaz (2012) tested

48 native students of English who has no Turkey background Two different types

of corrective feedback were employed in this study The findings showed that explicit feedback outweighed the recast, a type of indirect feedback In a study, Karim (2013) investigated the effect of both direct and indirect corrective feedback

on students’ revision on the same piece of writing In this study, 53 ESL students at intermediate level were distributed into 4 small groups: direct, underlining, metalinguistic and a control group Being involved in this study, students were required to write a new writing two weeks later The findings indicated that group treated with direct corrective feedback outperformed the others in terms of grammatical accuracy

2.4.1.2 Implicit / Indirect Corrective Feedback

Whereas explicit corrective feedback refers to teacher’ direct provision of correction to their students’ products, implicit corrective feedback involves the fact that the students have made an error but without actually correcting it Many researchers viewed indirect corrective feedback in various ways Ellis (2008) suggested that indirect corrective feedback emphasizes the role of students in understanding and correcting their errors rather than being provided with the corrections According to Ferris and Roberts (2001), indirect corrective feedback is

a feedback strategy that indicates the existence of errors without providing the correct form In this type, teachers do not provide the students with the correction Instead, they only provide indications that make students aware about their errors For example, teachers provide students with general clues about the location where errors are and type of errors by using lines, circles, codes, marks, highlights or cursors to point out omissions in students’ text (O’Sullivan & Chambers, 2006) Moreover, teachers can put a cross in the margin next to the line that includes an error (Talatifard, 2016) Additionally, Elashri (2013) divided indirect feedback into two sub-types, including coded and uncoded Regarding the coded indirect feedback, the teacher underlines the errors and then writes symbols above those

errors After that, the composition is given to the students to be corrected because those symbols motivate them to think about how those errors have to be replaced Meanwhile, as for uncoded indirect feedback, the teacher underlines or circles the errors instead of writing symbols above them By this way, the students are forced

to identify the existence of errors themselves and brainstorm the way how to correct them

Additionally, Bitchener and Knoch (2008) agreed that the indirect feedback

is beneficial for upgrading long term acquisition because students in this case are cognitively challenged to correct the errors based on their acquired knowledge Hence, this type of feedback helps increase students’ engagement and attention to forms As a result, it helps promote students’ problem-solving skills capacity as well In a study, moreover, Moser and Jasmine’s (2010) appreciated the benefits of this type They revealed that students whose writing assignments were indirectly corrected error codes achieved remarkably better gain than those who were directly corrected in their essay revision by the teacher On the other hand, Srichanyachon (2012) argued that students with low level of writing proficiency may find it difficult to identify and correct errors even when they can notice location of errors

2.4.2 Teacher Corrective Feedback

Written corrective feedback (WCF), including unfocused and comprehensive, is supposed to be full of troubles for not only teachers but also students As for teachers, written corrective feedback distracts them from giving feedback on other important elements in writing, namely content, organization and genre In an article, Lee (2019) discussed that in writing classes, teachers often devote a large amount of time to give comments on errors of grammatical features

in students’ piece of writing Lee (2010) pointed out that WCF makes teacher feel that they are like marking machines which repeatedly do the same job day by day Similarly, Hyland (2010) stated that having to provide feedback on all written errors

is tiring and causes psychological and emotional impact, especially in case teachers

have multiple writings texts to correct and grade with deadlines ahead As result, this may lead to inaccurate errors corrections And if students fail to recognize teachers’ feedback, it is difficult for them to fix and thus hardly achieve the goal of improvement of writing According to Sheen, Wright and Moldawa (2009), moreover, dealing with papers full of red inks is overwhelming, confusing and discouraging to students Lee, Yu and Liu (2018) also reported that teacher WCF has negative effect on students’ writing motivation and enthusiasm They may force them to be reluctant or scared of being evaluated by teachers

However, teacher WCF is widely applied in the majority of L2 writing contexts since it is beneficial and necessary to some extents Lee (2019) confirmed that although more written corrective feedback is not better, he still believed in positive effects it brings to both teachers and students For example, when teacher

do not have to puts too much time and effort to correction process, they feel free to give comments on content, organization as well as other vital issues in students writing Moreover, it also helps build a more supportive learning environment in the classroom, which encourages a more positive attitude towards errors Instead of concentrating on errors, WCF can allow teachers to help students identify their gaps

in written accuracy in order that students are helped to develop their written accuracy in a relaxing manner Additionally, teachers can easily assess and give feedback with pre-writing instruction and post-writing reinforcement According to McLaughlin and Talbert (2006), when teachers apply ‘less is more’ in their WCF context, they also take active steps towards their own successive professional development Furthermore, benefits of teacher written corrective feedback to students is also undeniable With focused WCF, students tend to notice the input with awareness and understanding (Bitchener & Storch, 2016) Especially, when post-feedback grammar reinforcement activities are conducted to consolidate student learning on certain target grammar items, students will remember and avoid making the former errors in their future writing Hence, WCF is beneficial to students and able to facilitate their L2 development Another advantage is that

students are like to know more exactly what types of error to notice whenever they write, thus, this can assist their goal setting, self-monitoring and self-assessment

2.4.3 Peer Feedback

Literature on definition and characteristics of peer feedback is definitely enormous Peer feedback is acknowledged to obtain multiple names such as peer response, peer assessment, peer review, peer editing, and peer evaluation (Bjima, Kashef, & Nejad, 2013) Similarly, Ma and Shen (2017) stated that peer assessment

is also called peer review, peer feedback, peer critiquing, peer response, peer evaluation and peer editing Saito (2013) suggested that peer feedback is a student-centered activity in which students use criteria to evaluate peers’ writing performance and generate feedback Like studies on peer assessment in writing classes (Braine, 2003; Kurt & Atay, 2007; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009), in a book

named Guide to Peer-Assessment, Wride (2017) defined peer assessment as a

“natural extension of the move from a teacher-centred to a student- centred mode of education, which emphasizes the active engagement of students in their learning, learner responsibility, metacognitive skills and a dialogical, collaborative model of teaching and learning” He also stated that in peer assessment activities, students make decisions about each other’s work and decide what constitutes to gain effective work Similarly, Liu and Carless (2006) believed that peer feedback is an interactive process through which students engage in conversations accompanied with performance It is basically considered rich detailed constructive comments without formal grades Supporting this viewpoint, Farrah (2012) suggested that peer feedback refers to engaging learners in the process of sharing and receiving ideas Being applied commonly in higher education and professional development, peer feedback is generally defined as the application of standards to evaluate and provide feedback on the work of peers or colleagues Besides, it is a significant skill for students to learn during their formal education (Theising, 2013) Topping (1998) highlighted that peer feedback involves students generating correction on the performance of their peers Such feedback can be delivered in a wide range of forms

namely written comments, grading, or verbal feedback Significantly, the students receive more information for their own learning by playing both the role of evaluator and being assessed themselves, (Reinholz, 2015)

In recent years, peer feedback has been attached greater significance since student-centered pedagogical concept is being developed and student-centered teaching approach is now employed in the majority of language settings Within the scope of the this study, the term peer feedback is considered an activity of response

in which students played the role of evaluators working in pairs to exchange and mutually evaluate their writings based on feedback checklist suggested by the researcher to give comments and improve their work by giving the errors correction

2.4.4 Practice of peer feedback

Using peer feedback has become a model in process teaching of writing for many decades and has been widely employed The success of peer feedback practice depends much on the preparation as well as the steps to conduct the activity

In the peer feedback practice, when working in pairs or groups, students write the first draft and exchange it with their peers for correction Then they read other’s paper and give comments, usually based on the feedback checklist of from their teacher Weigle (2002) mentioned that the feedback checklists should focus on five certain criteria of components in writing including content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics It is believed that feedback checklists are beneficial to the whole process because they help students generate feedback feasibly and easily Students are not confused the feedback provided would be more accurate because they know exactly what to do on their peer’s piece of writing

Furthermore, to make peer feedback practice success, Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan (2017) affirmed that training session should be highly carried out before the practice Min (2005) also hold it that peer feedback training helped confirm the language competence of students and enhance skills of providing feedback later

More specifically, Lam (2010) mentioned that peer feedback procedure should

comprise four steps: clarifying, identifying, explaining and giving suggestions He

also concluded that teacher intervention also helped contribute to make the implementation of peer feedback activities profitable in the classroom Hence the degree of teacher’s involvement is a crucial factor to foster students’ autonomy and awareness during the process

In a study, Farrah (2012) investigated the impact of peer feedback on student’s writing performance and their attitudes towards this technique 105 male and female students were put into 2 groups: experimental and control To collect data for the study, the researcher used pretest and post-test along with pre and post questionnaire At the beginning and at the end of the course, both groups of students took pre and post writing tests The aim of the former was to make sure that the two groups had the same level of writing while the latter explored if there were differences after peer feedback was employed Besides, a 20- item questionnaire was distributed to students at the beginning and at the end of the course to survey students’ views about the effect of peer feedback on their writing learning as well Pre questionnaire was used to make sure that the two group had the same attitudes towards peer feedback Meanwhile, differences in students’ attitudes after peer feedback process were explored based on post questionnaire During peer feedback process, students were asked to write paragraphs and essays every week Then, they were asked to give comments on their classmate’s writing The researcher gave them a checklist so that they could refer to evaluate their classmate’s work The students were also trained how to give constructive feedback by the researcher before they gave comments to their classmates’ writing Based on their friend’s comments, they revised and edited their work several times before they submitted their writing

Kuyyogsuy (2019) similarly conducted a study to investigate the effect of peer feedback on students’ English writing ability in L2 writing class A mixed

method was employed in which pretest, post-test and self-written reflection were used during the process 21 third-year English major students involved were asked

to join a writing class for nearly 11 weeks In the study, students were required to

write a narrative paragraph on the topic of “An interesting day last summer” as a

pretest and post-test to explore students’ English writing competence Moreover, self- written reflection were also used to measure how much the students has learned during peer group discussion Before peer feedback session, the researcher spent first three weeks training student on how to give feedback based on concepts and guidelines in Min’s (2005) and Lam’s (2010) This session consisted of three stages namely modeling, exploring and consciousness-raising In the modeling stage, the after researcher had introduced peer feedback activity and explained the benefits of peer feedback training to students, the researcher demonstrated the writing process, a four step procedure including clarifying, identifying, explaining and giving suggestions, gave peer feedback checklists and coded five types of errors In exploring stage, students were assigned to do some exercise related to four step procedure, errors and checklist with examples Afterwards, they exchanged their tasks and discussed the errors Then, seven students in each group were collected to be interviewed about peer feedback materials In the last stage, consciousness-raising, students had to write a narrative paragraph in group of three with mixed level of English competence A students asked for clarification or even debated if there were any unclear comments from their peers This stage witnessed peer feedback happen in a natural way

2.4.5 Self correction

In the case that teacher feedback has several drawbacks such as students’ pressure and students’ personality, self-correction is an appropriate option (Hajimohammadi & Mukundan, 2011) According to Bitchener, Young, and Cameron (2005), self- correction is considered as an indirect corrective feedback in which teachers provide students with chances to apply their own correction on their writing performance by themselves One of the typical features of self-correction is

that it draws students’ attention to their individual errors and forces them to not only make some notice but also correct them However, teachers also play the role of instructors who set the items that need correcting into the mind of students and ready facilitating if necessary

Research on self-correction (Kubota, 2001; Maftoon, Shirazi, & Daftarifard, 2011) revealed that mistakes in students’ writing paper were remarkably lessened For example, Wakabayashi (2013) conducted a study focusing on self-correction among advanced EFL students She reported that students correct their own drafts improved their final writing products with significant improvement compared to the former drafts Additionally, some researchers found out that self-correction was much more effective than teachers’ correction and thus students had more positive attitude towards this type of correction Yang (2010) confirmed that self-correction empower students to manage, assess and edit their text to improve them because self-correction help identify grammatical errors Furthermore, his findings revealed that self-correction help students notice other’s comments about their writing products Similarly, Fahimi and Rahimi (2015), in a study, also revealed that self-assessment instructions service students not only to plan and revise their texts but also evaluate their own writing progress Moreover, Ganji (2009) expressed his support to self-correction He stated that this method may have a long lasting effect

in students’ memory because they are directly and actively involved in their writing process

2.5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Peer Corrective Feedback

2.5.1 Advantages of peer corrective feedback

Many studies have confirmed the benefits of peer feedback towards the development of EFL writing and the language learning process In foreign language settings, peer feedback has been understood to provide students with opportunities

to use language in a meaningful way (Saito, 2013; Sato & Lyster, 2012) Many researchers have reported that peer feedback can be evaluated as an effective

learning experience because it helps upgrade students’ writing competence in a way

of allowing them to play the role of writers who produce writing tasks and reviewers who offer comments on peers’ tasks (Hansen & Liu, 2005; Lam, 2010) Rollinson (2005) and Wakabayashi (2013) found out that peer readers can provide useful feedback and the student writers are able to revise more easily and effectively

by referring the peers’ comments in their writing Topping (1998) addressed that peer review of writing “appears capable of yielding outcomes at least as good as teacher assessment and sometimes better” (p 262)

2.5.1.1 Students’ self-reflection promotion

It is reported that peer feedback provides students with a variety of sources

of constructive comments, develops self-awareness, enhances motivation, promotes their critical thinking skills, and supports their social skills (Farrah, 2012 & Orsmond et al., 2013) The student in Tsui and Ng (2000) study also pointed out that he is aware of his own mistakes thanks to reading his peers’ work Despite having made the same mistakes as his peers, he could not identify his own, but his peers’ Moreover, as revealed in Mendonça and Johnson (1994), peer feedback increases students’ critical thinking ability and perception of proficient writing competence Responding critically to their peers’ writing, students are able to apply ideas into their own writing work after reading and reviewing carefully their peers’ paper Additionally, to offer constructive and critical feedback, the students need to put their effort and notice to transfer the knowledge they have obtained to their peers Their level of cognitive awareness were thus emerged Khusnia (2015) confirmed that when students provide comments on the positive aspects of peers’ writing, they offer hints on how their peers are able to improve their writing work in return His findings indicated that peer feedback could enable students to take responsibility for both their learning and reviewing in the evaluating tasks Additionally, students are also engaged in critical self-reflection on how they learn and reflected on their paragraphs, essays, along with identified strengths and weaknesses in development process Last but not least, it is said that peer feedback

boosts students’ ability to self-regulate their own learning to write and perceive how

to minimize the gap between current and upcoming writing performance

2.5.1.2 Students’ confidence and motivation development

Research in the field of peer feedback highlighted the relationship between peer feedback and confidence and motivation development In a study, Ferris (1995) found that peer feedback helps students increase their confidence They felt themselves believed in their writing when participating in writing activities Similarly, peer feedback is believed to allow students to become more independent and active Tsui and Ng (2000) revealed that peer feedback helped promote the awareness of ownership of writing performance since the students considered their peers’ comments less powerful rather than teacher’s feedback They also concluded that the students could make their own decision if they should take their peers’ comments or not Therefore, the students become less dependent on the teacher and more confident in themselves as writers in the long run process of writing learning Additionally, Hyland (2000) also believed that peer feedback stimulates students to participate in the writing activities and make them more active instead of being dependent on teachers According to Rollinson (2005), peer feedback is less scary than teachers’ since students are more comfortable with their peers and, thus, being given corrective feedback from classmates reduces anxiety or worries Furthermore, the engagement of peers in the peer assessment process enables the learning atmosphere to be more supportive and relaxing Boud et al (2009) also addressed another advantage related to autonomy in peer assessment, which was that students gain more practice in communicating in certain subject area They are able to generate their understanding and have it evaluated by their peers as well as to learn from playing the mutual role In addition, peer processing includes groups of students being collectively responsible for addressing their own learning requirements and planning how these might be identified This is a significant skill

as well as kinds of interaction needed in future employment Indeed, learning to operate with others to reach mutual goals seems to be a necessary requirement for

co-operating in the society According to Tulung’s (2008) findings, students felt more comfortable and self-confident when carrying out communicative activities with other students rather than with their teacher They perceived that peers tend to be sympathy with them when making mistakes because they have the same language proficiency

2.5.1.3 Students’ writing competence improvement

Studies focusing on peer feedback positive effect on students’ writing competence are widely reported Diab (2011), in a study, compared the students’ writing quality between a peer feedback group and a self-correction group in a writing class at a Lebanese university He reported that the peer feedback group produced importantly better second drafts than the self-correction group Students after receiving comments from peers make progress in vocabulary use and grammatical features while those who are without peer treatment maintained several mistakes in the second drafts of writing

Meanwhile, Kamimura (2006) claimed that Japanese university students of both high and low-English proficiency benefited from peer feedback and improved their writing skills Instead of being commented by only one teacher, students get various perspectives from a more diverse audience who are their peers As a result, giving and receiving feedback from peers enable students to enhance the quality of their writing because it brings them opportunities to share ideas and give constructive comments These benefits make a strong foundation for students’ effective writing abilities Similarly, Liu and Hansen (2002) focused on its effectiveness in writing improvement They claimed that peer feedback activities in writing contribute to students’ language cognition and linguistic growth Lundstrom and Baker (2009) also stated that peer feedback helps develop students’ ability to express ideas academically in their writing drafts They concluded that with the supportive feedback from student reviewers, student writers considered correction

as guidelines for editing writing elements in their drafts before dropping a line in