An investigation into English major freshmen's perceptions on, attitudes towards and perferences for teacher's written corrective feedback at HU

An investigation into English major freshmen's perceptions on, attitudes towards and perferences for teacher's written corrective feedback at Hanoi University of Industry Nguyễn Thị Đa

An investigation into English major freshmen's

perceptions on, attitudes towards and

perferences for teacher's written corrective feedback at Hanoi University of Industry

Nguyễn Thị Đan Quế

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15

Người hướng dẫn: M.Ed Thái Hà Lam Thủy

Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Ngữ pháp; Từ vựng; Phương pháp dạy học

Content:

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Background of the study

Nowadays, English has become a means of international communication and has been widely used in various fields of the modern life such as: business, education, science and technology It not only helps Vietnamese students approach advanced educational systems but also plays a key role in the context of internationalization of universities in Vietnam Being aware of its importance on the way of innovation and integration, Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) has started a training program of English majors since 2006 Although HaUI is known as a leading one in providing vocational education and English has always been one of the main subjects in its curricula, training English as a major is really a big challenge for both administrators and teachers

As a teacher at English Department, HaUI, I realize that the teaching and learning of 4 language skills, namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing play a decisive role in the academic

success of students in subsequent years Especially, the skill of writing is always a major concern

of both teachers and students in second language (L2) acquisition However, the teaching of writing skills is somewhat like “a journey through woods with a lot of thickets and thorny issues” (Raimes, 1991) Undoubtedly, providing feedback to written texts is one of the most challenging and problematic tasks that any L2 writing teachers have to regularly face

Over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic shift in the paradigms of teaching writing with an importantly increasing focus on the writers and their complex composing process As a result, the role of teacher in providing feedback has changed from “a judge and evaluator” to “a consultant, assistant and facilitator” (Zamel, 1985; Reid, 1993; Ferris, 1995) Traditionally, teachers provide feedback and comments on students’ final drafts, which is now considered to be insufficient or even counterproductive (Zamel, 1985) In the light of process-oriented approach, revision is given more prominence Teachers usually intervene and give response to student writing at several points during the writing process Despite these changes in writing pedagogy, there has been little consensus about effectiveness of teacher’s corrective feedback to students’ writing improvement

Furthermore, the importance of teacher feedback is recognized in revision (Zamel, 1985; Ferris, 1995) and research on ESL writing has demonstrated that students tend to favor and value their teachers’ written corrective feedback (Cohen, 1990, Ferris, 1995) Also, teachers themselves consider response is a critical part of their job as writing teachers (Ferris, 1995, Reid, 1994) Despite the perceived importance of teachers’ written corrective feedback, there lacks clear evidence that students successfully incorporate teacher feedback in their revised writings

Corrective feedback research has focused mostly on teacher’s strategies and their effects on student writings with regard to accuracy Much less has been done to find out about students’ attitudes, perceptions and preferences That there has been an unexplored area of research on the effectiveness of teacher corrective feedback to students’ writing improvement as perceived by students themselves and on students’ reactions to teacher response raises the issue of whether teacher practices of providing feedback match students’ expectations or still presents a mismatch Furthermore, being aware of students’ perceptions and preferences towards teacher feedback helps teachers to find appropriate strategies to intervene and respond to their students’ texts

For the above reasons, this study is carried out to investigate first-year English major students’ perceptions on, attitudes towards and preferences for teacher corrective feedback at Hanoi University of Industry context as an effort to offer the teachers of English a valuable insight into their students’ response to teacher feedback As a result, the research will give some pedagogical implications in writing instruction in general and in the responding to student writing in particular

2 Aims of the study and research questions

This study aims to investigate students’ attitudes to teacher’s corrective feedback they received, their perceptions and preferences As a result, the research can inform teachers of their students’ feedback and suggest some feasible solutions to problems in responding

For the achievement of above-mentioned aims, the study is designed to seek the answers to the following research questions:

1 What are students’ perceptions and attitudes towards their teacher’s written corrective feedback?

2 What strategies do students employ to handle their teachers’ written corrective feedback they received?

3 What are students’ preferences for types and strategies of teacher’s written corrective feedback?

3 Methods of the study

In order to provide reliable data for the study, both qualitative and quantitative approaches will

be exploited

First, a survey questionnaire including both multiple-choice and open-ended questions will be conducted on 60 first-year HaUI students The questionnaire is designed to examine students’ attitudes towards teacher feedback, their perceptions regarding the importance and usefulness of teacher feedback and their preferences for types and strategies of teacher corrective feedback However, in order to have an appropriate survey instrument for the study, the questionnaire will

be piloted to 20 students in the different writing classes and will be administered by the researcher in case students need further explanation for the questions

Second, semi-structured interviews conducted on 09 students selected from 3 different classes are expected to explore further the issues touched upon The language of the interview will be Vietnamese so that the respondents feel comfortable to give reliable answers This study will utilize the instrument of interview in order to closely investigate students’ perceptions and attitudes towards their teacher’s written feedback Class observation is also carried out to bring about deep insight into students’ attitudes and to help the researcher choose samples for the interview

4 Scope of the study

Feedback is a broad theme in L2 acquisition that covers a variety of aspects such as: teacher, peer, and self feedback, written vs oral feedback Regarding teacher’s written feedback, I take the Toshihiko’s view that there are corrective and evaluative feedbacks (1992) Within the framework of this paper, I just want to focus on teacher’s written corrective feedback in the context of ESL writing

Researching into this issue, I will examine the attitudes, perceptions and preferences towards teacher’s written corrective feedback from English major freshmen at Hanoi University of Industry This study is undertaken in three writing classes which utilize portfolio assessment, so the multiple-draft approach to responding is a prerequisite

5 Significance of the study

This study, carried out in the context of Hanoi University of Industry, is expected to be a chance for the researcher and colleagues to look back on their teaching methodology in general and on their practices of responding to written works in particular This study also informs the teachers

of students’ reactions to their practices of providing feedback and offers them a practical reference from which they will have some suitable adjustments in their methodology Some suggested pedagogical implications are expected to provide teachers with some useful strategies

to intervene and respond to their students’ writings

Furthermore, this study can offer reliable and updated information for further study and those who interests the topic

6 Structure of the study

This study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion

Part I: The introduction identifies the research problem, purposes, research questions, methods, scope, significance and structure of the study

Part II: The development consists three chapters:

Chapter 1: Literature review – examines the theoretical background regarding writing pedagogy and teacher written corrective feedback

Chapter 2: The methodology – describes in details the setting, data collection methods and procedure, data analysis methods of the study

Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings – analyzes data from instruments of the study, discusses findings and pedagogical implications of the study

Part III: The conclusion summarizes the main ideas, points out limitations of the study and suggests directions for further research

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