Luận văn the effectiveness of using peer correction on improving writing skills to students in intensive english classes at hanoi law university

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT LA NGUYEN BINH MINH THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PEER CORRECTION ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS TO STUDENTS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

LA NGUYEN BINH MINH

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PEER CORRECTION

ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS TO STUDENTS

IN INTENSIVE ENGLISH CLASSES

AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

PHÁP NGƯỜI HỌC CHỮA BÀI CHO NGƯỜI HỌC NHẰM

NANG CAO KY NANG VIET TIENG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN CÁC LỚP

TANG CUONG TIENG ANH — DAL HOC LUAT HÀ NỘI)

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: Methodology Code: 60 1410

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

LA NGUYEN BINH MINE

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PEER CORRECTION

ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS TO STUDENTS

IN INTENSIVE ENGLISH CLASSES

AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

(NGHIEN cUU TINH BIE! QUA! CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG

NANG CAO K¥ NANG VIET TIENG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN CÁC LỚP TANG CUONG TIENG ANI - DAI QC LUAT IIA NOD

M.A Minor thesis

Field : Methodology Code : 60 1410

Supervisor: Lé Van Canh, MLA

HANOI - 2009

L.1 Identification af the prgblarn

1.2 The Scope of the Study, ào ccee

1.3 The Purpose of the Study

1.4 The Significance of the Study

1.5 The Organization of the Study cscs seen

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.2 Approaches to Teaching Wridng: Producl vs, Process Approach

2.1.1 The product approach

2.1.2 The proocss appToach, ooeiro

2.3 Peer correction

2.3.1 Delinition: Whal is peer correction?

2.3.2 Why peer correction?

2.3.3 How to incorporate peer corection into the writing lesson? Error! Bookmark not defined

Error! Bookmark not defined 2.5 Summary of the chapter „Error! Bookmark not defined

2.4 Previous study on pect co1

3.3 Research Design ceeeeeeeeoce.TiTOrf Boolimark not defined

3.4.1 Data collection instrument - Error! Bookmark not defined 3.4.2 Procedute fesse Error! Bookmark not defined CILAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Error! Bookmark not defined 4.1 Analysis of Students’ general information Exror! Bookmark not defined

4.2.1, Students’ views on the offeetiveness 0[pser correotion 26 4.2.2, Students’ feelings towards the constraints of peer cotrection 35

Number Probability Standard Deviation Statistical Package for Social Sciences

Students’ responses to Statements 1 to 12 Means and Standard Deviations of pre- and posl-questionnaire (tam

1 12 Comparison of students’ attitudes towards peer correction between yre- and post-questionuire (Tem 1 — 12)

Distribution of summed scores of the items 13-17 in the

List of figures and graphs

Sludents’ expericuce in studying English

Students’ self evaluation of their English standard Students’ perceptions of the difficulty of EFI writing

Students’ interest in EFL writing

Students’ opinions about error correction Students’ perceptions of peer correction before the experiment Students’ proference for peer correction

Students’ opinions on whether they use peer correction in the future Reasons for using peer correction in future

Sampling distribution of sample mean differences (Items 1 12) Sampling distribution of sample mean differences (Items 13 — 17)

List of Appendices

Appendix 1: Pre-trealment Questionnaire

Appendix 2: Post-treatment Questionnaire

Page

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Identification of the problem

Of the four language skills, writing is considered a complex skill that most leamers find difficult ta study well, That is boo

skill, As Penny Uz (1996:1 1) puts it “it is a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” and that

“tequires some forms of instructions”

Having taught EFL waiting for some years, I realize that students fhec quite a few problems in leaming writing Worst of all, many learners make mistakes and errors when they

is, therefore, essential for teachers to find out effective methods to overcome this problem,

In many countrics, particularly in Victnam, tcaching EFL writing is included in the curricular and the teaching of writing is just to pass exams, The traditional method smployed

lo leach writing is pradnet-oricnted approach As far as this approach is concerned, teachers focus on what a final piece of writing will be like and the normal procedure is to assign a pizce

of writing, collect it, then retum it for further revision with their errors either corrected or marked for the students to do the correction (Raimes 1983)

In recent years, EFL writing teachers have borrowed techniques fiom first langtags acqusition pedagogy, in particular the process approach to composition, which has been

"

Peer correction is a strategy which has been strongly advised with the process approach to teaching writing and is a promising teaching tool to overcome the above mentioned problem, However, its effectiveness has not been sufficiently researched within my tgaching context This givas the rational for Uke prosont, sturty

1.2 The Scope of the Study

This study limits itself to the examination of the effectiveness of pear correction on students’ writing in the context of the English language program of a university ‘The cffectivencss was toasured by mcans of a stuilent questionnaire rafhar than with a-pro-lest and post-test instrament In other words, the study did not aim to find out the casual relationship between peer comection as an independent variable and student writing proficiency as a dcpendent variable, Rather, the focus of the sludy was just on the students’ perceptions of the

effectiveness of peer correction on their writing

1.3, The Purpose of the Stuily

‘The purpose of this study is of two - fold, Hirst, this study aims at investigating students’ perceptions of the cffectivencss of pesr-comection used as an instructional strategy to improve the quality of learners’ English writings Second, the writer of this thesis would ke

lo suggest some pedagogical implications for teachers in implementing this method teaching EFL writing and suggestions for finther research,

1.4 The Significance af the Study

‘As stated in the previous part, the purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness

of peor correction on improving Icamers’ writing skills in the writer’s teaching context Therefore, the results of this study will contribute a new implication to teaching EFL writue, particularly, to the area of error treatment If peer correction is found to be effective, it will

provide teachers at HEU an alternative method to treat, crtors in students’ corpositions al

small scale, and thus to improve learners’ writing proticieney The study will also provide a

great opportunity for langnage teachers to review and ta reconsider effective ways of responses to various writings, and so pave the way for a better teaching of writing at different seales, More importantly, as being an alternative method, it may requite revision of the curonlly used materials! lexthooks in order to incorporate poor eoogtion in the writing lesson

1.5 The Organization of the Study

‘This minor thesis consists of five chapters In this chapter, the challenge as well as approaches to EFT writing is briefly discussed; scope and rational of tho sludy stated The

purpose and organization of the study are also mentioned, Chapter two is the review of literature which attempts to put the study in a proper context Chapter three describes method and procedure Chapter four reports and analyzcs quantitative and qualitative findings The last chapter presents the pedagogical implications of the study and points out its limitations and suggestions for further ressarch

CHAPTER2: LITERATURE REVIEW

As staled in Clapler 1, the purpose of this sludy is lo explore the effecls of a new approach to L2 writing pedagogy, peer conection To help contextualize this study, we will briefly examine a variety of relevant literature that addresses the challenges of EFL writing, product and process approaches lo (caching writing, and provious studies on poor bođhsék

We will also examine the possible advantages of peer correction and how to incorporate peer correction into the writing lesson

2.1, Introduction

Challenges of EFL writing Writing is considered a complex skill in forcign language learning in general and in EFL learning, in particular EFL teachers and students face certain problems in teaching learning writing As many teachers of English have noted, acquiring the writing skill scoms to be more laborous and demanding than acquiring the other thice skills In

fact, Numan (1999) considers it an enormous challenge to produce “a coherent, fluent,

Teaching EFL writing is rathcr complex because of many dimensions of writing that need attention For example, consider the accuracy of what is written, the originality of the idcas that are expressed, the exganization of those idvas, the altention to the purposa of the writing, incleding the tone and various needs of the audience, and so on, These and other

important dimensions of writing may compete for ihe attention of the teacher and student

throughout the writing process,

For many students, the reason to practice writing is to pass exams or to get a good

grade in the class because the education systems in their countries emphasize writing for

taking tests This focus on writing ta pass exams reduces writing to producing a product and receiving a grade from the teacher This is not likely to make students interested in writing, which become decontextualized and artificial, giving students no sense of purpose

These challenges of EFL writing roqui

an inmovalion in the teaching method to

molivate shudents lo learn and improve their writing proficicney at the same fim

2.2 Approaches to Teaching Writing: Product vs Process Approach

2.1.1, The product approach

The product approach is the traditional approach to teaching writing which focuses on the end result of the act of composition, thal ts, the final drafl of a paragraph, leller, an essay, story and so on, The waiting teachers who subscribe to the product approach are more concemed to sce what a final piece of writing will be like and measure it against oriteria of

“vocabulary use, grammar usc, and mechanical considerations such 4s spelling and punctuations”, as well as content and organization (Brown, 1994: 320) Students in the classes adopting the product approach typically are provided a model and encouraged to mimic it in order to producc a similar product, As mentioned in the previous chapter, the normat procedure is to assign a piece of writing, collect it, then retum it for further revision with their errors either corrected or marked for the students to do the correction (Raimes 1983) A model for such an approach is oullinad below

Stage 1:

Model texts are read, and then features of the genre are highlighted For example, if studying @ formal fetter, students’ attention may be drawn to the importanec of paragraphing and the language used to make formal requests, if studying a story, the focus may be on the lachniques used to make the story inleresting, and students foons on where and how (he wriler employs these techniques

Stage 2:

This consists of controilsd practice of the highlighted features, nsually in isolation, Sa

if students are studying a formal letter, they may be asked to practise the language used to make formal requests, practising the 'I would be gratefil if you would * structure

Stage 3:

Organisation of ideas, This slage is very important, Thase who arc in favour of this approach believe that the organisation of ideas is more irmportant than the ideas themselves and as important as the control of language

2.1.2 The process approach

Process approach lo the teaching of English wriling is am idea thal bogan to flourish 30

‘years ago as a result of extensive research on first language writing and has been advocated in contrast with the traditional product-otiented method of teaching writing, and has been generdlly acceplcd and applicd by English Icachers in Uieir classroom (caching of English writing In process writing, the teacher moves away from being someone who sets students a writing topic and receives the finished product for correction withoul any inlervention in the writing process itself Nunan (1991) clearly states that the process approach focuses on the steps involved in creating a piece of work and the process writing allows for the fact that no text can be perfect, but that a writer wall get closer to perfection by producing, reflecting on,

discussing and reworking successive drafls of a loxt, He adds that while the product-oriented approach aims at developing the learner’s writing skill at sentence level, process approach aims at developing the learner's writing skill at discourse level

‘As the name of the method suggests, process approach to teaching writing requires learners to undergo certain steps before producing a final product Houpt advocates a three-

slop process Lo wriling: /) in-class conversations, 2) a writien draft, and 3) student editing of

herthis own draft According to Oshima anl TTouge (1991), the writing pracess embraces

essentially four steps: pre-writing, plowing (oullining), writing, and revising drafts

Meanwhile, Hedge (1990) supposes that the process consists of different stages which can be

illustrated as followed: “heing mativated to write — getting idea together — planning and ouiintng — making notes — making a first draft — revising — replanning, redrafting — editing

and getting ready for publication” All the ideas above share one common thing, that is,

process approach undergoes certain steps which require learners to fulfill different tasks in

order to construct a good picee of work Here in this thesis, the writer introduces the basic

process scheme: prewriting > draiting > revising > editing > publishing The steps

involved in This process are described in the table below wilh some suggested stratagios achieve each step:

‘An activity that causes the writer to Drawing

think about the subject The writer Talking

understands the purpose of the Brainstorming

Prevriting | Wtiting, discovers the topic, thinks Graphic organizers

thoughts before he begins to write Hield Trips

‘The process of puting ideas down on Taking notes,

paper The focus is on the content and Organizing thoughts

Drafting fluency of the writing, and the writer into paragraphs,

is not preocoupied with grammatical Writing a first draft accuracy or nealness of the draft

The process of refining the pices of Peer editing

writing ‘The writer adds to a writing Conferencing

Revising piece, The writer reorganives a piece Share Chair or Author’s

of writing The writer shares his story Chair

wiler almros his writing with alhers, Displaying in he room

Table 1: 5 Steps of the Writing Process

The process approach lo teaching writing brings about quite a few pedagogical benefits To begin with, it helps writers develop skills to write on their own as wll as develop thinking skills and learning strategies Moreover, the approach emphasizes the individual Jearner’s development of the ability to assess and manage his own learning through the use of

slratcgics and a fboling ofscl-cfficaey,

Product vs Process Approach

+ Model text to be imitated + Model text as resource for comparison + Emphasis on organization of » Emphasis on ideas and idea

+ _ Emphasis on end product » Umphasis on process

+ Teacher as audicnce + Various andicnees according to typ: of

writing, + Teacher as authority » Peer feedback as valuable tool

*_ Inportanee oÊ teacher-oorrcotcd * Importance of conferencing and

Table 2: Product vs Process Approach

2.3 Peer carrecttan

2.3.1 Definition: What is peer correction?

Peer comection is a fundamental clement of a process approach to writing in which students read each other’s writings and give comments or suggestions Peer comection can simply mean conection from fellow studenls, compared to correction by leachers Lin and Hansen define it in a more detailed way, “the use of learners as sources of information and interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally laken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor, or cdilor in commenting on and critique cach other’s drafts in both written and oral formats in the proccss of writing” (2002:1) If students are working on the same assignment as another student, peer correction can mean exchanging drafls and comments ou each others! drafls, Here in this sludy, it refers to any changes made on students’ compositions after the process of students’ exchanging their compositions an¢ proofreading them on their own, ‘Throughout the process of peer correction,

students make corrections without Leacher’s slightest inter fersnec

2.3.2 Why peer correctian?

As mentioned in the previous section, teachers are usually the one who provides correction models for students to follow They arc, tberefore, the sol evaluator of learners? writing Over the past years, peer correction has been applied to replace the traditional method

of exror correction This new strategy has brought about quite a faw advantages to both teachers and Icarners themselves

For teachers, peer correction is obviously advantageous because it frees them from the heavy workload of correcting students’ writing errors, which is a time-consuming, “ledious and unrewarding chore” (Hytand, 1990) They therefore can spend more time preparing lesson plans carefully, developing teaching materials to suit leamers’ need, and doing scientific research to improve their teaching method and quality Stndents themselves are the one who benefit fom this

Second, pocr corcetion provides more chance for students’ social inleraction amd collaboration, According to Larsen-Freeman (2000; 164), cooperative or collaborative learning essentially involves students learning from each other in pairs ot in groups Students bonefil from the givens of the socio-cuttural approach to teaching and learning as il is through the promotion of interaction with peers and teachers that new meaning is constructed and

conveyed Vygotsky’s (1978: 57) work has shown us that cooperative interaction allowed

students to prograss As Johnson (1994: 4) suggests, cooperative learning can be described as

a process with the following qualities:

Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared gaals Within cooperative situations, individuals seek outcomes beneficial io themselves and all other group

member, Cooperative learning ix the instructional use of small groups through which

students work together to maximize their own and each other's learning It may be contrasted with competitive learning in which students work against each other to achieve

an academic goal such as a grade of “A”

Additionally, through group work and pair work, learners can build up confidence and

progress more quickly than those who can only learn dircetly from teachers (Haines, 1995)

Peer interaction is actually one of the means facilitating knowledge construction both formally

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and informally as from the constructivist view of learning, people actively construct kmowledge for themselves and knowledge is based on categories derived fiom social interaction but not observation (Biggs and Moore, 1993:22) ‘Therefore, peer interactivity can

be applied la promote learning,

Last bul nol least, a lot of rescarch findings prove that students can help and get help trom peer writers and readers On the one hand, peer readers can provide useful feedback There is some research evidence supporting this For example, Rollinson (1998) found high levels of valid fecdback among his college-level students; 80% of comments were considered

valid, only 7% were potentially damaging Caulk (1994) had similar results: 89% of his

immediate! advanced FT, students made comments he fell were uscfiit, 60% made suggestions that he himself had not made when looking at the paper He also found little bad advice Caulk added that peer comments were more specific compared to teacher fkedback On the other hand, poor writers can and do revise effzctively on the basis of comments from poor readers Rollinson (1998) found higher levels of uptake of reader fecdback and 65% of comments wore accepted either completely or partially by readers, Mendoca and Johnson’s (1994) study showod thái $3% of revisions mado were incorporations of peer comments Tt may be Ural becoming a cntical reader of others’ writing may make students more ctitical readers and revisers of their own writing

Alli all, the advantages of doing pecr correction in 1.2 writing class Tis 1 one side of students’ benefits which mean to practice and improve students’ writing skills This is the right purpose that all teachers have been working towards

2.3.3, Haw to incorporate peer correction into the writing lesson?

The advantages that peer correction brings about to teachers and learners are obvious For teachers, peer correction helps reduce their heavy grading workload, especially when they teach lage classes For students, it can give constructive information about their writing

‘Therefore, peer correction is considered a common tool to optimize learning opportunities from mistakes learners mwke in writlen compositions and lo encourage the ciliting slagss of

process writing In order to maks peer correction work, there are two important things that instructors must do First, it is of great importance to make students aware of the benefits of peer correction, so that they will responsibly take part in the peer correction process Second, modeling or training learners on how to do poor cerroeliorL ILis advisable Lo use workshoots or forms lo gaide responders lo give approprialc and useful responses,

There are a variety of ways to umplement thus learning strategy Students can exchange their work within their pre-assigned pairs The exchange can happen in or out of class Students can cxchange with a ucighbor in class or papers can be collected by the instructor and then re-distributed An in-class correction will allow students immediate feedback and the

instructor cau expecl the Gnished assignments al the next class mecting Lime Some

complicated assignments would require an out-of-class peer correction in order that students have enough time to complete the task well

Tt should be noticed thal pecr correction is included in the

vising slep Therefore, il

can only be implemented in the writing lesson once students have finished writing the first

drafts Depending on different lessons and schedules, learners’ compositions may be completed in the class time or al home Hence, peer correction can be integrated in the wriling

Jesson following this procedure:

% Procedure

* Sct the writing task Afler completing the first slep, teachers ask students to wrile the first draft Ask learners to double-space or leave a clear margin to reserve space for

correction

* Ask students to oxchange their composilions with a partner, or teachers collect the

work and re-distribute it to all the students in the class to correct it using the correction code Learners underline the mistakes their partner made in his/her writing and add the codes, cither tmderntcath or im the margin

« Ask students to return the work and revise it on the basis of peer correction If there is

not enough class time, teachers can allow them to do the revisions at home, then

submit both the draft with the improved version in the next class, so that teachers can

make @ comparison of students’ before and after peer correction performance

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During collaborative work, it is important for instructors to touch base with each pair

in order to give help or advice promptly

2.4, Previous study on peer correction

Lyster and Ranta (1997) point cut that the research that has focused on the issue of error treatment in second language classrooms in the past 20 years has continued to pose the questions famed by Hendrickson in his 1978 review of fedback on errors in foreign language classrooms, ‘hase questions are

ad?

+ Should learners! evrors be corre

+ When should learners’ evrors be corrected?

+ Which errars should be corrected?

* How should errors be corrected?

+ Wha should do the correcting?

Research on this area has poinled out different correction methods to tackle learners’

Mangelstlorf, 1992, Storch, 1998, De Gnerrero & Villarril, 2000)

In the research conducted by Karegianes et al (1973:203), a quasi-experimental design was employed to determine the effects of a highly-structured peer editing treatment on essay writing proficiency of low-achieving tenth grade students After the ten-week period, the peer

Mangelsdorf (1992) agilaros the question fiom the porspcctives of student writers whether peer review is helpful to their learning, with the result that it not only helps improve the “high order concerns” (Keh, 1990), but also helps them correct and reduce mistakes

Storch (1998) conducts a classroom-based study to provide descriptive accounts of students’ cngagement in a collaborative text reconstruction task which pushes learners not only to produce meaningful text but also pay attention to grammatical accuracy with the prpose of investigating which type of grammatical ilems is of the sludonis’ most concurs,

and finding how students use the reasoning to artive at grammatical decision

De Guerrero & Villamil (2000) adopt the theory of ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) and 4 microgenctic approach to observe the mechanisms by which strategies of revising take shape and develop in the inter-psychological space created when two leamers are working at their respective 7.PDs with a conchision that there is a reciprocal process fir both

Tondors and writers Tt can be concluded tht all 1 rch above shows thal poor feodback is

a beneticial learning process

In short, the strategies to deal with eror correction have undergone changes over the years, from having teacher be the sole svalusior ta involving students themselves in the editing process, The findings above are all conclusive that peer correction is an effective method on improving students” writing proficiency

2.5, Summary of the chapter

‘This chapter has presented a variety of relevant literature to help contextualize this study This reviow has addressed challenges of EFL writing, approaches to L2 writing, peer comection and its advantages and relevant previous studies on peer feedback and how to

incorporate peer correction into the writing lesson

Though developing wriling ability is as important as devcloping olhor skills of al university training, many EFL writers struggle to produce adequate writing This is particularly true because of the challenges of L2 writing that impose on students The process writing model scoms valuable for helping writers develop their writing skill, however, this model alone seems inadequate for improving learners’ writing ability, One reason for this may

be Ihe excessive number of errors on sludents’ cormpositions thal teachers and sludents atternp!

to manage, Another reason may be associated with the tact that comrected fzedback is often delayed and ocours infrequently fo benefit the students Peer comection seems to be a new approach which can help fo sort out the problems of corrective feedback Llence, this new

‘hnique is worth considering and integrating into the wriling lesson

This literature review provides theoretical foundation for the interpretation of data and suggestions in the nex! two chapters

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

‘The purpose of this chapter is to desoribe the research methodology used to answer this study’s research questions, Tl presents the research questions, provides a description of the participants, a brief rationale for the research design In addition, it contains a desctiption of the instrument and procedure used to gather the data

3.1 Rescarch Questions

This study aims at cvaluating the effectiveness of peer correction on improving writing

skills of students in intensive English classes at HLU basing on assessing participants’

porceplions towards this teclmique Therefore, a research question was formulated:

What are learners’ perceptions of peer correction?

This research question attempts to uncover:

(a) De learners consider peer correction helpful?

(b) What are the learners’ perceptions of the value of giving und receiving peer

to a treatment presumed to cause change, Therefore, this study is diagramed as follow

Pre-treatinent questionaire Treahnent — Post-treatrnenit questionnaire

COMPARE,

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© in this diagram represents dependent vanable (students’ attitudes), while X is the treatment administered to the participants acting as the independent variable, Students’ attitudes before and afer the experiment are compared to see if the treatment causes any changes

3.3, Subjects

The participants of this study are teacher’s students in her current intensive English class comprising of 26 students at HLU, all of whom are female, ‘This is not the single-sex class al all, but accidentally there is no mals student in this class This is nol, unpopular because in most intensive English classes or main-stream classes, there usually have the imbalance ratios between male and female students ‘The participants in this study are all third year studenls crmolted in this class, majoring in English for Law, AH of thom have finished the second year with the TOEFL results trom 470 to 500 It, theretore, can be included that their English level is quile high and homogeneous,

3.4, Procedures

3.4.1, Data collection instrument

This study emptoys a single data collection instrument, questionnaires which are considered to be “Ihe most appropriale research instrament for gathering information concerning the attitudes of the respondents” (Gillham, 2000) There are some reasons tor this First, questionnaires are very efffective for studies involving large sample sizes Second they arc vasy to analyze as the data entry and labnlation far nearly all surveys can he easily done with many computer software packages, Third, as the respondents can be remained anonymous, information from questionnaires can be kept confidential Students also féel freer

to respond to the questionnaires compared to face-to-face interview

‘To gather data for the study, two questionnaires were administered to students, one before and the other after the experiment period The pre-treatment questionnaire was given to the subjects right before the experiment wilh the intention to generate data, which would help

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to investigate the students’ initial perceptions about peer correction It set the foundation of comparison for another post-treatment questionnaire, Both questionnaires were written in simple English to make sure that learners clearly and correctly understand them Each questiomaire includes lwo main sections which are described in detail as follow

(D The pre-treatment questionnaire

It consists of two main sections The first section has 6 questions aimed at gathering

gencral information about the participants, their gender, age, cxperience in learning English

and peer correction, and their attitudes towards writing and error correction ‘The second part

includes 17 Likerl-seale ilems to gencrate data about students’ perceptions of peer correction

before the treatment

(2) The post-treatment questionnaire

In the post-treatment questionnaire, the same 17 Likert-scalc items were used to find

out if there were any changes in the subjects’ attitudes towards peer correction after the

experimental poriod, The sccond part vonsisls of lwo questions, ons close-anded, ons øpor ended to investigate whether students like this new technique and will use it in the future ot not ‘The open-ended question is hoped to elicit respondents’ reasons for using or not using

peer corroclion besides the yzasons given in Uke questionnaire

The researcher used one-group pre-treatment questionnaire and post-treatment

questionmaire design, so only one class was treated as the experimental group The pre- and

posl-treatment questionnaires were adrinistercd ta all 26 stud were

collected and found statistically valid

‘The questionnaires of this study are in the Appendix

3.4.2 Procedure

a Training the learners

Training the learners on this technique is vital so that students have an idea of what peer correction is and how to do it, One class-time period training was spent to equip leamers

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with the technique of peer correction and facilitate the treatment period Common error

correction codes were used for both teacher and students during the training as well as

treatment period Ail the codes were explained clearly with given examples to make sure that they were all explicit 10 the sludenls A sarnple paragraph was also used as a pitol suudy with the intention thal students wanld know exactly whal they would do when proofreading ancl correcting their parmers’ compositions

During this study, the participants were trained how to correct their peers”

compositions using correction codes, which are demonstratzd in the table below:

R There is aredundant word I want fo go to Toland to for see tips

Delete this)

s — v Snbjecl—vorb agreement MaryHke all kinds of vegetables,

ag

Vi Verb tense Last year I go to England

# Number error ‘There are 20 student in my class

Att “Article exror She is the friend of mine

ww = Wrong word Anna usually helps his brother with the homework

wi Right word but wrong form lis ambitions is fo become a pilot

Sp Spelling mistake She alway gots up lalc in the morning:

Pro agr Pronoun agreoment crror Bofore handing in your work, they edit it carcfully Frag Fragment sontonce Riccause it rained heavily

Run-on Ruteon sentence 1 came to class late I aver slepl

os Conmna splices She is a teacher, she teaches literature

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wo Word order Thave a house beautifull

Table 3: Codes for peer correction

Those codes were chosen in this study because all the types of errors listed in the above table addressed the main types of errors in foreign language writing, which are:

Morphological errors: all errors in verb tense or form: plural or possessive ending incorrect, omitted, or unnecessary, subject-verb agreement errors, article or other determiner incorrect, emitted, or unnecessary

Semantic errors: errors in word choi

inchuling proposition and pronoun crrars, omitted words or phrases, unnecessary words or phrases; spelling errors

Syntactic errors: errors in sentence/ clause boundaries (run-ons, ftagments, comma

splices), word order, other ungrammatical sentence constructions

* The pllot study

Before the implementation of the designed research, all the participants took part in a pilot study They were provided a short paragraph with errors on it, They were to proofread

th paragraph and concct all the mistakes using the correction codes provided, Below is the sample paragraph and sample correction:

Jack Friedhamm was born to ""? Naw ‘fork in October 25, 1965 He began school

at tha age of six and continued until he was 18 years He then went to New York University

to leam Medicine Ha decided on Medicine because ha liked biology when ha was at

‘School They had two children namad Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens since the

pact fo years Jack is very interested painting and likes to paint portraits of his sun "?

‘The improved version of this paragraph will be like this:

21

Jack Friedhamm was born in New York on October 25, 1965 He began school at the age

of six and continued until he was 18 years old Ha then went to New Yark University to learn Madicine He decided on Medicine hacause ha liked biology when he was at schoo! While he was at University, he met his wite Cindy Cindy was a beautiful woman with long black hair They went out for years before they decided to gat married Jack began to work as a doctor as soon as he had graduated from Medical School They have had two children named Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens for the past two years Jack is very interasted in painting and likes to paint portraits of his son Peter

During this training period, a pro-rcalment questionnaire was given to all the participants (N 26) in order to gather data about students’ initral attitudes towards peer correction before they actually do it

6 Treatment

Bearing in mind students may not proofread their pecr’s compositions at home, or they may do that but for the sake of finishing the task, the teacher asked her students to peer correct their writing in the class time The pairs were not deliberately chosen, but they were chosen at random by the teacher, as having described in Lhe subjects, the sladents’ wriling praficioney

10 weeks (two months and a half) All the topies for writing practice were taken ftom the

currenl textbook: New First Certificate Mas

© Data analysis

Students’ responses lo the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionaire were

collected and processed To investigate if students’ attiludes towards peer correction changed atter the experiment, students’ scores were calculated and distributed in Table of Distribution

of mean scores to compare the difference of scores distributions between pre- and post- treatment questionnaire SPSS 17,0 was used to process the data statistically to compare the means, standard deviations, and variances of students’ scores between the two questionnaires

A paired-samples lost was also cmployed to find oul the levahics and p values of thơ compared scores of pre- and post-questionnaire Should the t-values and p values be found statistically significant, there would be changes in students” attitudes towards peer correction