Impacts of peer review training on freshmen's peer feedback activity at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU = Ảnh hưởng của việc hướng dẫn n

Stanley 1992 suggested training students to be familiar with the genre of their peer‘s writing and using effective communication in peer review.. Min 2006 carried out a research on peer

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LƯU NGỌC LY

IMPACTS OF PEER REVIEW TRAINING ON FRESHMEN’S PEER FEEDBACK ACTIVITY AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION, ULIS – VNU

ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC HƯỚNG DẪN NHẬN XÉT BÀI VIẾT CHO BẠN HỌC TỚI HOẠT ĐỘNG PHẢN HỒI BÀI VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT, KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH, TRƯỜNG ĐHNN,

ĐHQG HÀ NỘI

M.A Combined Programme Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology (ELT) Code: 60 14 10

LƯU NGỌC LY

IMPACTS OF PEER REVIEW TRAINING ON FRESHMEN’S PEER FEEDBACK ACTIVITY AT FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION, ULIS – VNU

ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC HƯỚNG DẪN NHẬN XÉT BÀI VIẾT CHO BẠN HỌC TỚI HOẠT ĐỘNG PHẢN HỒI BÀI VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT, KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH, TRƯỜNG ĐHNN,

ĐHQG HÀ NỘI

M.A Combined Programme Thesis

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology (ELT) Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Đinh Hải Yến, M.Ed

Hanoi, 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study and research questions 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Research methodology 3

5 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Teaching writing 5

1.1.1 Reasons for teaching writing 5

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing 6

1.1.2.1 Product vs process approach 6

1.1.2.2 Genre approach 7

1.1.2.3 Creative writing approach 8

1.2 Peer review 9

1.2.1 Definition of peer review 9

1.2.1.1 Old concept of review 9

1.2.1.2 Contemporary concept of review 10

1.2.2 Benefits of peer revision 11

1.2.3 Problematic aspects of peer revision 13

1.2.4 Ways to create effective peer revision 14

1.2.4.1 Creating effective peer revision groups 15

1.2.4.2 Peer review training 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Rationale for the use of action research 21

2.2 Context of the study 23

2.2.1 Participants 23

2.2.2 The writing course for freshmen at ULIS, VNU 24

2.3 Intervention 26

2.3.1 In-class modeling 26

2.3.2 Small group conference 29

2.4 Instruments 30

2.5 Data collection procedure 31

2.6 Data analysis methods 33

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS, DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 35

3.1 Results from student writing analysis 35

3.1.1 Quantity of students‘ comments before and after training 35

3.1.1.1 Total number of comments before and after peer review training 35

3.1.1.2 Comparison of mistakes made by writers and comments made by peers 36

3.1.1.3 Discussion of research question 1 37

3.1.2 Quality of students‘ comments before and after training 38

3.1.2.1 Comparison between global comments and local comments before and after peer review training 38

3.1.2.2 Comparison of the specification of comments before and after training 42

3.1.2.3 Comparison of the relevance of comments before and after training 43

3.1.2.4 Discussion of research question 2……….…46

3.2 Results from interviews with students……… ………….47

3.2.1 Students‘ reactions to peer review training as reviewers 47

3.2.2 Students‘ reactions to peer review training as writers 53

3.2.3 Discussion of research question 3 56

3.3 Implications 59

3.3.1 Before training 59

3.3.1.1 Preparation 60

3.3.1.2 Pre-training activities 61

3.3.2 While training 62

3.3.3 After training 63

PART C: CONCLUSION 65

1 Summary and conclusion of the study 65

2 Limitations of the study 67

3 Recommendations for further study 68

References 69 Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Detailed program of the study 32

Table 2: Aspects of writing analysis ……… ……….33

Table 3: Number of comments before vs after training ……… …… 35

Table 4: Amount of peer comments vs mistakes students made ………… 37

Table 5: Percentage of global and local comments before vs after training ……… 39

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: White and Arndt process writing model 7

Figure 2: Percentage of comments in certain aspects before vs after training 40

Figure 3: Comparison of the specification of comments before vs after training 42

Figure 4: Relevant comments vs irrelevant comments before and after training 44

Figure 5: Relevant comments vs irrelevant comments before training 44

Figure 6: Relevant comments vs irrelevant comments after training……… 45

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study:

In Vietnam, the teaching of English as a foreign language begins formally from as early as the elementary level up to the tertiary level and is regarded as one of the most important academic subjects at all levels‘ curricula In teaching English, attention is paid to all four skills in second language acquisition though it is not equal Not until reaching tertiary level can students learn writing in a systematic way

From my two year-experience as a university instructor of English, specialized in teaching writing to freshmen at University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National University (ULIS – VNU), I recognized that the students faced many difficulties in this important subject To help them overcome those problems, at first, as any novice teachers, I tried my best to correct or give comments to all my students‘ problems in their writing However, gradually, I recognized that correcting all students‘ mistakes was not a good way to help them as it made them feel demotivated when receiving a corrected version which was full

of red ink Moreover, when all the problems were identified, students did not think much about them Therefore, they continued making the same mistakes even though such mistakes had been repeatedly pointed out to them Various kinds of feedback such as direct feedback, indirect feedback, written feedback, spoken feedback, and focused feedback were applied, but

no obvious difference was noticed

In the process of finding a solution to the problem in my writing class, accidentally came to

my mind was the notion of ―peer feedback‖ or ―peer response‖ by Rollinson (2005) in his article entitled ―Using peer feedback in the ESL writing class‖ In his article, he stated that peer feedback has been generally advocated in the literature as ―a potentially valuable aid for its social, cognitive, affective, and methodological benefits‖ (Mendoca and Johnson, 1994, Villamin and de Guerrero, 1996 as cited in Rollinson, 2005, p 1) However, in applying peer feedback, more problems than benefits were witnessed The reasons for that have preliminarily

been identified as the result of students‘ lack of basic knowledge and experience in peer response activity

In order to find a workable solution to the given problem, I have consulted many materials and read many previous studies on the field Stanley (1992) suggested training students to be familiar with the genre of their peer‘s writing and using effective communication in peer review The results of her experiment research revealed that the experimental group made more responses and more types of responses than the control group Zhu (1995) utilized a small group conference approach in his experiment research to L1 peer responders in freshman composition classes The researcher came to a conclusion that such peer training brought about significant effects on both the quantity and quality of peer feedback Min (2006) carried out a research on peer training to examine the effects of trained peer review on EFL students‘ revision types and quality The researcher also asserted the positive effects of trained peer review on students‘ feedback However, the benefits of peer review training on the improvement of students‘ peer feedback and writing quality has never been verified in Vietnamese context Therefore, with the support in the theory and the urge of finding a practical solution to improve the practice of the peer feedback, I decided to conduct this study

on peer review training

2 Aims of the study and research questions:

The study is designed to investigate the effects of peer review training on the quality of students‘ peer review activity at ULIS – VNU It aims to achieve three objectives

- To investigate the quantity of students‘ comments to their peer‘s writing before and after peer review training

- To investigate the quality of students‘ comments to their peer‘s writing before and after peer review training

- To investigate students‘ reactions to peer review training as both writers and reviewers

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims, the research questions of the study are set out

3) What are students‘ reactions to peer review training?

3 Scope of the study:

Most of first year students, when entering university, are beginners in academic writing and peer review activity, so they have a lot of difficulties and need much help provided by teachers One thing teachers can do for their students is the provision of peer review training

so that students know how to give comments to their peer‘s writing effectively, from which they can co-learn and improve their own writing Therefore, the scope of this study is limited

to investigating the impacts of peer review training on first year students only Accordingly, the subjects chosen for this study are first year students at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS – VNU who finished their first semester at university and are in their second one

4 Research methodology:

To find out the answers to the proposed research questions within the scope of the study, the main research method employed in this study is an action research whose intervention was in the form of discussion, in-class modeling as suggested by Min (2005) and small group conference as adapted from Zhu (1995) Participants were a class of 18 students where the researcher worked as a writing teacher

In order to collect sufficient data to fully address the three given research questions, this study utilized two data collection instruments The first instrument is writing analysis The data for

analysis were students‘ portfolios turned in by the end of the semester with their two essays before peer review training and two essays written consecutively after training The second instrument is interview The interviews with open-ended questions about the peer review training were informally conducted with all the participants after training in order for them to fully express their opinions about the peer review training

For student writing, analysis was concerned with the quantity and quality of students‘ comments to their peer‘s writing in the essays prior to peer review training and the essays post peer review training The data collected from the interviews were categorized to find the main areas of concern among participants as writers and reviewers as well

5 Design of the study:

The study is comprised of three parts

Part A - Introduction provides a brief introduction of the study

Part B– Development which is the main part is divided into 3 chapters

Chapter 1 – Literature review reviews the literature relevant to the study including aspects of

teaching writing and peer revision

Chapter 2 – Methodology is a detailed discussion of the method used in the study

encompassing the justification for using action research, the context of the study, the intervention, data collection instruments, data collection procedure, and data analysis methods

Chapter 3 – Results, Discussion and Implications presents significant findings of the study, a

discussion of the major findings from which some pedagogical implications were derived

Part C – Conclusion summarizes the main issues addressed in the study Some limitations of

the study that serve as the basis for the researcher‘s suggestions for further study were also pointed out in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theoretical background for the study It covers theories related to teaching writing and peer revision

1.1 Teaching writing

Reasons for teaching writing:

Human beings learn other languages beside their mother tongue with the ultimate purpose of communication Communication can happen orally or in written form However, according to Raimes (1983, p 3), the fact that people have to communicate in the written form is not the only reason for the existence of writing as the essential part of second language learning One more important reason is that it helps students learn by at least three ways First, it helps reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that have been taught Second, when writing, students will have opportunities to be ―adventurous‖ with the language, to go beyond what they have just learnt Third, when students write, they can become more involved with the new language The struggle of finding the right words or structures to express thinking, the stress of what ideas to put down on their papers and organizing these ideas can help them reinforce learning Therefore, Raimes (1983, p 3) maintained that ―the close relationship between writing and thinking makes writing a valuable part of any language course‖ However, the question of how to teach writing effectively in EFL/ESL classes seems

to be a difficult one to be addressed because there is no single answer to it Teachers need to base on many factors such as teaching styles, teaching conditions, students‘ characteristics and learning styles to choose an appropriate approach to the teaching of writing The next part discusses a variety of current approaches to the teaching of writing

1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing:

1.1.2.1 Product vs process approach:

In the teaching of writing, teachers can focus on the product of writing or on the writing process itself When centering on the product, teachers‘ main attention is the aim of a task and

in the end the outcome of the task Typically, teachers begin the lesson by introducing the topics, activating relevant vocabulary and focusing on specific structures which may be used

in performing the task Then, students are asked to work alone to write within a time limit to produce a draft which is also the only draft handed in for teacher to grade and identify errors before handing back the work for error correction The criterion of the product is readable, grammatically correct, and appropriate in some discourse conventions of organization and layout However, this approach suffers from some criticism First, in this approach, writing is just seen as ―an act of transferring ideas to paper with attention neither to the context nor to the stages writers go through when creating a text‖ (Aires, 2010, p.2) Moreover, feedback and evaluation are delayed after the whole text is finished, which prevents students from improving their written work In addition, students often assume that their only role is to write

to get mark, and their teacher‘s is to evaluate Teachers under this approach are denying students‘ possibility of developing their capacity for self-assessment and peer assessment

However, in recent years, with the development of approaches which emphasize centered education, there has been a shift in the way writing is taught Process writing is a pedagogical approach that puts great emphasis on both communicating and composing According to Harmer (2001, p 257), in process approach, teachers pay attention to various stages that any piece of writing goes through In the process writing model introduced by White and Arndt (1991, p.5) below, process writing is an interrelated set of recursive stages

leaner-Figure 1: White and Arndt process writing model

(White and Arndt, 1991, p 5)

It can be said that whereas product approach focuses on teaching and instructing students

―what‖ to write, process approach is concerned with ―how‖ to write and facilitates students to

be good writers However, the application of process approach reveals some certain drawbacks First, due to the characteristics of the process approach, a considerable amount of time is required, namely time for brainstorming ideas, redrafting, reediting, and so on Moreover, in the writing process, various stages may involve discussion, research, and significant amount of interaction between teacher and students and among students themselves (Harmer, 2001, p 258)

1.1.2.2 Genre approach

Swales (1990), as cited in Kim (2007, p 34) defined a genre as ―a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes‖ This definition proposes an idea that there are common conventions or rules associated with a writer‘s purpose For example, a letter may include such parts as date of writing, inside address,

Generating

salutation, body text, complementary closing, signature, and name In terms of language, there

is a difference in language use between a formal and an informal letter

Swales (1990) and Martin (1984), as cited in Kim (2007, p.34) shared an essential viewpoint that ―all genres control a set of communicative purposes within certain social situations and that each genre has its own structural quality according to those communicative purposes.‖ Therefore, when genres are exploited within a writing class, it is essential to identify the communicative purposes and the structural features The structural features include both the standard of organization structure and linguistic features

The discovery of typical features of a genre is considered to be part of the pre-writing phase (Harmer, 2001, p 259) This is the difference between process approach and genre approach

in Kim‘s view (2007, p 35) Process approach, as mentioned above, consists of ―prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, and editing‖ (Badger & White, 2000, p 154) However, it is worth noticing that the pre-writing of process approach focuses ultimately on idea generating and gathering without sufficient attention to linguistic knowledge, such as grammar and the organization of content Genre writing approach can solve this because according to Badger & White (2000, p 155-6), being exposed to similar texts, students can detect the specific conventions of that genre from which they can embark on their own writing

1.1.2.3 Creative writing approach

Creative writing means imaginary tasks such as writing a poem, a story, or a play According

to Ur (1996, p 169, as cited in Harmer, 2001, p 259), this kind of writing can promote some sense of achievement in students as they can produce the result, ―feel pride in their work‖, and

―want it to be read‖

Creative writing is ―a journey of self-discovery and self-discovery promotes effective learning‖ (Gaffield & Vile, 1998, as cited in Harmer, 2001, p 259) Therefore, this type of writing generates stronger motivation for students to write in a greater variety of correct and

students can use their own experience and can write what they want to write about For example, they may want to write a poem about someone they care about, a story of their childhood, etc

However, students may also feel imaginative writing difficult as they have nothing to say, which may lead to a sense of frustration and failure In order to avoid this, Harmer (2001, p 260) suggests that teachers should encourage them to make as much effort as possible for maximum benefits It is also important not to set too high expectation from the very first by allowing students to write phrases and sentences before whole compositions

1.2 Peer review

1.2.1 Definition of peer review

1.2.1.1 Old concept of review:

In classical rhetorical theory, review or revision was not considered an important factor in writing Hodges (1982, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p 108) stated that in Aristotle‘s opinion, composing meant finding and structuring content and then polishing the sentences Within this light, sentence-level corrections were emphasized rather than revision to get new ideas in composing Therefore, the narrow definition of the revision process as surface editing and correcting continued to be popular During the Middle Ages, invention was not as important as imitation and style was not connected to content During the Renaissance, the idea that revision was primarily alteration at sentence-level was further advocated Although as Hodge (1982, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p 109) wrote, both Frances and Ben Johnson were not in favor of preoccupation with style and supported a view that would advocate the revision of content and arrangement, their ideas were not accepted Therefore, more attention was paid to polishing the language use and finding the most efficient tropes such as metaphor, personification, and synecdoche to express ideas

In the United States, the concept of error correction initially came into existence in the late

19th century because of social conditions It was the time when the Harvard University set an entrance examination which required students to write a short composition with correction in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and expression The urge of organizing a course in writing arose when half of the prospective students failed the exam Subsequently, students had to attend the composition course in which frequent short compositions were written for their instructors to read and indicate grammatical errors Then, it was the task of the students to rewrite to correct the errors after the essays were returned This approach to revision became

―an integral part of the current traditional approach to rhetoric that dominated both university and high school composition instruction until the 1960s‖ and ―firmly established a concept of revision as rewriting to correct grammatical errors‖ (Clark et al, 2003, p 109)

1 2.1.2 Contemporary concept of review:

Beginning in the 1960s, more interest was put into review/revision as an important step in composing process Initially composing was viewed as linear process in which writers moved from such steps as prewriting or intervention, then drafting, revision, and finally editing However, later theorists and researchers support the ―recursive model in which writers moved back and forth among the activities of invention, drafting, and revision throughout the composing process‖ (Perl, 1979, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p.110) Under this view, writers could do the revision at any point during composing process and at any level from the word level, sentence level to the discourse level with the principal concern of developing meaning which is suitable to the purpose and audience Murray (1978) differentiated two kinds of revision, the old approach and the new one as ―external revision‖ and ―internal revision‖ respectively The external revision involved editing, proofreading, and attending to form, style, language, and mechanics whereas the internal approach included ―everything writers do

to discover and develop what they have to say, beginning with the reading of a completed first draft‖ (Murray, 1978, p 87) In the later approach, four aspects of discovery were recognized

They are discovery of content and information, form and structure, meaning through language

To sum up, the modern approach of revision addressed the questions concerning content, organization, and audience before the question of correctness which was once the primary focus of the old concept of revision As a result, any change related to correctness was referred

to editing rather than revision (Clark et al, 2003, p.110-11) This definition also coincides with Lannon (1989) when the author stated that revisions do not only mean proofreading to correct mechanical mistakes such as spelling or punctuation, but involve attention to ―rhetorical features, worthwhile content, sensible organization and readable style‖ (p 70)

Under the view of the modern approach, peer revision or peer review is the activity involving

―sharing one's writing with a group of peer readers who offer feedback and suggestions for improvement‖ (The University of Hawaii)

1.2.2 Benefits of peer revision

The practice of peer revision is fostered in both L1 and ESL/EFL writing classes and received much support for its cognitive, affective, social, and linguistic benefits (Min, 2006) It has been proved to assist not only college (de Guerrero & Villamil, 1994; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994; Villamil & de Guerrero, 1996 cited in Min, 2006) but also secondary students (Peterson, 2003; Tsui&Ng, 2000 cited in Min, 2006) Below are some widely accepted benefits of peer review activities

One important benefit of peer review is that it can help produce useful feedback and effective revision According to Rollinson (1998, as cited in Rollinson, 2005), the result of a research among college-level students revealed that the percentage of valid comments (80%) outweighed that of damaging ones (7%) Caulk (1994, as cited in Rollinson, 2005) proposed the same results when the author found out that 89% of his intermediate/advanced level foreign language students gave useful comments Moreover, the level of revision uptake of peer comments was found to be very high in Mendoca and Johnson (1994) (53%) and in Rollinson (1998, as cited in Rollinson, 2005) (65%) Another reason for the adoption of peer review is that students‘ responses tend to be more specific than teachers‘ general ones (Caulk,

1994) and can be seen as complementary (Berg, 1999; Chaudron, 1984 as cited in Rollinson, 2005)

The next advantage of peer review which is a direct result from the above-mentioned benefit is the improvement of writing quality Villamil and De Guerrero (1998, as cited in Miao et al, 2006) found that peer feedback had a beneficial effect on the quality of writing Berg‘s (1999) study of ESL classes in the USA also confirmed the effectiveness of peer feedback as a means

of aiding writing development In his/her view, the peer review task is beneficial not only to writers who can receive useful feedback and effectively uptake the revision in their writing but also to reviewers who can learn from their peer and the activity itself

Another benefit is to promote collaboration and communication among writers and reviewers which develops learners‘ autonomy and decreases their dependence on teachers According to Rollinson (2005, p 24), peer review activity can potentially generate more response and interaction, from which two-way feedback and negotiation of meaning are established Peer response activity also ―fosters a myriad of communicative behaviors‖ (Villamil & de Guerrero, 1996, p 69, as cited in Rollinson, 2005, p 25) and ―highly complex socio-cognitive interactions involving arguing, explaining, clarifying, and justifying‖ (Rollinson, 2005, p 25) Harmer (2004, p 115) considers peer review a ―valuable element‖ because it promotes collaboration among students and prevents them from passively accepting teachers‘ comments Villamil and De Guerrero (1998, as cited in Miao et al, 2006, p 181) also confirm the learners‘ autonomy that peer review brought about Hyland and Hyland (2006, p 39) viewed peer review as ―a unique opportunity‖ in which students exploit their social experience

to help each other in the development of writing skills and discourse strategies Moreover, the peer revision task allowed both readers and writers to ―consolidate and reorganize knowledge

of the L2 and make this benefit explicit for each other‘s benefits.‖ Hyland and Hyland (2006,

p 39)

It is clearly seen that the effectiveness of peer review has been supported by the theoretical claims and generally positive findings However, some considerations regarding peer review and the implication of peer review should be taken into account as presented in the next part

1.2.3 Problematic aspects of peer revision

Despite enthusiastic claims and positive comments towards peer revision, some problems are inevitable (Kraemer, 1993; Styslinger, 1998; Berkenkotter, 1984, as cited in Clark et al, 2003; Rollinson, 2005; and Harmer, 2004)

Rollinson (2005, p 25) showed that peer feedback, whether oral or written one, can be a lengthy process because the act of reading a draft, making notes, then either writing comments

on the draft or interacting with writer to reach a consensus or negotiate meaning will take a significant amount of time Therefore, peer review activity requires much investment of time

More importantly, much consideration in terms of student characteristics and attitude should

be taken into account Rollinson (2005, p 26) reminded that students may not easily accept their peers who act as substitutes of their teacher and become assessors of their writing They often value teacher‘s comments rather than peer‘s as many studies showed For example, in Zhang‘s (1995) study (as cited in Miao et al, 2006, p 180) which was carried out among ESL students at two universities in the USA, the result showed that a very high figure of of students (94%) preferred teacher feedback to peer feedback Students often judged the value of their peer comments in relation to their perception of ability and course grade Therefore, the success of peer review depends much on the reviewers and writers, so peer review will fail if they do not cooperate well (Harmer, 2004, p 117) In addition, students may express some irritation with the peer review process (Styslinger, 2004; Kraemer, 1993, as cited in Clark et

al, 2003) They often found it uncomfortable to criticize their peer writings and be criticized Students also showed some dissatisfaction with their peer comments which were described as

―too limiting, general, or nice and not always based on a careful reading of the paper‖ (Styslinger, 1998, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p 115)

Some studies have proved that culture has some influence on the effectiveness of the peer review (Allaei and Connor, 1990, as cited in Miao et al, 2006) In the studies of Nelson & Murphy (1993), Carson and Nelson (1994, as cited in Miao et al, 2006, p 182), peer review worked less well with Chinese speaking students as they were less likely to ―accept the right

of other non-native speakers of English to judge their writing‖ and ―will generally work toward maintaining group harmony and mutual face-saving to maintain a state of cohesion‖ The conclusion was that

ESL students from countries with a large power distance are perhaps less likely to value their peers‘ views than are students from countries with a lower power distance, e.g., students from the United States

(Nelson & Carson, 1998, p 130)

One more important difficulty is the quality of peer comments Resulting from students‘ aforementioned negative attitude, they are not keen on providing useful feedback Moreover,

in students‘ perception doing peer review means editing which is the old concept of revision,

so they only focus on sentence-level problems (Styslinger, 1998, as cited in Clark et al, 2003,

p 115) Also, Yagelski (1995) found that students still focused their revision on surface and stylistic concerns

All in all, there are many problems arising when adopting peer revision activity as Berkenkotter stated ―using peer response effectively was neither simple nor straightforward‖ (Berkenkotter, 1984, as cited in Clark, 2003, p 121) Therefore, peer review does not happen automatically, but teachers‘ guidance in facilitating students and creating successful peer revision is required Ways for teachers to achieve this will be discussed in the next part

1.2.4 Ways to create effective peer revision:

According to Rollinson (2005, p 26), all the afore-mentioned theoretical and practical problems can be dealt with by

a) ―properly setting up the group and establishing effective procedures‖, and

b) ―adequate training, that is, coaching students in the principles and practices of effective peer group interaction and response‖

The two given issues are identified as a prerequisite for successful use of this strategy by Berg (1999, as cited in Miao et al, 2006) Netkirk (1984, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p 121) agreed with Rollinson (2005) and Miao et al (2006) by confirming that ―peer groups might be limited

in their ability to provide an adequate response to student papers without careful preparation and training‖

1.2.4.1 Creating effective peer revision groups:

According to Rollinson (2005), in terms of basic procedures, teachers should consider: size of groups; number of drafts to be written (often three); evaluation (whether the feedback is evaluated or graded by the teacher) Significant variations in the size of group exist in peer feedback research For instance, Zhu (1995) supported groups of three or four and noted that the group dynamics had a great influence on how the feedback group functions This group size is advocated in many other studies such as Allaei & Connor (1990); Nelson & Carson (1998); Rollinson (2005, as cited in Miao et al, 2006) However, Min (2005, p 296) maintained that most EFL students preferred doing the peer review in pairs This idea is confirmed by Paulus (1999, p 272) when the author argued that ―pairs of students offer more opportunities for more intensive discussion about their writing‖ Pairs of students are also adopted by Hu (2005) and Villamil and De Guerrero (1998, as cited in Miao, 2006, p 183)

Regarding the response itself, the decision of whether having students make oral or written feedback has to be made Each type of response has its own advantages In Chisholm‘s opinion ( , p 12), written response is beneficial in that it provides time for reader to think and provide proper response and works as a reference after the peer review activity Spoken response with its flexibility can help generate ideas and make it easier for the expression of

comments which are ―harsh and cold‖ in writing Therefore, it depends on teacher‘s preference, time allowance, and other conditions to decide on a type of response to apply

In addition, according to Rollinson (2005, p 26), teachers should decide how the response sessions are organized Then the following questions should be addressed: Should students work individually or in groups? How long is the reader-writer interaction allowed and to what extent will the groups be supervised if the revision is oral? If the response is to be written, what degree of oral interaction is allowed for clarification or debate?

Finally, teacher should decide what to follow after forming groups For example, to train students how to response, teachers can make a choice among intervention strategies such as whole class workshop, conferencing, etc These intervention strategies will be dealt with in the next part

1.2.4.2 Peer review training:

1.2.4.2.1 Pre-training:

According to Rollinson (2005, p 27), although the objectives of pre-training are ―numerous and overlapping‖, it broadly concerns three areas: ―awareness raising‖; ―productive group interaction‖; ―productive response and revision‖ The purpose of awareness raising is for students to understand ―the principles and objectives of peer response‖ The productive group interaction is to ―promote collaboration, supportiveness, tact and etiquette‖ Lastly, activities concerning ―productive response and revision‖ are for students to understand basic procedures, know how to produce effective comments and revision Rollinson (2005, p 27-28) suggested the following pre-training activities

 The ―propaganda phase‖: This includes explanation and comparison of the value of peer response vs teacher response, discussion of student concerns about providing response by themselves, reasons for the provision of helpful feedback of peers at the

same level Lastly, examples of professional writers‘ use of peer review can also be provided

 Class discussion of the purpose of response and role of the responder: these activities can be done in the form of comparison of the role of the peer reader and that of the teacher reader or discussion of why reader should be a collaborator rather than corrector

 Non-threatening practice activities: Class modeling and discussion of adequate and inadequate commenting should be provided in these activities Authentic comments can also used for the class to analyze and evaluate Moreover, the class could respond

to a sample writing to practice how to give effective comments and revision The teacher could also model effective collaboration comments, namely providing a balance of clear explanation of problem and extensive suggestions for improvements

 Small group work: the class could be divided in groups, each of which could write a short text, then exchange the text with other groups to give and receive feedback This can be followed by self-evaluation activities and then group discussion of the experience of peer response

 Discussion of effective revision: Adequate and inadequate revision strategies could be modeled for students to be capable of revising effectively from reader‘s comments

1.2.4.2.2 Intervention training:

Although the significant roles of revision in composing has been confirmed in many research, students are not well aware of this and often misunderstand peer revision for peer editing which is concerned with error correction and making small changes in wording or sentence structures Therefore, rhetoricians and composition specialists have searched for strategies that could encourage more meaning-based revision Expanding students‘ understanding of revision

as a way of developing and shaping meaning and finding ways to intervene during the composing process, and teaching students to revise at the rhetorical level are three main issues

of composition instruction (Clark at al, 2003, p 117) Below are some intervention strategies adopted

 Whole class workshop:

Macronie (1986, as cited in Clark, 2003, p 117) was one of the first to apply methods to improve students‘ revision of their draft The strategy called ―in-class workshop‖ involved the whole class working together under the teacher‘s guidance The reason for this is to create a

―helping circle‖ in which teacher and students could contribute to the writing by giving truthful comments Because of the anxiety about receiving criticism, negative comments were delayed after the positive ones were given Teachers assisted students by pointing out examples of good and bad writing by both student and professional writers

The following guidelines are recommended by Connors and Glenn (1995, as cited in Clark et

al, 2003, p 122) for successful whole-class workshops

―1 Use example of strong writing so students can easily recognize a paper‘s strengths

2 Hand out copies of students‘ paper in advance and ask other students to read and write comments before the class workshop begins

3 Have the writer read his/ her paper aloud and then ask for guidance on specific concerns‖

 Conferencing:

Conferencing, as White and Arndt (1991, p 117-8) stated, is the work between the writer and the teacher or a reader on a writing with the purpose of clarifying the writer‘s intention, purpose, and meanings White and Arndt (1991, p 131) also maintained that conferencing, either during or post composition, is advantageous in that it allows individual focus on writing leading to better comments, supports two-way responding between reader and writer, and

boosts discussions to negotiate meanings Conferencing has two versions: teacher-student conference and teacher-a group of student conference

Murray (1985, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p.?) applied teacher-student conference which was considered to be a ―co-reading‖ of students‘ paper In this method, three basic steps were followed, namely students‘ comments on their draft, teachers‘ responses to students comments, and students‘ responses to teachers‘ comments After many conferences with the main aim of helping students to develop their ―evaluative criteria‖, in-class workshops in which the revised drafts were presented to a small group were followed

Zhu (1995) utilized a small group conference approach in his experiment research to L1 peer responders in freshman composition classes In his research, both the experimental and control groups watched a demonstration video to acquire some fundamental concepts of peer review The conference between the teacher and the experimental groups of three happened three times during the semester Each conference consisted of two phases: a reading aloud by a volunteer student of his/her writing with peers reading along, followed by a discussion of the essay and suggestion for improvement The researcher came to a conclusion that such peer training brought about significant effects on both the quantity and quality of peer feedback

 Peer response groups:

According to Gere (1987, as cited in Clark et al, 2003, p 123), peer response groups could effectively raise audience awareness and promote collaboration among them Lindemann (1995) believes that the peer workshop is ―one of the best ways to teach students to become independent critics‖ (p 202)

Peer response groups as an intervention strategy was utilized by Peter Elbow (1973, as cited in Irene L Clark et al (2003, p 118-9) with less emphasis on teacher authority and greater role of students in peer response Elbow first offered descriptive guidelines for learners to apply in feedback giving and later modified it into a more structured guidelines with attention to criteria for good writing This was further developed by Elbow and Belanoff (1989) with the

addition of ―analytic responding‖, ―reader-based responding‖, and ―judgment-based responding‖

This chapter has presented relevant theoretical framework of the study which serves as the basis for the development in the next chapters The first main part discussed the reasons for teaching writing and different current approaches to it The second main part covered the issue

of peer revision which clarified the term ‗peer revision‘, benefits and problems of peer revision, and ways for teachers to create effective peer revision In the next chapter, the research methodology will be presented

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, a detailed presentation of the method used in the study is given It is comprised

of the justification of the exploitation of action research and a discussion of the components related to this method including the context of the study, the intervention, the instruments, the data collection procedure and data collection methods

2.1 Rationale for the use of action research:

In the process of finding out an appropriate methodology for the research, the researcher decided that action research would be the best choice to achieve the main aim of the study which is finding a solution to improve the quality of student peer review activity

Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2007, p 297) define action research as ―a powerful tool for changes and improvement at the local level‖ Since the foundation of action research, it has been utilized by researchers in a variety of areas

In characterizing action research, many different conceptions which focus on different aspects

of action research have been provided As a typical definition of action research, Ebbutt (1985,

p 156) regarded it as a systematic study in which action and reflection are too main factors and are combined with the intention of improving practice Attesting the rigour of action research, Corey (1953, p 6) stated that it is the process involving the investigation of scientific problems in order to evaluate, improve, and steer decision making and practice Related to the aims of action research, Zuber Skerritt (1996, p 83, as cited in Cohen et al 2007, p 298) suggested that ―practical improvement, innovation, change or development of social practice and the practitioners‘ better understanding of these practices‖ are the ultimate aims of any action research project or program Somekh (1995, p 340) simplified the aims by maintaining that action research is designed to ―bridge between research and practice‖ All in all, a typical action research, as Kemmis and Mc Taggart (1988, p 5) identified, would have three main characteristics as it is ―carried out by practitioners‖, ―collaborative‖, and ―aimed at changing things‖

There are many reasons underlying the choice of action research in this study

First, as Holly and Whitehead (1986, as cited in Cohen et al 2007, p 297) stated, action research can be used in almost every setting where a problem requires a solution or changes which result in a desirable outcome The researcher recognized that an action research can be perfectly applicable in the setting of the current study The study is conducted in a composition class where the researcher works as a writing teacher as well The problem of students‘ lack of active involvement in peer response resulting in vague peer feedback has been pinpointed and requires a solution to facilitate students‘ learning of writing This problem urges the researcher to carry out the study in order to improve the practice of her own teaching

Secondly, one important characteristic of action research is intervention Intervention can be

referred to as ―acting‖, ―action‖, or ―practice For example, Lewin (1946, 1948, as cited in Cohen et al, 2007) put an action research into four main stages, namely planning, acting, observing, and reflecting Ebbutt (1985) maintained that feedback within and between each circle is important to facilitate reflection This view is reinforced by Altricher and Gstettner‘s (1993, p 343) four-step model which are (1) finding a starting point, (2) clarifying the situation, (3) developing action strategies and putting them into practice, (4) making teachers‘ knowledge public In Cohen et al (2007, p 307), a more detailed process consisting of eight steps is presented The eight steps include (1) identification, evaluation and formulation of the problem, (2) clarification of objectives, purposes, and assumptions, (3) review of the research literature, (4) emergence of hypothesis and assumptions, (5) selection of research procedures, (6) choice of evaluation procedures, (7) implementation of the project, (8) interpretation of data, discussion of findings, and decision of inferences Regardless of the variety of different models of action research, intervention is the crucial step and is essential for the researcher to test a hypothesis or in other words, the effectiveness of a solution to an identified problem In this study, the hypothesis is that peer review training can help students improve their peer response skills Therefore, it is impossible to test this hypothesis or to verify the effectiveness

modeling and conference to make students well-aware of how to make relevant and specific responses to their peer writings, the teacher/researcher can decide on the effectiveness of this method As a result, the main aim of this study will be accomplished

Lastly, action research provides the teacher/researcher the opportunities to collaborate with students consecutively from pre-training to post-training period and offer help when needed Although students were asked to do peer review before this study, most of them misunderstood peer revision for peer editing As a result, local errors related to grammar, word, spelling, or punctuation are often their main concerns of feedback Therefore, the teacher/researcher‘s continuous assistance is of great importance in the process of student‘s awareness raising as well as their practice of peer response This feature of collaboration of action research has been confirmed by many authors (Winter, 1996, p 13 – 14, Kemmis and

Most of the students‘ age ranges from 18 to 20 There are 17 females and only one male This imbalance in gender reflects a common reality of the faculty as well as the foreign language universities in Vietnam, where the number of females far outweigh that of males

The students‘ English proficiency level is around pre-intermediate However, it is worth noting that to enter university, all students had to pass the entrance written examination with typical form of a multiple-choice test Therefore, at high school, such skills as listening, speaking, and writing were often neglected and the focus of teaching and learning used to be

on grammar and vocabulary Moreover, students were often taught in the light of Grammar

translation method Accordingly, freshmen at ULIS – VNU, many of whom come from the countryside, are not equally strong at the given skills Although they are good at grammar and doing mechanical exercises, they meet a lot of difficulties in learning listening, speaking and writing In the first semester, students were required to do peer check, but without teacher‘s assistance, students did not understand the concept of peer review as well as know how to do it and benefit from it Therefore, in the second semester, in the researcher‘s opinion, they need great help from their teacher in order to get improvement in peer review and writing skills

2.2.2 The Writing course for freshmen at ULIS – VNU:

A semester at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education lasts 15 weeks among which two weeks are for diagnostic test and learning fest and the remaining 13 weeks for in-class teaching and learning Within 13 weeks under the study, there are 11 weeks for teaching writing in class, and 2 other weeks for writing tutorials in which four classes learn together in

a large hall

 Objectives:

The objectives of the writing course are stated clearly in the course-outline of Division 1, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education By the end of the semester, in terms of knowledge and skills, students:

- Can write straightforward, detailed descriptions on a range of familiar subjects within his/her field of interest

- Can write accounts of experiences, describing feelings and reactions in simple connected texts

- Can write a description of an event, a trip – real or imagined

- Can narrate a story

- Be familiar with self-check, cross-check, self-comment, peer comment, group comment

- Be skillful at working independently, in pairs or in group

As can be seen in the above objectives, being familiar with peer and group comments is one of the important skills that students need to achieve by the end of the semester

 Materials:

The text book used to teach writing skill is Writing Focus compiled by lecturers at Division 1

The book consists of two parts: the first part concerning with writing formal and informal letters for the first semester, the second part for the second semester comprising of 6 lessons which are devoted to writing some kinds of description, descriptive narrative, and story telling For every lesson, part one is Grammar-In-Focus which aims at helping students to revise some useful grammar structures for writing while part two is Writing Folder consisting of instructions on how to write a particular type of writing, samples, and tasks for practice

 The writing syllabus:

As mentioned above, students learn writing skills in their class in 11 weeks There are 4 main types of writing:

It is well worth noting that freshmen at ULIS – VNU are taught writing under the combination

of process and genre approach The lessons follow six steps: analyzing samples,

brainstorming, outlining, writing the first draft, peer written feedback, writing the second draft, receiving teacher‘s written comments, and writing the final draft In the first step, students are provided with one typical sample of the genre that they are studying The teacher and students work together to analyze the sample with the ultimate aims of uncovering the features of that genre and typical structure patterns used with it After that, students are to choose among the tasks and write on their own under the help of teacher

2.3 Intervention:

As mentioned above, since most of the participants learned English at high schools with Grammar translation method in which vocabulary and grammar practice are the main focus and academic writing is paid little attention to, the peer review training was done on a continuous basis which was intended to help students fill the gaps of their background knowledge and required skills in academic writing and peer feedback There were two main activities to train students how to do peer review, namely in-class modeling and small group conference

2.3.1 In-class modeling:

The researcher used Min (2006) method in training students how to give peer feedback Among many methods applied in peer review training, this method was chosen due to its clear steps and feasibility in this study‘s setting In his modeling, the guidance sheet and a copy of

an essay composed by a former student were given to students Then, the think-aloud method was utilized to demonstrate how to make comments by using a four-step procedure: Clarifying writers‘ intentions, identifying the source of problems, explaining the nature of problems, and making specific suggestions

Below is the in-class modeling lesson which consists of three stages, namely discussion, small group practice, and peer revision modeling

 Discussion of the concept:

- Students discuss the concept of peer review in groups, and then share their view with the whole class

- Teacher acts as a moderator while students share their views, and then clearly clarifies the concept of peer revision, and differentiates between peer revision and peer editing

 Discussion of the purposes of peer revision:

- Students discuss how peer revision can benefit them in their academic writing and what the roles of writer and reviewer are

2 Small group practice:

Aims:

- to get students understand the nature of peer revision

- to help students know basically how to give peer comments

Activities:

- Students work in groups to write a short paragraph of about 5-6 sentences describing a person

- Students exchange the text with other groups to give and receive feedback

- Lastly, students do self-evaluation activities and then group discussion of the experience of peer response

3 Modeling:

Aims:

- to make students understand steps of giving peer comments

- to train students how to provide adequate comments

Activities:

 Modeling:

- Teacher distributes to students a sheet of guidelines in the form of questions (for reference, see appendix 1) and a copy of an essay written by a former student (for reference, see appendix 2.1)

- Then, think-aloud technique is utilized to demonstrate how to make comments using four-step procedure: Clarifying writers‘ intentions, identifying the source of problems, explaining the nature of problems, and making specific suggestions (Min, 2005)

 Practice:

- Students are required to do the peer review themselves with a sample of another former student‘s writing (for reference, see appendix 2.2) basing on the guidance sheet and following four steps as guided and then give a written commentary

This lesson lasted three periods which accounted for 150 minutes

2.3.2 Small group conference:

This conference method was adapted from a research on training L1 peer responders of Zhu (1995) In this method, some fundamental concepts about peer response were taught to both the experimental and control groups by the utilization of a demonstration video The experimental group, in addition, met with the instructors in groups of three, three times during the semester Each teacher–student conference consisted of two phases—a read aloud by a volunteer student of his/her essay with peers reading along, followed by a discussion of the essay and suggestions for revision

Two types of conference have been used in peer review training, namely small group conference and teacher – reviewer conference However, small group conference was exploited in this study in order to boost discussion among participants about the comments and from that they could improve their own ones Applying this method, the researcher divided the class into four groups of four or five students One week after the in-class modeling, the teacher/researcher collected all the writers‘ first drafts, reviewers‘ written comments and also the revised versions The researcher had a careful check on the types and quality of the comments and thought of suggestions for improving the reviewers‘ comments Then, the researcher arranged a one - hour - meeting with each group to have a discussion about the written comments and how to revise their comments so that they were more understandable and helpful to writers in revising their writing The conferences were also chances for the reviewers and writers to discuss and clarify their ideas This process was repeated with the other essays with the provision of one-to-one counseling when necessary To sum up, there were one conference with the writing of the former student in in-class modeling period and 4 conferences held for each type of writing, which made up a total of 20 conferences with four groups of students

in which there were two essays composed before peer review training and three essays written consecutively after peer review training However, it should be noted that the third writing, the one following in-class modeling with the topic ―describing a person‖, was not treated as data for analysis The reason was that the researcher would prefer to use this writing for students‘ further practice of giving peer feedback after the in-class modeling Therefore, four students‘ writings, two before and two after training were analyzed Each set of writing for a genre consisted of two versions, the draft with peer comments and the final one Any draft that students might write between the first draft with peer comments and the final draft handed in for teacher‘s comments was not taken into consideration because any change made at this stage was self-monitoring Accordingly, there were 72 essays being analyzed to measure the students‘ progress in giving comments prior to and post peer review training

The second instrument was interview The interviews with open-ended questions about the peer review training were informally conducted in Vietnamese, which was to create a comfortable atmosphere in order for the participants to fully express their opinions about the peer review training Participants were asked questions to reflect on their positive or negative attitude towards peer review training and how they could benefit from it Each interviewee was asked to give their reflections in two roles, a writer and a reviewer The interviews were carried out with all the participants individually at the end of the semester after the training had finished

2.5 Data collection procedure:

The data collection procedure could be divided into two phases as follows: The first phase was preparation during which the researcher studied the literature related to the field of the study to form the theoretical background for the study In addition, previous studies on the field were also investigated to find out the research gaps as well as decide what could be learnt from them After that, the methodological framework of the study was worked out The participants were finalized and divided into groups Then, the researcher decided on how to conduct in-class modeling by making a lesson plan, developing a guideline checklist, choosing former students‘ writings The plan for group conferencing between the teacher and students were also developed at this stage

The second phase was intervention and collection Before the intervention, two writings of two genres were collected for later analysis After the first two weeks, the intervention took place Beginning with in-class modeling with steps and activities clearly discussed in the previous part, students had chances to raise their awareness of peer revision and how to apply

it in their peer comment activity and to practice giving adequate peer comments At this stage, students were provided with a list of commonly used symbols (for reference, see appendix 3)

to facilitate the peer revision activity Following in-class modeling was group conferencing with the teacher For each writing, a group of students met with the teacher to discuss their comments Accordingly, students had a conference with the teacher once a week, which made

up a total of 20 conferences altogether After conferencing, students received their writing papers with peer comments and decided on the changes or modifications to their writings Finally, the final drafts were handed in

The detailed program of the study was presented in the following table

Week In-class Out-of-class Writings

Course book Research program

1 Examination week

2 Describing a place No intervention 1st draft and final

draft of paper 1 and 2

3 Revision In-class modeling Conferencing 1

with a writing

of a former student

4 Describe a person In-class assistance 1st draft of paper 3

5 Revision In-class assistance Conferencing 2 Final draft of

14 Revision In-class assistance

Table 1: Detailed program of the study

The interviews were done in the last week of the semester after students had handed in their portfolios

2.6 Data analysis methods:

For writing analysis, both quantitative and qualitative were adopted In quantitative analysis, the researcher aimed at comparing the number of total comments prior to and post peer review training, number of mistakes made by writers and comments made by peers In qualitative analysis, the researcher measured the progress that students made by analyzing the features of their comments The peer written feedback was categorized into the following aspects

6 Spelling and punctuation

Table 2: Aspects of writing analysis