Effect of teachers' feedback on freshmen's motivation to learn writing skill - a survey research at Hanoi University of business and technology

Types of written feedback HUBT teachers use in writing lesson………29 III.I.2.The influence of teacher written feedback on HUBT freshmen’ motivation to write ………..…31 III.1.3.. The influenc

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NGUYỄN THỊ HƯƠNG LAN

Effect of teachers’ feedback on freshmen’s motivation to learn writing skill – A survey research at Hanoi University

of Business and Technology

(Ảnh hưởng của việc phản hồi của giáo viên đến động lực học kĩ năng viết của sinh viên năm thứ nhất: Một nghiên cứu tìm hiểu

tại trường đại học Kinh doanh và Công nghệ Hà Nội)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis Major: ELT Methodology Code : 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2012

  

NGUYỄN THỊ HƯƠNG LAN

Effect of teachers’ feedback on freshmen’s motivation to learn writing skill – A survey research at Hanoi University

of Business and Technology

(Ảnh hưởng của việc phản hồi của giáo viên đến động lực học kĩ năng viết của sinh viên năm thứ nhất: Một nghiên cứu tìm hiểu

tại trường đại học Kinh doanh và Công nghệ Hà Nội)

M.A Minor Program Thesis

Major : ELT Methodology Major code: 60 14 10

Supervisor : Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, M.A

Hanoi - 2012

Table of content

PART A: INTRODUCTION………1

1 Rationale……… 1

2 Aim of the study……… ………2

3 Scope of the study………2

4 Research questions ……….………3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ……… ………… 4

Chapter I Literature review ……….……4

I.1 Motivation……… ………4

I.1.1 Definition of motivation………….……….….………4

I.1.2 Motivation in second/foreign language learning ………….…… ……5

I.1.3 Types of motivation and their effect in language learning….………6

I.1.4 Vietnamese students’ motivation in learning writing ……….………7

I.1.5 Summary of main issues in motivation and Vietnamese students’ motivation in learning writing……… ………8

I.2 Teacher feedback ……….………9

I.2.1 Definition of teacher feedback in language learning and teaching……9

I.2.2 Feedback as an extrinsic motivation to student learning ………10

I.2.3 Feedback in teaching and learning writing ……… ……… ……13

I.2.4 Types of feedback in teaching writing ………14

I.2.5.What types and what ways of teacher feedback best motivate students to write? ……… ……….……18

I.2.6 Summary of teacher feedback and it effect on student motivation to w r i t e ………21

Chapter II Methodology ……….………….22

II.1 Context of the study……… ………….………22

II.1.1 Time distributed to English at HUBT……… 22

II.1.2 English course book at HUBT………22

II.1.3 Time and schedule distributed for writing skill………… …………23

II.1.4 How HUBT teachers give feedback to student writing …….………24

II.2 Participants……….…….………25

II.3 Data collection instruments……….……… ………….…25

II.4 Data collection procedure and analysis ………27

Chapter III Finding ……….……29

III 1 Written feedback ………29

III.1.1 Types of written feedback HUBT teachers use in writing lesson………29

III.I.2.The influence of teacher written feedback on HUBT freshmen’ motivation to write ……… …31

III.1.3 The methods HUBT teachers give written feedback in writing lessons……… ……33

III.1.4 The influence of written- feedbacks-giving methods on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write ……….………36

III.2 Oral feedback………40

I I I 2 1 T yp e s o f or a l f ee d ba c k H U BT t e a ch e r s u s e in w r i t in g lesson……… ………40

III.2.2 The influence of teacher oral feedback on HUBT freshmen’ motivation to write ………41

III.2.3.Whether oral or written feedback encourages HUBT freshmen to write more.……… ……43

Chapter IV Discussion ……….………46

IV.1.Written feedback………46

IV.1.1.The types of teacher written feedback in writing lessons and their influence on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write ……… ………….…46

IV.1.2.The methods teachers give written feedback in writing lessons and their influence on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write …… ……… 48

IV.2 Oral feedback……….……… ……50

IV.2.1.The types of teacher oral feedback in writing lessons and their influence on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write ……… ……50

IV.2.2.Oral feedback versus written feedback ……… ………51

IV.3 General discussion on HUBT teacher feedback on freshmen’s motivation to write ……… ….52

PART C Conclusion ……….…… 54

1.Summary of the finding……….………54

2.Recommendation ………55

3.Limitations……….……….…………56

4.Suggestion for further studies………57

References ……… …… 58

Appendix 1 Questionaire –English version……….….………I Appendix 2 Questionaire –Vietnamese version….………….………VI Appendix 3 Interview transcript with students ……….……… …XII

List of abbreviations

HUBT Hanoi University of Business and Technology

EFL English as a Foreign Language

List of tables and charts List of tables

1 Table 1.Williams and Burden's (1997) framework of motivation in language

learning, (cited in Dornyei, 1998)……….… 10

2 Table 2 Components of foreign language learning motivation (Dornyei, 1994a: 280, cited in Dornyei, 1998) ……….……… 11

3 Table 3.The category of feedback in teaching writing employed in this study ……… 17

4 Table 4.Description of the questionnaire … ……….26

5 Table 5: The frequency of HUBT teacher written feedback in writing lessons……… 29

6 Table 6: The influence teacher written feedback on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write ……… ….……… 31

7 Table 7: The frequency of the methods HUBT teachers give written feedback in writing lessons ……… …….………….33

8 Table 8: The influence of feedback-giving-methods on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write ……… ……….37

9 Table 9: The frequency of HUBT teacher oral feedback in writing lessons ……….40

10 Table 10: The influence of HUBT teacher oral feedback on freshmen motivation to write ……… 41

11 Table 11: Oral feedback versus written feedback ………… ……… 43

12 Table 12: The reasons for oral feedback ……….44

13 Table 13: The reasons for written feedback ………45

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

There are four main reasons for this study Firstly, as a teacher of English at

Hanoi University of Business and Technology (hereafter HUBT), the author notices

that HUBT freshmen need motivation in learning writing Many of HUBT freshmen show their frustration when writing They complain about the difficulties and low scores in writing Besides, their writing still has many mistakes Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to find out the way to motivate them to learn writing skill Also, it is worth finding out the impact of teacher response on their motivation, because giving feedback in writing class is generally considered as an important stage in teaching writing

The second reason for this study is the need for an investigation of the effect

of teacher feedback on students’ written works at HUBT If their teachers do not give as much comment as students expect, they show a disappointment Otherwise,

if students receive a paper back with a lot of teacher- red-pen comment and correction, they feel frustrated, too Some students do not understand the meaning

of their instructors’ feedback Furthermore, HUBT teacher’s practice of giving feedback in writing session is different How do the different types of feedback motivate students? Therefore, this study is to find out the answer to this problem

Thirdly, there have been disagreements on which kind of teacher feedback best stimulate students to write The examples include the argument between Truscott (1996, 2007) and Ferris (1999, 2001) (cited in Park, 2006), the different results in the researches by Vengadasamy (2002), Duppenthaler (2002) Ashwell (2000) , Conrad & Goldstein (1999) and so on This study, therefore, is expected to contribute an answer to this debate

Lastly, this research is inspired by several previous studies relating to the topic and within the context of HUBT The examples are the studies on the motivation to learn English in general of HUBT students who are major in Finance

and Banking (Nguyen, 2010), and on the effect of teacher feedback on their motivation in speaking (Truong, 2011) However, the participants of those studies are limited only to the majors in Finance and Banking Therefore, the author of this paper wants to widen the participants who are from several departments but share the same course book and English schedule, as well as to widen the area of research: teacher feedback in teaching writing and its effect on learner’s motivation

All the reasons above inspire the author to do this research to find out the influence of teacher feedback (both written and oral) on first- year- student’s motivation to write

2 Aim of the study

This study intends to seek the influence of teacher feedback on freshmen’s motivation to write

3 Scope of the study

Because this study only investigates the impact of teacher feedback on student’s motivation to write, it does not look into the impact of non-teacher feedback such as peer-respond and self-correction In addition, it does not study the correction ability, revision ability, the performance or improvement of students under the effect of teacher feedback

There have been a great number of studies on the influence of written assessment to learners’ writing, such as Hyland & Hyland (2001), Duijnhouwer (2010), Ashwell (2000), Duppenthaler (2002), and Ferris (1997) However just a few researchers mention the oral feedback in writing class, such as teacher-student conference, teacher-class discussion Meanwhile, in writing session at HUBT, many

teachers choose and take advantages of oral feedback Because teacher feedback

can be in written or oral form, this study will discuss the effect of both kinds of feedback, instead of limiting to only written one

It is also important to note that the participants of this study are the English major freshmen at departments of Banking, Management, Finance, Accounting at HUBT According to Nguyen (2010), they share the similar

non-motivation to learn English The author does not include the freshmen at other departments such as Architecture, Tourism, Electronics, because their motivation differs from the one of freshmen at the departments mentioned above

4 Research questions

1 What kinds and what ways of teacher - written - feedback are used in writing session for freshmen at HUBT?

2 How do those written feedbacks influence HUBT freshmen’ motivation to write?

3 What types of teacher - oral - feedback are used in writing session for freshmen at HUBT?

4 How do those oral feedbacks can motivate HUBT freshmen to write?

5 Whether HUBT freshmen prefer written or oral feedback?

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I Literature review I.1 Motivation

I.1.1 Definition of motivation

Firstly, let’s discuss what motivation is Motivation is mainly seen under the view of psychology Yuan Kong, in 2009, issued a good comprehensive study on motivation in English Language learning Motivation, in the psychological understanding, as he summarizes from the view of Paul Eggen & Don Kauchak, (1994) is seen as ―a force that energizes and directs behavior toward a goal‖ Motivation moves a person just like a force moves an object He also summarizes the three function of motivation: (i) energizing us, (ii) directing us, (iii) help us to select the most appropriate behaviors to achieve our goal In accordance with this sight, Dornyei (1998) defines ―motivation is responsible for determining human behavior by energizing it and giving it direction‖ Motivation is also seen under the view of mental process, such as the opinion of Pintrich and Schunk (1996, cited in Dornyei, 1998): ―'Motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained‖ In other words, motivation involves various mental processes that lead to the initiation and maintenance of an action

We could have many definitions of motivation, they can be different in words, but they agree on its functions or responsibilities of driving people to achieve something they want These definitions are easy to understand and help us

to be aware of the importance of motivation in any activity and process of humans

in life Motivation is invisible, however, it underlines this or that action a person does to achieve this or that result Without motivation, any activities of people can

be come boring Because of this, many researchers have found the way to increase the level of motivation, so that people can be encouraged achieve this or that goal And, motivation in language learning is an outstanding field of motivation

researching Now, we are going to look into the role of motivation in language learning

I.1.2 Motivation in second/foreign language learning

Motivation plays a very crucial role in language learning Because of its important role and effect, motivation has been highlighted and investigated a lot to find out the implication for educators in language learning in general and second/foreign language in particular For example, according to Dornyei (1998:117), motivation has been widely accepted by both teachers and researchers

as one of the key factors that influence the rate and success of second/foreign language learning He explains that motivation provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the language and later the driving force to sustain the long and often boring learning process Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the most remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-term goals, and neither are appropriate curricula and good teaching enough on their own to ensure student achievement On the other hand, high motivation can make up for considerable deficiencies both in one's language aptitude and learning conditions

Another researcher, Kong (2009:146) contends that, motivation is not only

an intensive desire for learning and acquiring knowledge of English (as a foreign or second language), but also an inner cause that pushes students forward in English learning with enthusiasm and willingness It is something like the engine and steering wheel of an automobile that can moves students from boredom to interest

It is an inner power to drive and persevere students in English learning Students who have strong learning motivation take a correct and positive attitude towards study and make great efforts to master English with clear goal and desire and consequently gain better grade than those who have not acquired motivation and those students usually regard English learning as a heavy and boring burden It is true that motivation is such a basic factor in language learning that no teacher could avoid being concerned with students’ motivation

To sum up, the role of motivation in second/foreign language learning is considered as the initial, the key factor to the success However, students differ in the level and orientation of motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000:54) For instance, a student can be highly motivated to do homework out of curiosity and interest or, alternatively, because he or she wants to obtain the approval of a teacher or parent Consequently, the implication for educators and teachers is to find the suitable ways

to motivate students to learn

I.1.3 Types of motivation and their effect in language learning

Many researchers divide motivation in two main types: intrinsic and extrinsic Intrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable; and extrinsic motivation refers to doing something because

it leads to a separable outcome (Ryan & Deci, 2000:55) Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are important, inseparable and complementary to each other in English learning (Kong, 2009:146) It is believed that intrinsic motivation has long term effect to push student to study by its own curiosity and interest However, in the real world not all of the students are automatically energized to perform this or that task, or to learn about this or that topic Instead, they are driven by extrinsic impetus Sometimes, a good grade, a reward, the threat of failing and praise move students from an inactive to an active state Hence, extrinsic motivation becomes

an essential strategy for successful teaching and learning

Another kind of motivation is instrumental motivation Gardner (2001:10, cited in Cote & Waugh, 2004) wrote that such motivation could be considered by some to be learning a target language simply to get ahead in society or to gain social recognition or economic advantages through knowledge of a foreign language Cote & Waugh (2004) give some examples of instrumental motivation: the people who learn a foreign language to get a job, to make money to survive, or just to communicate with foreigners, to read a novel and so on

Instrumental motivation has also been found to play an important role in the classroom To support this view, Gardner and MacIntyre (1995, cited in Cote & Waugh, 2004) maintain instrumentally motivated students of foreign language study longer than non-instrumentally motivated students when there are an opportunity to profit from learning

To summarize, we have three main types of motivation: intrinsic, extrinsic, and instrumental Certainly, it is best when learners of foreign/second language are driven by intrinsic impetus (e.g they learn a language because they like it) However, the number of such students is limited At school, students are concerned with many other subjects in addition to a second/foreign language; therefore, their enthusiasm for this subject could be affected negatively In this case the responsibility of teachers is to find some methods as extrinsic/ instrumental motion

to push their students to learn

I.1.4 Vietnamese students’ motivation in learning writing

Tran (2007) presents a valuable study on Vietnamese students’ motivation in writing by reviewing the study by Ellis (1996) and Le (2000) and herself (2001) In Ellis’ view, Vietnamese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ motivations are shaped by the ―teacher’s initiative‖ and the ―students’ will to succeed‖ (mainly

in examinations) Next, she shares the view that Vietnamese learners are bound to extrinsic motivation as a result of ―the pressure to pass exams.‖ Moreover, many Vietnamese students tend to be more interested in learning other skills such as speaking, reading and listening than writing and writing seems to be regarded as a chore or a burden, for a homework exercise always waiting for them after each writing lesson In addition, most students consider writing difficult and unrewarding It is obvious that lack of interest and motivation in writing is a problem facing many students in Vietnam How to help students overcome this has long been a major concern and a challenge to Vietnamese teachers of writing (Tran, 2001)

The result of Tran’s study (2007) indicates that Vietnamese students nowadays have not only extrinsic motivation to write, but also intrinsic motivation Moreover, the study brings a new image of Vietnamese students who show their potential to write independently, creatively and passionately if they are really motivated This reflects an image of students who are able and ready to write with a sense of authorship in a foreign language, which is different from how they appear

to be in the routine Tran also points out that teacher’s enthusiasm in giving feedback to students’ writing is one of the sources of motivation which stimulate them to write However, the participants of her study are limited to the English-majors, which leaves a gap in the investigation of non-English majors’ writing motivation

I.1.5 Summary of the main issues in learner’s writing motivation

Motivation plays a crucial role to the success of a person in life in general and in learning process in particular There are three main types of motivation: intrinsic, extrinsic and instrumental one These types closely relate, affect, support

or weaken each other Therefore, it is an implication for any teacher to find the way

to motivate learners

In case of Vietnamese students’ enthusiasm to learn writing skill, it is traditionally believed that writing is less favorable than other skills, there is a low interest and motivation in writing On the other hand, recently, this belief has been change by such study by Tran (2007), in which Vietnamese student are found to be more independent and creative Therefore, we need more research which investigate the Vietnamese learner’s motivation in writing, especially with the non-English majors

Although there are a lot of elements that influence learner’s motivation, in writing skill, teacher feedback is very important This is also the focus of this study, hence, we come to the next issue: teacher feedback and it effect on learner motivation to write

I.2 Teacher feedback and its effect on learner motivation to write

I.2.1 Definition of teacher feedback in language learning and teaching

In language learning and teaching, teacher feedback (or feedback in this study) is defined in various ways Written in Ferris (1999, cited in Park, 2006), feedback is simply viewed as ―any response a teacher may give his or her students.‖ Ramaprasad (1983: 4, cited in Duijnhouwer, 2010) says: ―Feedback is information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of a system parameter

which is used to alter the gap in some way‖ Accordingly, Ur (1996:242), feedback

is ―information that is given to the learners about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance.‖ Duijnhouwer, (2010), after considering a number of feedback definitions, defines feedback as ―information provided by an external agent regarding some aspect(s) of the learner’s task performance, intended to modify the learner’s cognition, motivation and/or behavior for the purpose of improving performance‖

Although there are a lot of definitions, they mainly concern three main elements: the information content, the aim, and the provider of feedback Among them, the aim or intention of feedback, is emphasized It is to modify students’ thinking or behavior for the purpose of improving learning In reality, many teachers pay more attention to the content but forget the aim of their feedback This leads to a problem that teachers provide too much information on learner’s mistakes and drawbacks, and do not care whether their feedback is to help or to make learners lose confidence Therefore, feedback, if given in the right manners, contributes to motivate students, or it learner’s motivation has a relation, as the definition of Duijnhouwer states Hence, feedback plays an important role in stimulating student in learning

I.2.2 Feedback as an extrinsic motivation to student learning

There are many scholars confirm that teacher feedback is one of the element

of extrinsic motivation William and Burden (1997, cited in Dornyei, 1998) proposed a framework of motivation in language learning, with internal and external factors The external factors include the role of teacher as well as the nature and amount of feedback

Table 1 Williams and Burden's (1997) framework of motivation in language

learning, (cited in Dornyei, 1998)

Internal factors

Intrinsic interest of activity

• arousal of curiosity

• optimal degree of challenge

Perceived value of activity

• personal relevance

• anticipated value of outcomes

• intrinsic value attributed to the

• awareness of developing skills and

mastery in a chosen area

• mediated learning experiences

• the nature and amount of feedback

• rewards

• the nature and amount of appropriate praise

• punishments, sanctions The learning environment

• comfort

• resources

• time of day, week, year

• size of class and school

• class and school ethos The broader context

• strengths and weaknesses in skills

required

• personal definitions and judgements

of success and failure

• self-worth concern learned

helplessness

Attitudes language learning in general

• to the target language

• to the target language community

• wider family networks

• the local education system

• conflicting interests

• cultural norms

• societal expectations and attitudes

Dornyei (1994a, cited in Dornyei 1998) also presents a table of components of foreign language learning motivation Teacher-specific motivational element with feedback is also emphasized in the category

Table 2 Components of foreign language learning motivation (Dornyei, 1994a:

280, cited in Dornyei, 1998)

Instrumental Motivational Subsystem

Self-Confidence

* Language Use Anxiety

* Perceived L2 Competence

* Causal Attributions

Teacher-Specific Motivational

Components

Affiliative Motive Authority Type Direct Socialisation of Motivation

Classroom Goal Structure

It is easy to find out the role of teachers and their feedback in inspiring students to learn in those frameworks It is all considered as an extrinsic motivation

In conclusion, in order to stimulate students, teachers should mind the effect of their feedback

To explain why teacher feedback could be a source of motivation to students rather than other kinds of feedback such as peer feedback and self-assessment, let’s see a view of Brookhart (2010, cited in Srichanyachon, 2012) For him, feedback includes two factors: cognitive and motivational factors It gives students information they need so they can understand where they are in their learning and what to do next—the cognitive factor Once students feel they understand what to

do and why, most students develop a feeling that they have control over their own learning—the motivational factor Next, Srichanyachon (2012:8) believes ―Mostly

students from cultures that see a teacher as the only source of authority value teacher revision more highly than other methods because they have confidence in the teacher’s knowledge and skill in English.‖ All of the opinions above have clearly explained why teacher feedback can stimulate students to learn

I.2.3 Feedback in teaching and learning writing

Giving feedback seems to be a natural characteristic of teaching writing, and its role is of importance to both teachers and learners Magno and Amarles (2011:21) says: ―Feedback plays a central role in developing writing proficiency among second language learners‖ Park (2006) also confirms the importance of feedback on student writing by saying that it has been considered as one of the essential parts in a writing course Students regard teachers' written feedback as crucial to their improvement as writers From teacher’s perspective, they seem to think that it is a kind of duty as a writing instructor to help students, and it shows teachers’ credibility

Teacher feedback in writing, as well as teacher feedback in learning in general, also is a source of motivation to learners Srichanyachon (2012:13) reviews the studies of other researchers such as Hyland and Hyland (2006); Richards and Lockhart (1996) to conclude that teacher feedback can serve as a powerful tool to motivate students in the writing process if done well Another researcher, Saito (1994) proves that students prefer teacher feedback to other kinds of feedback such

as peer feedback and self-correction In case of Vietnamese students, as Tran (2007) points out, teacher feedback is a source of motivation for them

Since teacher feedback to student writing are expected to help students develop their ideas fully and present them effectively, feedback needs to cover all aspects of students’ written texts, including issues of content, organization, style, grammar, and mechanics (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; cited in Park, 2006) Next, it should cover both strengths weaknesses of students (Magno & Amarles, 2011)

However, giving feedback is time and effort consuming, requiring teacher’s enthusiasm (Conrad & Goldstein, 1999) Yet, because teachers think this is a duty, many of them respond to students’ works like a ―mechanical activity‖, considering this stage as a copy editing stage, focusing mostly on the correction of grammar errors in student compositions (Vengadasamy, 2002).This leads to the problems that many teachers become ―error hunters‖ when they spend time looking into only students’ surface errors Another problem is teacher feedback becomes a threat, a fear and makes students lose their confident These dilemmas can be a demotivator for students when they write

I.2.4 Types of feedback in teaching writing

Classification of feedback to students writing is different according to the viewpoints and purposes of each researcher

Park (2006) summaries the feedback in writing into three main types: form - focused, content based and integrated feedback Form-focused feedback, or grammar correction, is one of the most commonly used methods from the past This feedback mainly focuses on student's grammatical knowledge and teachers give corrections in only grammatical features The second types of feedback is content-based, in which teachers provide overall comments on where it doesn't make sense

in terms of content, or give some comments without pointing out specific grammatical errors Unlike form-focused feedback, content-based feedback focuses more on content quality and organizational features in students' composition The last type is integrated feedback combining grammar correction with content-related feedback Besides, Park also mentions some other kinds of response to written works such as direct and indirect feedback With direct feedback, teachers give direct correction However, with indirect one, teacher gives indirect error pointer using correction code which requires students themselves to correct errors Park calls the coded feedback ―techniques‖ because it helps students to find and identify their mistakes

Another type of feedback is electronic feedback using computers (Park, 2006) Teachers can provide comments on electronic submission by email and using comment function These new ways of feedback offer ―greater flexibility in their responding practices‖, but we should consider the conveniences of both teacher and students to have the highest effectiveness

Magno & Amarles (2011), on the other hand, divide feedback into three categories: feedback on form, on content and on writing style Their definitions of feedback on form and content are similar to the definitions of Park (2006) In term

of feedback on writing style, they defines it is the one ―involves assessment of the use of language, persuasion, originality and creativity‖

Saito (1994) gives six types of teacher feedback: teacher correction, commentary, teacher correction with comments, error identification, teacher-student conferencing, correction-using prompts The teacher-student conferencing response means teacher and student discuss a piece of student writing individually during the writing of a composition, and after it is finished In language learning, Saito review the benefit of teacher-students conferences: two-way communication in a writing conference appeared more effective than written comments because it allowed students to explain their opinions and needs, and to clarify the teacher's comments Most of researchers concern written feedback rather than one-to-one conference, There are some difficulties in running an individual conference between teacher and learner, such as time constraint, as said by Vengadasamy (2002), large class-sized, lack of teacher enthusiasm

However, teacher-student conference is just one kind of teacher oral feedback, which has not been investigated sufficiently The most common type of

teacher spoken feedback is teacher-student (one to one) conference Normally,

people think of a talk of ―twenty or thirty minute sessions in an instructor’s office‖ (Schiff, 2000:158); however, Schiff contends that it is not necessary like that In term of the place of the conference, it could be in a variety of unlikely settings- hallways, cafeterias, libraries, and student lounges Furthermore, when such

consultations focus on specific aspects of a particular piece of writing, they need last only a few minutes Therefore, teacher-student can be in form of a short conversation, small discussion Yet, not every student needs a conference The

group/class conference is a productive alternative, allowing students to feel more

comfortable in a group setting and allowing you to easily discern who might need more individual attention

At HUBT, teachers usually choose class-discussion respond, in which they summarize the most outstanding strengths/ drawbacks/error of students’ writing Otherwise, teachers can address some good or weak pieces of writing, so that the class can gain some experience This can be called class-discussion or class-summary-comment (Hyland & Hyland, 2001) Another practice of teacher oral respond is teacher walks around class when students write, reads several pieces of students’ writing and immediately gives correction or comment if the pieces of writing contain problems In such process, certainly students can raise the thing they have not understood and have a direct discussion with teachers The author thinks these practices also belong to oral feedback

To sum up, there are some differences on the classification of teacher feedback to students’ writing Nonetheless, all the feedback could be put into four main types: feedback on content/meaning; feedback on form/errors/surface errors; feedback on writing style, and integrated feedback (combining both form and content feedback) The feedback could be direct (teachers locate and correct the errors/ideas/organization) or indirect (teachers locate the errors or provide code response or give prompt/suggestion for other writing problems) The feedback could be in form of a commentary, an instruction, an evaluation, a piece of suggestion, praise, and criticism

In this paper, the author employs her own category of feedback, which is generalized from the above studies In her view, there are two main types of feedback: written and oral feedback And, the feedback in the forms of such things

as praise, encouragement, instruction, evaluation is considered as the ways teachers respond

The detail of the category will be illustrated in the following table:

Table 3.The category of feedback in teaching writing employed in this study

Written

feedback Types of

written feedback

1 Content-focused feedback (on organization, supporting ideas, length, expression…)

2 Form-focused feedback (on grammatical errors, tense, capitulation, punctuations….)

3 Integrated feedback ( combining both content and form-focused feedback)

4 Writing style feedback (on the use of language, persuasion, creativity)

The ways teachers give feedback

1 Identifying the errors (errors of spelling, grammar, punctuation…) & writing problems (unclear ideas, poor organization, poor development…)without correcting

2 Identifying the errors & writing problems and giving direct correction

3 Identifying the errors & writing problems and giving suggestion to correct them

9 Asking for clarification (ask students to clarify

of any unclear ideas)

Oral

feedback

Types of oral feedback

1 Teacher-student conference while writing

2 Teacher-student conference after writing

3 Teacher-class conference/ teacher- class discussion/ teacher-class-summary-comment

I.2.5.What types and what ways of teacher feedback best motivate students to write?

There has been a strong debate on which and how feedback becomes most effective and better motivates students to write The researchers, basing on their own investigation and theories, defend their own points of view

The most controversial issue is whether error feedback or content/meaning one can effectively drive students to write It is believed that, through the process of feedback, students come to be aware of what kind of grammatical errors they often make and they come to acquire grammar rules, which leads them not to make the same errors in subsequent writing (Park, 2006) Duppenthaler (2002) seems to support this argument Through his investigation, he concludes that the group who gets error-focused respond (together with the group receiving meaning focused respond) has the positive attitude to their writing and is eager to receive their journal back than the group who only gets the positive comments This implies that error correction is not always bad

On the other hand, some other researchers have questioned the effectiveness

of form-focused feedback Vengadasamy (2002), for instance, maintains several

bad effect of error correction If a student with low English level, received a

corrected draft from a teacher with red ink smeared all over the page would only make him or her less confident and more worried when composing another writing task Secondly, a large amount of error correction only succeeds in drawing the student's attention to form only and not to the more important matter of developing

the content This encourages students to view their essays as fixed pieces, requiring

no textual revisions As a result, there is little motivation for students to develop their skills in the areas of content and organization as the writing task is reduced to another means of achieving linguistic accuracy

Another controversy is whether positive comment (praise) can drive student

to write Now return to the investigation by Duppenthaler (2002), we have an interesting result The group with only positive comment least have positive attitude to writing as well as getting their writing back from teacher, compared to the group with meaning-focused or error-focused treatment Therefore, the effect of praise is doubtful In contrast, Vengadasamy (2002) approves the use of praise because he believes it can facilitate students’ written works and then motivate them

to write

Because there is a lot of disagreement among the scholars on which feedback

is most effective, we cannot give an exact answer Therefore, many other researchers attempt to solve the problem by combining grammar feedback with content feedback, (called integrated feedback) Evidence proving that integrated feedback is more productive than only content or error feedback can be found in such studies as Ashwell (2000) and Song (1998, cited in Park, 2006) In his study, Song aimed to research on which gives more positive effect on student's writing ability between meaning-related feedback and integrated feedback This study exhibited that students with integrated feedback gained higher scores in holistic aspect as well as two analytical aspects such as content/organization and mechanics However, there was no meaningful difference between content-based feedback and integrated feedback in aspects of vocabulary and style Generally, it is shown that integrated feedback is more effective and advantageous to improve second language student's general writing skills in this study

The similar result was seen in an experiment by Ashwell (2000) He made a comparison of four cases; form feedback only, content-based feedback only, integrated feedback in a different order He noted that the result didn't show a

significant differentiation between which orders they received form or content feedback when form and content feedback are treated separately Interestingly, the most effective result of writing abilities came from when learners received mixed pattern of two types of feedback at the same time

The two studies above succeed in proving that integrated feedback is effective to several extents of accuracy and content of students writing They are, on the other hand, does not show how integrated feedback affects learner writing motivation

One of the focuses of this study is oral feedback Unfortunately, there is lack

of investigation on the effect of teacher oral feedback to students’ writing motivation Ferris et al (1997) states that teacher-student conferences operate under different dynamics and constraints (such as constraints on teacher and class time) than does written teacher feedback, because they involve primarily spoken interaction They states this kind of feedback is not always more desirable than written teacher commentary However, Saito (1994) show a conflict result of students’ positive attitude or preference to one-to-one conferences To support this, Bitchener et al (2005:3) also affirms that ―Many writing teachers consider one-on-one teacher-student conferences to be potentially more effective than written corrective feedback because they provide an opportunity for clarification, instruction and negotiation.‖ Nonetheless, the problem is a lack of published research on this option It means that this popularly held belief cannot be taken as evidence of effectiveness Besides, the practice of giving oral feedback at HUBT as the author presents in the previous session, has not investigated to find out any impact on students’ writing motivation In final words, we do not have enough studies to conclude the effect of this oral feedback to student written works

To sum up, we still wonder whether content-feedback or form-feedback or the integrated one is the most encouraging? How much do students satisfy with oral feedback? Therefore, the author hopes this study will help to contribute an answer, a result to this controversial subject

I.2.6 Summary of teacher feedback and it effect on student motivation to write

Teacher feedback contributes to drive students to write The relation between teacher feedback and learner motivation has been confirmed by several researchers such as William & Burden (1997) and Dornyei, (1998)

In term of teacher feedback in teaching writing, there are two main divisions: written and oral feedback

In written feedback, there are some controversial issues Firstly, in term of written feedback content we can not conclude whether feedback on form, on content, on writing style or the integrated one can best encourage learners to write Secondly, in term of written feedback manner (such as giving praise, criticism, giving direct correction ) which one can best motivate them to write is still a question

In oral feedback, although its sub-types are various such as teacher-student conference during/ after writing, teacher- class conference, and those types are the common practice of teachers in reality, there is a lack research on this field We

do not know how much students feel encouraged by this type of feedback Another important issue is whether students prefer written or oral feedback

So far, this chapter has reviewed some fundamental issues relating to the topic of this study The next chapter is going to deal with its methodology

Chapter II Methodology

II.1 Context of the study

II.1.1 Time distributed to English at HUBT

HUBT is one of the universities that invest the greatest amount of time to teaching English to English-non-major students Each week, they have 15 periods

of English, equivalent to three class meetings A particular teacher will be in charge

of each class meeting: and, a class will have three teachers during a semester This comes from the view of the university leaders that, being taught by more than one teacher, student can take the best from each teacher and avoid the limitation of only one teacher

II.1.2 English course book at HUBT

The main course book for the freshmen at Accounting, Finance, Management, and Banking is Market Leader Elementary, a book specializing in Business The book includes 12 units, each unit include the same part: Starting up, Language Focus, Listening, Reading, Skills, and Case Study Besides, the freshmen have a Supplementary Material which consists of a Unit Review (which reviews the Vocabulary, Grammar, Reading and Pronunciation learnt in each unit), and Writing Practice (which provides practice on sentence building and paragraph writing) These materials will be done after students finish a Unit in the course book Furthermore, every week, students also have 2 periods (of 15 English periods) to study with Dyned – an online English program, under the guide and support of teachers This program is intended to use as a self-teaching tool for students Totally, the participants of this study have a large amount of time to study English

in class, and the other materials to support them are available

II.1.3 Time and schedule distributed for writing skill

In term of writing skill, through a unit in the course book, students have two chances to learn to write

The first one is the Writing part at the end of Case-study session ( a situation which raises problems, then students will role play to solve that problem) After doing the task in Case Study (solving the problem), students will have a writing task, which associates with the situation The writing task for this part usually includes writing an email, a memo, an action minutes, a company profile, a letter, a list, or a catalogue description To finish this writing task, students have two sources

of help Firstly, the course book provides the samples of each genre for students to follow Secondly, teachers also give more detailed instruction and guide to facilitate the task However, students have to use their own words and base on the particular situation to write For example, with the same problem in a Case-study session, different groups/pairs have different ways to deal with As a result, their final decision varies, and their writing varies either

The second chance for students to practice writing is when they do the Writing Practice in Supplementary Material at the end of each unit The writing assignment in this book usually requires students to produce a paragraph of 50 -120 words with simple topic, such as describing your last weekend, describing your favorite meal, what HUBT students use the Internet for and so on

In both two opportunities of learning writing skill, there is a similar problem

of time limit That is to say, in Case Study session, for example, teachers and students spend most of the time to do the communication task, the last 10-15 minutes will be for writing In other case, this part can be assigned as homework The similar situation happens in Writing Practice session There is usually only 30 minutes for both teacher instruction and student writing, because class time has to distribute more to other exercises before writing task

This dilemma of time constrains leads to trouble for both teachers and learners Learners do not have chance to do the writing task in a sufficient amount

of class time Even worse, they get only instruction and the task is assigned as homework, which can be neglected in next class meeting It is true that sometimes, even when student have not got any feedback from teachers, teachers can collect the writing to mark for scores, to fulfill the requirement of administration rule Similarly, some teachers ask students to hand in their first draft with the intention of forcing them to write, not for giving feedback Students often write the first draft only; they hardly compose the second version All of the fact above, in many extents, very unfair to students, and they are less motivated to learn writing

II.1.4 How HUBT teachers give feedback to student writing

Teachers, on the other hand, face the difficulty of giving feedback Some teachers give and some ignore feedback The author will present here four major feedback practices by HUBT teachers of English

Firstly, some teachers collect students’ first draft in order to mark and give

response in written form, but do not require students to rewrite for the second/final

papers One of the reason for this is they do not have time to come back to this writing session in next class meeting

Secondly, for the teachers who do not want to take work home but want to reply to student writing, their solution is responding right in class, when students are composing their works They walk around the class, read some piece of writing

and give correction, comment or discussion when necessary This is called

teacher-student conference/ one-to-one conference/small discussion/conversation while writing

Another way of feedback practice employed by HUBT teachers is if they notice some writing with special problems, they often contact the students individually for few minutes to discuss, explain the problems, and suggest the

solution This is called teacher-student conference/one-to-one conference/small

discussion/ conversation after writing

Finally, teachers can summarize the general errors, mistakes or problems

from students’ papers, and then highlight them in a short-discussion/

class-summary-comment after writing They also can address some special students

because their writing either excellent or bad with a lot of errors By this way, they

can save time, effort but still fulfill the role of a writing instructor

Because the fact that HUBT teacher feedback to their freshmen could be in written and oral form, the author wonders how much such kinds of feedback can stimulate students to write Therefore, this study will look at the effect of both written and oral feedback to student writing

II.2 Participants

The participants of this study are the freshmen from the departments of

Banking, Finance, Accounting, and Management This group of students uses the same course book, while students from other departments such as Architecture, Tourism, have the different book

The freshmen have different level of English Most of them have the poor English background; a few of them are quite good at English Their access to English before university is not equal The students come from all areas in mostly the northern and central provinces of Vietnam Their hometown could be a rural, an urban or a mountainous location Therefore, HUBT teachers usually face a problem

of mixed level in one class

II.3 Data collection instruments

This study collects the data from both quantitative and qualitative method For the quantitative one, the author designs a questionnaire to survey the participants Because this study covers a rather broad subject with both teacher written and oral feedback in teaching writing, and the author wants to collect the general view of the participants on the subject as the background for later studies, the quantitative method with survey questionnaire is suitable Besides, this method

is chosen because it can gather the opinion from a wide range of HUBT freshmen, instead of limiting to one or two groups of students In fact, the author surveys 8 different classes of HUBT freshmen; each class is in charge of different English teachers Therefore, it is believed that their response to the questionnaire is subjective and various All of these contribute to the validity of this study

There are two parts in the content of this questionnaire: written feedback and oral feedback Each part includes questions about the types of teacher feedback to student writing; and the questions about the extent of influence of the feedback to students’ motivation to write The table below describes the detail in the questionnaire (For both English and Vietnamese versions of questionnaire, see Appendix 1 & 2)

Table 4.Description of the questionnaire

1 & 2 The frequency written feedback types teachers use in

classroom and their influence on students’ motivation

to write

3 & 4 The way teachers give written feedback in classroom

and their influence on students’ motivation to write

Part 2:

Oral

feedback

1 & 2 The frequency of oral feedback types which teachers

use in classroom and their influence on students’ motivation to write

3 Students’ preference of teacher written or oral

feedback

There is a note that question No 3 in the second part is an open-ended question The author gives students space to write down their explanation to their choice She

wants to get further understanding of student’s choice, and the explanation will be a valuable source of data to this study

However, the author knows that only questionnaire is not enough to get a good understanding from participants Therefore, she employed semi-structured interviews with 8 students to get more comprehension of students’ answers All the answers were either noted down or recorded, and then they were Word processed The main interview questions were the same as the ones in the questionnaire (7 items altogether) In the interviews, the author often added more questions to get deeper understanding of their choice, such as ―Why do you choose that option?‖

―Could you explain more on your choice?‖ (For further details of the interview transcript, see the Appendix 3)

II.4 Data collection procedure and analysis

At the end of the school year, when students were free of compulsory class attendance, as well as free of all end-of-term tests, 240 questionnaires were distributed to 8 classes (Each class is expected to have 30 studnets) All students were noticed that this survey was not to evaluate or mark them, but to investigate their opinion in order to find a better way to teach them writing There were 150 papers returned All the answers were counted manually, after that they were put into Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, using the functions of SUM, PERCENTAGE to compare the numbers

Of 150 papers returned, most of students answered all the questions fully However, there are some papers in which students, due to some reasons, did not tick

on all questions Therefore, the sums of the tick on each item are different 22 out of

33 items got full 150 ticks, but the 11 items left got from 126 to 149 ticks This missing data is one of the limitations to the results of this study

The interviews with students were carried out after the questionnaire The author asked for volunteers from different classes which already did the survey, made appointment with them either separately or in group of 2-3 students 8

students were willing to take part in All of the 8 interviews are the one-to-one conversations in Vietnamese to make sure that they are fully understand the purpose

of the interviewer and not influenced by the answers of other informants

Chapter III Finding

All the answer choices were counted and converted into percentage For the questions of frequency, the items ―Never‖ & ―Seldom‖ are grouped and labeled as

―Low frequency‖; ―Sometimes‖ as ―Neutral frequency‖; and ―Often‖ & ―Always‖

as ―High frequency‖ For the questions of the influence of the feedback on student’s motivation, item ―It discourages you to write‖ is label as ―Negative effect‖; ―It has

no influence‖ as ―Neutral effect‖; and the last three items ―It encourages you to write a little‖, ―It encourages you to write quite a lot‖ and ―It really encourages you to write‖ as ―Positive effect‖

III 1 Written feedback

III.1.1 The types of written feedback HUBT teachers use in writing lesson

Table 5: The frequency of teacher written feedback in writing lessons

Chart 1: The frequency of written feedback used in writing lessons

The table and the chart present the rate of occurrence of four main types of written feedback As we can see, all types of written feedback are reported to have the high frequency (Often and Always) of more than 40%, among which the

integrated feedback appears with the highest percentage of 56% This means that

teachers at HUBT usually give a wide range of comment on their students’ writing

In contrast, rather few numbers of students think that their teachers never or seldom give any of 4 groups of feedback (The percentage ranges from 8,67% to 22,67 %)

According to the result of the interviews with 8 students, they produce different answers However, 5 of them report that they receive all four types of written feedback with high frequency For example, SS2 says: ―Nearly all of my pieces of writing are returned with the comment from my teachers In general, hardly is there any writing returned without my teacher’s comment Usually, the

teachers comments on both the mistakes of grammar, word choice, word form, and

the problems of coherence, organization of our paragraphs” SS6 who do not

usually receive teachers feedback on grammar explains: ―I do not make a lot of form mistakes, so teachers do not often give respond on this issue in my writing.‖

However, it we should pay attention to the fact that up to 22,67% of students

do not receive writing style for their writing SS8 states: ―I seldom receive feedback

on writing style.‖ The reason for this, from the views of both the author- as a teacher at HUBT and of interviewees, belongs to the problems of boring writing topics SS5 and SS6 say that the topics are simple and do not attract them a lot, they want to write an argumentative paper which give them chance to express their opinion and writing style more

III.I.2.The influence of types of teacher written feedback on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write

These following table and chart show the effect of four types of written feedback It sounds to be good news when all four groups of feedback are evaluated

to positively encourage students to write with the very high percentage (form 78,

67% to 88, 67%) Among them, the integrated feedback takes the highest position

with 88, 67% SS3 confirms: ―The feedback which most drives to write is the integrated one Through integrated feedback, I realize I have many mistakes in my writing, which drives me to improve them.‖ Interestingly, the number students who report that all the kinds of feedback have negative and moderate effect on their drive to write is much lower than the positive effect group However, in the positive effect group, most students feel that they are encouraged a little or quite a lot, only few of them feel they are really motivated by teacher written feedback

Table 6: The influence of teacher written feedback on HUBT freshmen’s motivation to write

%

It encourages you to write

a little

%

It encourages you to write quite a lot

%

It really encourages you to write %

Negative

effect

Neutral effect

Positive effect

From the interviews, interviewees provide different explanation to their choice For instance, SS1 says: ―I feel really motivated with the feedback on form, especially on grammar, because I am bad at grammar, therefore I can know where and how I make the mistakes to correct them‖ SS5 who always pays attention to the content of her writing, say: ―Although I usually receive feedback on form, this encourages me to write a little, because I am quite lazy at correcting grammar mistakes The things that really motivate me are feedback on content and writing

style, because I always want to produce a persuasive piece of writing, I pay more attention to content of any written works.‖ The conclusion here is when the feedback meets their demand and weakness, they feel satisfied

To answer the question: ―Why don’t you like form-focused feedback most?‖ SS7,

who usually make form-mistake, replies: ―I feel frustrated by too much errors feedback … In general, if the feedback is short and focused, it will have good effect on students When it is too long, students will feed discouraged.‖

III.1.3 The methods HUBT your teachers give feedback in writing lessons

Table 7: The frequency of the methods HUBT teachers give written feedback in writing lessons

Low frequency Neutral frequency High frequency

Identifying the error

& problems without

Identifying the error

& problems and

Identifying the errors

& problems and