Luận văn an investigation into the effectiveness of peer written feedback on the development of esl writing for the 11th specialized english grade in sontay high school

ABSTRACT ‘The study is designed to investigate the effect of peer written feedback on the development of ESL writing skill for the 11" grade.. Students’ [eedback in parlicular corlams

CHU THI PHUONG LINH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTTIVENESS OF PEER-WRITTEN

FEEDBACK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ESL WRITING FOR THE 11"

SPECIALIZED ENGLISH GRADE IN SONTAY HIGH SCHOOL

(Khảo sát về tỉnh hiệu quả của phương pháp sứ dụng ý kiến phản hồi của ban học tỏi việc phát triển kỹ năng viết Tiếng Anh đổi với học sinh lớp 11 chuyên

Anh — Trường THPT Sơn Tây}

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Hanoi — 2015

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTTIVENESS OF PEER-WRITTEN

EEDBACK ON TH DEVELOPMENT OF ESL WRITING FOR TUE 11"

SPECIALIZED ENGLISH GRADE IN SONTAY HIGH SCHOOL

(Khảo sát vé tinh hiệu quả của phương pháp sử dụng ý kiến phân hải của ban học tới việc phát triển kỹ năng viết Tiếng Anh đối với học sinh lớp 41 chuyên

Anh — Trường THPT Sơn Tây)

MLA MLNOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do

Hanoi — 2015

DECLARATION

I confirm that the thesis “4m Investigation inta the Effectiveness of Peer-writien

Feedback to the Development of FST Writing for 11 Grade Majoring English in

Sontay Ligh school” is a presentation of my original research work It was carried

out under the consultant of Prof Assoc Dr Nguyen Van Do

T also declare thal quotation for the information and references im the thesis has

obeyed academic rules

T hereby want to confirm that this research had never bean published anywhere before the submission aud this rescarch is ouly carried out in the Lramework of a master thesis

Tale: -

Signature:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With boundless love and great atlitude, T would like lo send my deepest sincere and

appreciation to the people who devote their valuable work and time for the

researchers during the time conducting the research Without their help, this

rescarch would have never becn completed

Virst of all, 1 would like to express my special thankfulness to my supervisor, Prof

Asaoe Nguyen Van Do for the guidance, support, consistence advice as well as

remarks and engagements through the process of this master thesis All of his help contributes to bring the success to the research

I would also like to send my appreciation to all the participants of this thesis They are Mrs Nguyen Thu Huyen- the former teacher of 11" English gifted class in

Sontay high school, Mrs Le Phuong Lan- the teacher of English and 45 students in

this class, who willingly shared their precious time and efforts to help me complete

the questionnaire and conduct a long series of writing test during four months of

collecting data Without their support, the thesis would never been fulfilled

Thope to send my thanks lo my colleague, teachers and English teaching staffs in

Sontay high school for their valuable critical feedbacks, comments and encowagements

Tast but not leasl, Tam very grateful tomy family and (riends, who always stand by

ame and give me mental support as well as encouragement to complete the master

thesis

ABSTRACT

‘The study is designed to investigate the effect of peer written feedback on the

development of ESL writing skill for the 11" grade The study primarily aims to explore the attitude of 11" grade students majoring Fnglish towards peer writlen feedback activity ‘his study also explores students’ writing aspects which had been

improved thanks to the feedback from their peers The results of the research may be

proved 10 sugges! sore implications for the teacher to exploil more roles of peer written feedback withm ESL writing lesson

Firstly, the sample including 45 students in 11" grade majoring English in Sontay

high school was required to do the proficiency tests to measure the level of

improvement students had thanks to the help of thew peer-feedback After that, half

of them were asked Lo allend the survey to give the data for the atlilude of studenis

towards peer written feedback im the ESL writing The collected data were then presented under the form of tables and charts ‘The result showed that students had mixed attitude towards peer-written feedback However, the number of students

having, positive attitude were out-numbered than those who has negative viewpoint

about it

The main instrument to collect research data were students’ writing tests measured

during the four-month testing ‘he change in the assessment and the mumber of

mistakes which could be realized and corrected indicated that peer written feedback

had improved the quality of students’ writing products im some aspecls

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION

1 Rationale of the study

2 Aims of the study

5 Previous research findings about the study we

6 Organization of the research paper

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

3.1 An overview dƒ feedbadĂ on 1

3.2 Peer-feedback and its formats on language writing 10

4, The purposes and drawbacks of peer-written feedback

4.1 The purposes of feedback on English Second Language writing development |

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1 Context of the study

1.2 The writing program caplied mir grade majoring nghi in Sontay ay high seloal, ce _-

2 Research design

iv

2 Recommendation to exploit students’ more role of peer- written feedback in

2.1 Clear checklist oF rubrics ccc cscs cs tcsssaescnnes eeeesresee., đỒ

2.3 Heedback should illuminate both the sirength and the areas for development4Q

3 Limitation of the study

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

T List of Tables

1 Table 1: The number of population in the two groups of students

2 Table 2: Students’ altitude towards peer written feedback on (heir writing skill

3 Table 3: Writing score scales of students’ Pre-test

4 Table 4: Writing score scales of students’ Post- test

5 Table 5: The disadvantages of poor written feedback on students’ writing

UL List of Charts

1 Chart 1; Students’ experience in English

2 Churt 2: Studenls’ alitude iowards Fnglish language learning

3 Chart 3: Number of students preferring students’ comment or teacher’s comment

Chart 4: ‘The number of errors students make in the Pre- test and Post- test

woes Chart 5: Number of mistakes can be shown and corrected

* Meam: an average score within a set of munber

© Mim: the lowest number ina range

« Max: ‘The highest point or number in a range

« Mode: ‘he most frequently number ina set

Deviation Standard: a measure of the spread of the score within a set of

data

Variance: A measurement of the spread between mumbers in a data set

vii

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the stady

Teedback in education is seen to take a crucial contribution to the improvement of

students’ EST learning Tt takes benefits in improving “both encouraging and

consolidating learning” (Anderson, 1992, Brophy, 1981, Vygotsky, 1978 cited in

Ken Ilyland and Fiona Ilyland, 2006) In most of the traditional ESL class,

especially writing section, giving feedback and correctness 1o students is one of the

important tasks of the teachers, as feedback takes benefits in creating supporting learning environment, as well as instructing students a model sample of writing With the help of teacher, students have fewer burdens with thei work

Ilowever, the help of teacher's feedback in the proficiency of students” ESL writing

skill just has benefits in same aspects The researchers found out that focusing on

the help of leacher only would be problematic as they just understand the ‘outer lay- out’ of the problems without understanding the core reason of the errors and how to

make the writing improved As a consequence, students will have sherl-lerm

improvement on their revised lesson and they will be casy to make the mistakes again ‘thus, one of the duties of teachers is to discover an effective way to facilitate

students’ learning without the help of teacher’s feedback and help them avoid the above-mentioned troubles

To prepare for students a good writing skill, teachers should try to combine different strategies with the aim of helping students learn betler and onhancing writing skill because “Second language writers often benefit most and make most

progress when teachers contribute to this goal through a variety of intervention

strategies available in classroom settings” Skroll (2003) Among many interventions, using students’ peer feedback in writing is one of the effective

strategies Ta this method, students conduct their first writing product In the next

stage, they cxchange it with their peer to receive their friend's feedback.

Despite the effectiveness of written feedback to students’ ESL writing skill, most experienced Linglish teachers in the school still blame the drawbacks of peer-written feedback The reason is Uval sludents? ability is inadequate to give useful feedbacks

‘They have difficulty in indicating the errors and providing suggestions Many teachers do not take advantages of peer written feedback in their USL writing period

as they do nol truly believe i can bring bonefils to their sludents They assume hai peer written feedback just has its roles to the college or university students ‘his rumor is an obstacle that prevents the students from receiving modem learning and leaching techniques, and peer written feedback in specific

Besides, the previous studies show too much conflict The results of the studies depend largely on the attitudes af students toward this kind of feedback, which contributes to the success and effectiveness of peer written feedback From the above mentioned reasons, the research “The effect of peer written feedback on the development af FSI writing for the 11" major English grade ai Soniay high school”

is carried out

2 Aims of the study

‘This research is conducted with the aim of:

(1) Exploring sindents’ altitudes lowards the written peer feedback activity

(2) Investigating the level of improvement students gained afier the periods of testing with peer written feedback method

(3) Suggesting some specific implications for teachers 10 exploit, Curther

effectiveness of peer written feedback in writing lesson

2, To what extents of students’ ESL writing can have improvement thanks to peer-written feedback?

3 Whal are the drawbacks of applying poor-written fecdback in students’

ESL writing lessons?

4 Scope of the study

Feedback applied in writing is such a broad topic, which includes teacher

feedback aud students’ feedback Students’ [eedback in parlicular corlams many

forms, however, within the framework of the study, the researcher hopes to focus

on the students of 11 grade majoring English in Sontay high school to provide written form of feedback to their peers applied in writing skill

5 Previous findings about the study

The large numbers of rescarches and jounal published articles have been carried out to evaluate the relationship between peer-written feedback and the improvement of students’ writing proficiency All of these may use different research methodology and concentrate on their specific aspects; however, all of them try to explore the roles of peer written feedback on ISL teaching and leaming writing In this thesis, the author recommends to summarize some previous [indings related to the study

The first research to be mentioned here is the journal “Effects of Teacher and Peer Feedback on Students’ Writing al Ssvondary Level”, which was conducled

by Ghani, Manuna, Asgher and Tahira The research’s purpose is to investigate the effectiveness of peer written feedback and teacher feedback on the written record af students and then examine the altitudes of than toward [ecdback activity, In order to give the result for the research, the author carried out an investigation in the five government secondary schools in Bahawalpur with the population of 100 students In order to colleet the data, the researcher used

survey questionnaires, students’ pre-test and post test and students’ written

remarks about the whole experimental feedback fram the sample The final

results showed that students Lave positive attitude toward both teacher’s

feedback and peer feedback They are effective ways for students to practice ESL

writing skill and motivated learners lo improve (heir wriffen porformances

Despite that, students’ peer feedback in some aspects are more effective than

teacher's feedback as teacher's feedback is one-way interaction, while students”

peer fecdback provide them ‘“irmmediale feedback”, in which they can ask

questions and seek clarification through discussion

In Vietnam, this topic has been explored by many scholars Before this minor

thesis, an experimental study “Motivating Students to lear EST Writing by

Using Peer Response” had been published ‘Ihe subject of this research was fifty second- year students from English department in Hanoi University of Industry

The purpose of the rescarch was 1o motivate students Lo learn as well as improve

their writing skill The outcome of the research showed that this method had some certain effectiveness to students’ writing Although the thesis had

investigaled carefully, it could nol show the aspects of students’ writmg can be

benefits from this method, Moreover, the thesis was carried out aniong university

students

In sun, the previous research gives a sustainable background for the minor thesis

to be carried out in the environment of high school It is hoped that the result of

the research will take certain contnibution to the real EST learning and teaching system in Vietnam

5 Scope of the study

Students’ feedback in particular contains many forms, however, within the

framework of the study, the researcher hopes to focus on the students of

grade majoring English in Sontay high school to provide written form of feedback to their peers applied in writing skill

6 Organization of the research paper

This research paper consists of three parts: introduction, development and

conclusion The (irst part of (he research paper gives a brief valionale and aims of the study, research questions, scope which the study focuses on as well as the

organization of the study

The main part of the study is the doyclopment, which is divided into three

chapters Chapter 1- Literature review: The aim of the followed chapter is

defining key terms related to feedback, feedback on wnting as well as the wrillen form of feedback Different viewpoints about the strong points and the

drawbacks of feedbacks of linguistic scholars are also analyzed Chapter 2-

Research methodology wiroduces the methods which are used (o collect data, the leaming context in which the study is carried out and the methods of data analysis Chapter 3: - Results of data analysis: In this chapter, the whole database

is collected and analyzed to answer the resoarch questions

‘The last part of the research paper is conclusion, which focuses on summarizing the main findings of the research as well as giving some implications for teachers

lo exploits studerts’ more altention on giving feedback TLalso acknowledges the

limitation of the research and provides implication for further study.

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

i An overview of writing

Writing appeared such a long period in human’s history, and since then, there have

been various defirrition of it The most simphstic view of writing assumed that

“written language is simply the graphic representation of spoken language, and writing performance is much like oral performance” ‘he only difference between them is that writing is “graphic imstead of auditory signal” The definition may be true in some aspects in which writien language is seen as the characters symbolizing the spoken one, which is created to encode and express thought and feelings of

people Therefore, written language takes no difference from the spoken language in

their purpose of communicative function However, this simplistic consideration of writing just explains the minor function and origin of written product In fact,

producing a wrillen product takes much more tame and efforts than a spoken

performance Using language in writing and speaking also do not take the common

rules

Nowadays, wilh the development of educating system when teaching and learning

foreign languages becomes a science, the core characteristics of writing enlarges

much more than ever before Writing therefore, takes the rake as “a system for

interpersonal communication” by using various language styles and expression Tl refers to the taught- and- productive skill that need Jeamers’ strong effort, because

“most people acquire the spoken language {at least their own mother tongue)

intuilively, whereas the written form is in most cases deliberately taught and learned” (Ur, 1996, p.161) On another word, “written products are often the result

of thinking, drafting, and revising procedures that required specialized skills”,

which not all leamers have naturally

Llowever, within the framework of the study, the researcher just concentrates on the

learning fimction of writing, in which “the primary function of this "expressive"

language is not to communicate, but to order and represent experience to our own

understanding” In this sense, writing is conduct in the cnvironment of teaching and leaming, It permits learners to express ideas fluently and train grammar and

vovabulary skill

2 Approaches to writing teaching in ESL classes

There is not a single approach to teach writing However, the minor thesis strongly supports that there are two most common ones which can be applied for training to

conduct an effective writing They are product approach and process approach

21 The product approach

The product writing approach is the dominant wriling mcthodology in the 1980s in Britain and North American nations, It refers to “prescriptive and product- centered” way of teaching writing, which mainly focuses on the final outcome of the process It assumes that learners could imitate the writing sample and transform them to the writing by their own language ‘The strong point of writing product process is that it engages students to study and imitate the model text; therefore, it will be easier for students who are at lower level of leaning Moreover, through studying the model sample, students will build up their linguistics knowledge Through analyzing given samples students also have a chance to identify the strongth and weaknesses of the samples, which is not only better for their writing skill but also improving students’ critical thinking skills

Wriling through produci- approach must obey four slages, which are called familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing At the beginning

of the writing period, teacher should introduce a writing or user guides provided by the textbook as a sample for the students to study and mimic its highlighted features, In the next stage, teacher may design a little controlling activity such as in- class discussion This supports students to practice more useful linguistic knowledge in the model After having a clear analysis [rom the sample, studenis have to wnte their own composition based on their supportive knowledge Vinally, they are encouraged to write their own version before handing in to the teacher

Teacher will be the last commentator, and she pays more attention to their writing form rather than content though the assessment of teacher-centered process,

2.2 The process approuch:

Wriling process approach is the approach that enhances the collaborative groups

and conferencing to create strong motivation and positive attitude toward writing

Brown quoted Ilbow (1973) said that “writing should be thought of an organic,

developmental pro

nol a way lo Iransmil a message bul a way le grow and

cook a message” (pp 14-16) According Kroll (1990), process writing approach

“provides a way to think about writing in terms of what the writer does (planning,

revising and the like) instead of in terms of what the final products lock like

(patterns or organizations, spellings, and grammar ‘'herefore, the conclusion might support that writing process approach focuses more on the process rather than the

final product

‘The typical sequence of process writing approach comprises of three stages ‘I'hey are prewriting, drafting and revising At the initial stage before students conduct a

writer, producl, they can discuss with their peers or their groups lo brainstorm

useful details for their product This step takes a certain important as it helps

students to control the logical ideas of the writing and foresee as many ideas for the

writing as possible Moreover, teachers always support students to brainstorm

before they write because it ensures that students do uot have to think about the

ideas once they really attend to writing procedure In the next stage, students must

encode all possible ideas they can find inl the note fonn The purpose of this stage

is permitting students to judge the quality and usefulness of each detail As a consequence, inadequate details will be omitted and only persuasive ideas will be generated After that, the ideas are organized under the form of a mind- mapping, spider gram or linear form In this stage, the ideas are supported by their adequate

supporting details, explanation or examples However all the needed supportive details are illustrated as brief as possible.

The sccond step requires students to conduct their first writing version based on their writing outline In this step, students must use linking words, explanation and Ulustralion to take clear the topic This firs! woting version is called the drafl as

students will review their writing and have thew final version

The last steps in this writing procedure is called revising, which requires students to exchange their draft wilh thei friends and cach of therm become the readers of cach

other work Finally, the drafts will be returned to their owners to be improved based

on their peer feedback before the final writing version can be conducted In this

final stage, the writing papers will be collected and submitted to their teacher for

assessment

Within the context of the study, the writing proficiency tests are designed based on the process approach because of the obvious connection between peer feedback and

process approach, In their studies, Berg (1999), Keh (1990) and Zhang (1995) state

that peer feedback is actually a part of the process approach ta teaching writing and feedback in its various form is a fundamental clement in this approach

3 Au overview of peer written feedback on writing

of assessment and correction ‘Therefore, feedback can be given by teachers,

classmates or even readers

However, the stady agree wilh the definition that considers feedback as “dhe use of

learners as sources of information” that helps interacting with each other in such a way that “learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by teachers

in commenting and critiquing each other’s performances in both written and other

formats” (Hansen and Liu, 2005:1) It is clear from all the definition is that

focdback is desigued to provide understandable suggestions about one performance

so to bring improvement to the conductor ‘lhe suggestion contains both correction tnistakes and support good production Feedback can be applied in every skill of language learning process, such as listening, speaking, writing or even language grammatical process The problem lays in the fact that the study canmot cover all fields of language skills In the minor thesis, the researcher hopes lo concentrate on the roles of peer feedback on the single writing section

3.2 Peer-feedback asd its formats an language writing

To the field of language writing skill, feedback is seen as a strategy which can

“amprove the quality of written assignments and foster discussion” When giving

out the definition, the researcher intends to focus on the strong points of feedback

and the roles of feedback on the development of leamers’ language leaming On the

other words, students have to read their peer’ wrilien assignments, then comment

and give suggestion for them to revise before handing the final versions to the teacher Based on the comments and suggestion, students will know how to improve

their performance

Feedback on writing section takes many formats, however, as far as Hyland

concemed, feedback in writing is expressed in the three most common ways In the

first lype, teacher may assign students 10 work itt groups of lwo, Ibrec or four and

force them to exchange their first drafts and give comments on each other’s draft before making final versions Another way for feedback in the class is taking students read their own essays aloud, or gelling a colleague lo rad it instead, while the other students listen and provide feedbacks, either written or oral, on the work they have just heard The third way teacher may exploit students to give feedback does not restrict the time for them They can give feedback at any time and condition as long as they feel comfortable to give feedback

Although feedback is expressed by many forms, in the framework of the study, the researcher just focuses on the first type of feedback, in which students work in pairs

10

to give cross check to cach other Morcover, giving poor-cheok is carried out in

written form

4 The purpases and drawbacks af peer-wrilten feedback on English Second

Language teaching and learning

4.1 The purpeses of feedback on English Second Language writing teaching and learning

A number of research show that peer fecdback takes much contribution to students’ writing: (Jacobs, 1987, ‘I'sui & Ng, 2000, Yang, Badger & Yu, 2006) ‘The results

are given as followed:

4.1.1 Save time and efforts for the markers

Peer feedback brings a significant benefit to both the learners and the teachers To students, feedback helps them to correct the mistakes they have as well as have

some suggestion to make iH better, which they carmol recogime on their own

Besides, peer written feedback takes a certain role on the teacher, so the teacher

should exploit more important role of it to measure siudent’s language learning

Icvel and proficiency Based on the writing portfolio which students conduet during

the certain period of time and the comments from their peers, teachers will have an

overview recognition about wriling background of both the ‘feodback giver’ and

‘provider’, their problems and some improvement they may get Iherefore, using

peer written feedback can be helpful and is an effective channel for teacher to apply

in dunimishing the burden work of teachers Tt saves linc and efforts of tc:

they do not have to control every aspect of the writing lesson

4.1.2 Provide students advice about learning

To the leamers, in specific, peer feedback is seen as an “ongoing assessment”, which brings them more benefits than marks or grades In fact, mark is Just a means

to compare learning proficiency of a student with cther ones and sometimes shows

the development they gel during a cortain periods Meanwhile, pecr [ecdback’s role

11

is highlighting the strength and weaknesses of the writers, analyzing their learning progress and directs them how to use Janguage and vocabulary proficiency

Further investigation about the roles ol peer-wrilten feedback (o the development of

students” writmg proficiency suggests that teachers’ feedback mainly generates comments and suggestion at grammatical level Meanwhile, students’ comments

investigate deeper on (he content, ideas, structure, vocabulary and coherence of the written product (Paulus, 1999; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009)

Many students prefer students’ comments than the teacher’s because they feel more

confident and comfortable when exchanging ideas with their classmates Sometimes, teacher's comments distract students from understanding the mistakes

and how to correct them They do not have enough confidence to ask for the help of

teacher On the other hand, peor feedback is more appropriate with learners’ evel af

development or interest Therefore, it is more informative to learners than teacher’s feedback

4.1.3 Improve students’ writing proficiency

‘The most important role of students’ peer feedback on English Language writing

lesson is improving sludents’ writing proficiency For the frst and foremost, peer written feedback to support students with more meaningful language input As the

matter of fact tbat most of the students lack vocabulary input hey can just be

familiar with common words and expression Ax a result, they have difficulty in

expressing exactly their ideas The comments from their peers broaden students’ language input and use them more correctly The practice of peer feedback as a

mean of receiving more individual comments allows “reviewers the opportunities

to practice and develop different language skills” (Lundstrom & Baker, 2009)

Ilyland (2003) states another role of peer written feedback to students, both givers

and receivers Tl provides “a means of both improving writer’s drafts and

developing reader’ understanding of a good writing” When students read the feedback given by their friends on their own writing or give critical comments on their friends’ writing, they will be supplied with a source of vocabulary and

12

structure or strategy to ercate a meaningful writing product AH of these help broaden their awareness of conducting a good writing

4.1.4 Feedback is a farm of motivahon

Linguists have approved that giving feedback brings to students more motivation than the giving mark can do, The scientists approve with the facts that the main duty

of giving marks or grades is just comparing learning proficieney ar level of this student with the others or the improvement they have during a certain period Therefore, students cannot recognize their strong points and weaknesses the need to

concer, Beside these duties, feedback strongly focuses on the wriler’s strong points

and their shortcomings he feedback itself contains the suggestion for students to

improve their writing Therefore, it leads students to a better attitude as well as

exploits the besl knowledge of learners

4.1.5 Peer feedback improves students’ autonomy

One of the long term purposes af giving feedback is improving students’ autonomy

On anolhier word, giving [ecdback helps students to sell-dircet (hair learning process with their own positive attitude When students discuss with their peer about the

feedback, they establish the positive relationship among their friends, learr how to

listening to cach other voice with the purpose of ercating productive is leamung

environment

Moreover, having a chance 1o read the olher students’ writings and compare them with their own, students have better recognition about their background, It takes a

certain role in motivating students to self-esteem their learning inside or outside the

classroam environment as well as to have mare responsibility for their work

4.2 Drawbacks of peer written feedbacks to teachers and learners in ESL writing

lesson

‘The researchers found out that despite having evident advantages, peer feedback has some potential problems that need to be considered (Bostock, 2000 & White, 2009) Some of their certain shortcomings are analyzed in this section

13

4.2.1 The unreliability and invalidity of students’ comments

Hirst of all, the effectiveness of feedback given by the friends mainly depends on the instruction and rubrics for asst

sment from Ihe teacher Belore applying peer

feedback among students, teacher must ensure that ali the students understand

thoroughly the assessment to their students writing and which skills should be

comrolled Otherwise, studenls will miss the control of teacher and provide cach

other with false information

The unreliability and invalidity of peer feedback can have origin from fellow

students First, the wriling background of students is nol good Tn fact, most of the

students do not have enough qualification to give an accurate evaluation and valuable suggestion to their friend’ writing Moreover, students prefer teacher to

orect their writing ralhor (han receiving from their friends They are afraid of Ihe

ability of their students can spoil their product Therefore, they do not have

motivation to attending the process of giving feedback to their friends, or they just

altending [hat process as a forec from their teacher As a consequence, they may nol

be serious in giving correction to their friends

More seriously, students’ giving feedback may be imfluenced by students’

friendship and solidarity among themselves In reality, students who have a closer

relationship may either give more positive comments or do not dare to show exactly

their friends’ mistakes ax the (ear to spoil thew relationship On the other hand,

some students may misunderstand their ideas of the writing and therefore they even produce positive or incorrect comments to their friends

4.2.2 The burden of giving peer feedback to conirollers

Rollinson suggested in his research the negative aspect of giving peer feedback,

which is called ‘time constrain’ In ESL writing lesson in Vietnam, time allowed for

the class is just forty five minules, whereas, leachers and students have to cover

abundant tasks ‘herefore, they cannot spend enough time on analyzing their writing seriously, evaluating the coherence and cohesion of the writing,

understandiry their comprehension as well as giving clfective suggestion la their

14

friends’, If they are forced to do in the class, students can just give a very brief, too general or ineffective feedback Most of these feedbacks are out of students’ expeciation and they hardly learn anything from such useless feedback As a result, the peer feedback is just waste of time and turns unto useless activities

To eliminate all the problems that can happen when applying peer feedback for students in the EST writing classes, teachers have lo control everything for example designing a clear structure for assess, pre-teaching strategies to give useful feedbacks, noise controlling, exploiting students’ attendance on giving feedbacks or forecasting, all the questions (rom learners, etc They are the reasons of increasing

burden work on the teachers.

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The research is carried oul lo investigate siudems” altitude towards peer writlen feedback of students applied in writing lesson and exploring the effectiveness of

this aclivily Lo the improvemert of students’ ESI wriling skills sm the high school

ESL class majoring English Therefore, at the beginning of the chapter, the study hopes to focus on the context of the study It contains the setting of the study, the writing program and the participants of the study Besides, some information about

the procedure to collect data, the instrument used for collecting them and the data

analysis will be analyzed in purpose to help answering the research questions

1 Cantext of the study

1.1 The setting of the smdy

‘The study is intended to carry out in 11" majoring Lnglish grade in Sontay high schoal His one of four training high schools of Hanoi, which is situated in Sonlay

town, about more than thirty kilometers to the west of Hanoi, Every year, the school attracts more than six hundred of students, The total students in Sontay high school

in the school year of 2015-2016 are up to nearly two thousands, and they are divided into majors containing Literature, Mathematics, Luglish, Chemistry, Physics, Information Technology and Ilistory The teaching staff in the school

contains one hundred and fifty people In specific, there are filesn people who are working in Unglish Language teaching division Most of them are well train, and one third among them got an English Master degree Besides, two teachers have still

deen aliending MA course

‘The population selected to support the data for the research are students in 11™

grade majoring Fnglish in Sontay high school, There are thirty seven girls and eight Doys in the class, The English leacher in the class is Mrs Le Phuong Lan, one of the best Hnglish teachers in English division ‘Ihe core reason for the research to collect

data in 11th grade wajoring Fnglish comes from the fact that their English background is good cnough to ensure the reliability and validity of the rescarch

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Morcover, because they are good and supportive students, it is casicr for the researchers to investigate the data for the research

1.2 The writing program applied in 11” grade majoring English in Sontay high

school

The students of 11" English grade use two English textbooks coincidently The

main textbook is “Linglish 11 (Advanced Level), which is compiled based on new

national curnculum 1 was published for the first ime in the school year of 2007-

2008 The textbook is compiled im themed- based, and is divided into sixteen units

Tach unit focuses on sub-skills, containing reading, speaking, listening, writing,

prominciation and grammar They are taught under the direction of communicative

language teaching method

Besides the main textbook, students use another English document compiled by

Faglish division in Sonlay high school and il is used for internal purpose only The

purposes of this document are supplying students with further practice and strengthen their English background The content of the textbook focuses on

improving four English skills as well

2 Research design

2.1 Peer-written feedhack activity

In the second semester of the school year, students have ta focus on 6 lessons, from unit 9 {0 unit TẾ in the textbook English 11- Advanced Level Each writing lesson consists of three parts: presentation, practice and production

As none of the students had formal training of peer written feedback and how to

give wrillen focdlauck 10 their peer al the initial stage all the twenly three participants in experimental group were briefly instructed rules and how to proceed with peer- written feedback activity They also leamt editing principles and {echniques lo make an effective assessment based on the crileria introduced by the

teacher before starting writing lesson After giving some instructions to the students,

researcher had a small activity to help them practice giving peer-written feedback in

their writing Students’ first draft writings were delivered randomly among, participants with the aim of gaining different commentaries on the first draft Then, they were given their pecr’s drafis to road and underline the mistakes in it as well as give suggestion to correct the mistakes Based on these commentaries or suggestion, the writer could revise the writing and make it improved

2.2 Writing cycle

‘The study hopes to focus on the process writing approach on each writing activity

Tt comprises of students’ brainstorming ideas, students’ first draft version, peer-

wnillen feedback, students’ second version, and Leacher’s final comet Tn class,

teacher instructs students how to write some kinds of writing and then they have to conduct their own assignment Because of the limited time, students can just brainstorm (heir ideas and wnite their first version within twenty mumutes Tf there is

enough time, students can exchange their writing for revision in class However,

most of the work had to be carried out at home to ensure that students have enough

tĩne to check crore for their friends’ wring In the next lesson, the wrling

assignment was retumed to its owner Following this, final writing version was

revised based on the comments and suggestion from their friends, Finally, two

writing drafts, which were comprised of the mutial version and the last one was

handed in to the teacher for final assessment In the next lesson, all the previous

writing versions were relumed to the owners wilh the wrilten feedbacks from

teachers The teachers also gave oral commentaries about the commen mistakes for the whole class At the end of the semester, six writing portfolios were collected, and half of them were collected for the researchers to analyze At the final stage of the testing process, another test was caried out to measure students’ writing

proficiency students had gained during the semester In this stage, a written

questionnaire was delivered to the expertmental group to invesligale the atlitude of

students to peer written feedback activity

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3 Participants

The participants for the study were students in 11" prade majoring English in

Sonlay high school The tolal number of students in this grade is forty five, among them, there are thirty nine females while there are only six males The reason for

this selection is thal the role of peer written feedback can just be explored in ils lcarming environment where students have strong motivation to learn and try new techniques Moreover, peer written feedback is a difficult approach for leamers because of their limiled Ianguage background As expected before the rescarch, English gifted students have good English language knowledge to give useful commentaries and suggestions to their friends They were also taught some Iinglish language learning methods in their lower level, so il can create a slrong database [or

the research With these reasons, 11" English gifted students were chosen with the

hope that the result of the study would have a strong impact on the real ESL teaching and leaning in other gifted high schools

4 Data collection instruments

‘Yo conduct the research, quantitative is the sole method to be applied ‘the main instruments used for collecting data for the research are analyzing students’ writing

tests and delivering questionaire

4.1 Writing tests

‘The main tools used in the study are writing tests At the first stage, the pre-test was administrated for the whole students at the beginning of the experiment period to

examine students’ pre-experiment writing proficiency During the fow-month

testing, the whole class was divided into two groups to carry out their own writing

on each unit One group had to apply their peer comment, while the other group did

nol receive students’ feedback, just have comment from their teacher or correc! the

writing drafts by their own

In this stage, drafts on which students give comments and revised drafts were

collected and analyzed with the aim of collecting whal kinds of mistakes Lo be

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found and corrected by thei students Moreover, the researcher hopes to answer the

questions of whether the revised writing version is improved or not

To carry oul the tasting, al (he first weok before the semester, the cxperimental group has to instruct how to give peer written feedback as well as the role and benefits of it to the development of their own writing skill In the later stage, to each

of the writing lesson, the whole class has 15 minutes lo conduct an outhme of the writing and 30 minutes to produce their seal writing version and then exchange their writing to receive feedback with their friends After that, they will bring it back

home 1o give comments to their friends’ wriling and give il to lhe owner on the next

day for revision Lach of their writing topics is assigned by the Inglish teacher in

the class

4,2 Questionnaire

Questionaire was delivered to Lwenly three students of the experimental group in

the final stage of the testing with the aim of investigating thei attitudes after four-

maonth testing with peer written feedback This form of measurement is relevant and particularly efficient for (he researcher in the ficld of time, cfforl and firemecial

xesources Moreover, administering questionnaire, a huge amount of information

can be collected and obtained in a very short period, which is not an easy task with

interview or observation

In this framework of the study, the questionnaire was designed with two distinctive

parts, each of which had different forms and functions Part one of the research

paper aims al collecting studerls’ private profile Tt contains students’ name, how long they had learnt English, the reasons why they choose to learn English as well

as their opinion about the importance of English In this part, multiple choice questions is mere prefer, but there is still open- ended questions, which permit students to clarify their own reasons

Part two of the questionnaire includes five questions Two first questions among

them are designed based on Likert’s scale ‘the answers for the question are

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arranged in number from 5 to 1 according to the agrecment (5~ Completely agree, 4= Agree, 3+ Neutral, 2 Disagree, 1= Completely disagree), The respondents select Ihe answers by licking the number that is best suitable for their option The question 3 and question 4 are designed in the combination of multiple choice questions and open- ended questions The last question is designed under the form

of operrended question only lo exploit ideas of each student about their favorite corrector: teacher or friends, With each answer, students have to give reasons to support their ideas

5, Research procedure

The process to collect data for the research was administrated within the second

semester of the school year 2014-2015, from the beginning of January to the end of May The whole procedure began by assigning the whole students in 11" gifted

English class to do one test lo measure their initial writing level before they have a

chance to examine their writing proficiency with the help of peer- written feedback The writing results were then given mark and encoded by the English teacher and

the researchers Lo mvesligate sludents’ background im ESE writing as well as the

number of mistakes students had on their writing After that, students were given

one period to be briefly introduced the purposes and value of peer-written feedback

They were also instructed sume techniques to give useful feedbacks to their friends’ writing

The main stage of the procedure lasted four months, which provided students a

chance to practice and apply pecr writlen Locdback on their writing lessuns Peer written feedback was applied for students’ first writing draft When students finished their first drafts, they exchanged their writing with their friends to provide

feedback, based on which, students would then rewrote their writing to make it improve

In order to measure how much proficiency students had by providing feedback and

to test the difference between the written products of the students who were helped

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