Practice of peer written feedback in paragraph writing skills among third-year students of Hanam College of Education (HCE)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN PARA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN

PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS AMONG THIRD- YEAR STUDENTS OF HANAM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (HCE)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

*******************

PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN

PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS AMONG THIRD- YEAR STUDENTS OF HANAM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (HCE)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

N

HANOI, 2016

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I confirm that this is my own research, and that has not been published or submitted for any other degrees

Student’s signature

Phạm Thị Hồng

ABSTRACT

The main aim of this minor thesis is to examine the way in which the third- year students of HCE give feedback to their peer’s written paragraphs, the difficulties students might encounter when responding to their peer’s writing, to find out whether the method is effective

In order to get adequate information for the study, document analysis of students’ peer written feedback and survey method were applied The participants involved in the study were 20 third- year students from 2 classes of HCE

The data analyzing suggests that the students gave feedback on all areas of the paragraph especially on grammar and vocabulary And, the study results also reveal that peer feedback is effective to the students’ learning of writing

Although the peer written feedback to students’ writing brings the certain effectiveness, a large number of HCE still have difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peer’s writing and in giving suggestion to overcome those mistakes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On completing this thesis, I own profound indebtedness to so many people, without whose contribution and spiritual support I could not have accomplished it First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, for his scholarly instruction critical comments, great encouragement and valuable materials, without which the thesis would not have been completed

I would like to send my heart-felt gratitude to the teachers at the Foreign Language Department of Hanam College of Education (HCE) who have supported

me by giving useful advice and providing me with their useful teaching materials

My sincere thanks also go to the third-year students of HCE for their patience and willingness to do my survey questionnaire Moreover, I would like to send my gratitude to my family and my friends for encouraging me and supporting me during the time of the thesis Without them, I would not have been able to complete this thesis

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES

Table 1: Students’ giving feedback on grammar

Table 2: Examples of students’ giving feedback on grammar

Table 3: Students’ giving feedback on vocabulary

Table 4: Examples of students’ giving feedback on vocabulary

Table 5: Students’ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings Table 6: Students’ difficulties in providing suggestion the mistakes in the peers’

writings Table 7: Students’ improvement in the paragraph organization after receiving peer

written feedback Table 8: Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback Table 9: Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving written feedback

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The percentage of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization Figure 2: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the grammatical

mistakes

Figure 3: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the vocabulary

mistakes

Figure 4: The percentage of students who gave general written comments

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

AB STRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

LIST OF TAB LES, F IGURES iv

LIST OF F IGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION I 1 Rationale of the study I 2 Aims and objectives of the study III 3 Scope of the study III 4 Significance of the study III 5 Research methodology IV 6 Organization of the thesis V PART B: DEVELOPMENT Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

LITERATURE REVIEW Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1 Theoretical background Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1.1 Definition Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2 Literature review Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3 Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing

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1.3.1 Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in the teaching

and learning of writing Error! Bookmark not defined

1.3.2 Argument against peer written feedback in teaching and learning of writing

Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4 Different types of peer feedback in writing Error! Bookmark not defined

1.4.1 Oral comments Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4.2 Using the checklists Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4.3 Written comments Error! Bookmark not defined CHAP TER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOG Y Error! Bookmark not defined 2.1 Research questions Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2 Research methods Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2.1 The participants Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2.2 Instrumentation Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2.3 Data collection procedure Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2.4 Data analysis method Error! Bookmark not defined CHAP TER 3: DATA ANALYSIS Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1 Student’s practice of giving peer written feedback Error! Bookmark not defined

3.1.1 Feedback on paragraph organization Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.2 Feedback on grammar Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.3 Feedback on vocabulary Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.4 General comments feedback Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.5 Students’ using the checklist when giving feedback Error! Bookmark not defined

3.2 Students’ difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers’ writings

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3.2.1 Students’ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings

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3.3 Improvement of students’ writing after receiving peer written feedback

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3.3.1 Students’ improvement in paragraph organization after receiving peer

written feedback Error! Bookmark not defined

3.3.2 Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback

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3.3.3 Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback

Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Error! Bookmark not defined 4.1 Findings Error! Bookmark not defined

4.3 Implications for teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback

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4.3.2 Implication for learning of writing using peer written feedback Error! Bookmark not defined

PART C: CONCLUSION Error! Bookmark not defined

1 Concluding remarks Error! Bookmark not defined

2 Limitation of the study Error! Bookmark not defined REFERENCES VI APPENDICES Error! Bookmark not defined

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

English is an international language and considered to be one of the key factors which any country needs on the way of developing Students after graduating are the labor force of each country Therefore, the demand to use English frequently is very necessary to all students in general and students in Hanam College of Education (HCE) in particular

Among the four skills, writing seems to be the most difficult As an English teacher, I deeply feel the responsibilities to help students improve their skills, especially writing skill There are many ways which can be applied to improve the students’ writing skills, and peer feedback is one of them

According to Hyland (1990), providing effective written feedback is one of the most important tasks for English writing teachers Ferris (1995) shares the same belief: teacher feedback has been indicated to be desirable for the development of student writing Bitchener, Young & Cameron (2005) debate that written feedback should be provided as it is often neglected and misunderstood by students Other linguists such as Dochy, Segers, & Sluijsmans (1999) strongly hold it that students peer feedback has many pros over cons and peer learning and assessment help students develop communication skills, the ability to collaborate, critical thinking, and habits of life-long learning

In the peer feedback method, students write the first draft and exchange it with their peers Then, they read each other’s papers and give feedback, usually based on the checklist from the teacher The checklist focuses on some areas of the writing such as organization, grammar and vocabulary, etc The selection of the areas to be included in each specific feedback method depends on the characteristics

of the students

The use of peer feedback, especially peer written feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported in the literature as a valuable aid by many

peer written feedback in the writing classroom First, peer feedback has great influence on the success of teaching and learning In this method, students exchange their papers to their peers It means that there are more opportunities for collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate This is very necessary to the progress of teaching and learning English Second, peer feedback is essential to the teaching and learning writing because peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can do revision effectively on the basis

of the comments from peer readers Last, it is found that when students become critical readers of others’ writings, they will be more critical readers and revisers of the own writings However, using peer written feedback is not easy because students’ level of English proficiency is not always the same and this method also takes a lot of time from teachers and students

Recently, every school and university in Vietnam has tried to apply the latest methodology in teaching language skills in general and in teaching writing skill in particular in order to make language teaching and learning as effective as possible HCE is not an exception HCE was founded 50 years ago However, the faculty of foreign languages has just been founded for only 7 years Working in such a young faculty, the English teachers of the college have to cope with a lot of challenges To overcome these, the teachers have tried their best to study and apply the latest and most effective method to their teaching the four skills in general and the writing skill in particular Many methods have been applied to teach the writing skills One

of them is the peer written feedback This method has been applied for the third-year students for one third-year This research was done to investigate how students give feedback in paragraph writing skill among the third-year students of HCE; to examine the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback; and to find out whether the method is effective From these, the author could have a clear idea about the application of this method in teaching English and decide whether to use this method in teaching the writing skills in the future or not

The text book named “Academic Writing” (By Liz and Roar, Third edition)

is used to teach writing paragraph at HCE This textbook consists of 14 lessons with specific forms of paragraph At the end of each lesson, students are usually asked to write a paragraph based on the specific form of paragraph (compare and contras t, cause and effect, problem and solution, narrative, etc.) to revise what they have learnt A huge amount of feedback from the teacher is required In order to ease the teachers’ burden in giving feedback to students’ writing and make this process meaningful to students’ learning, a new way of giving feedback, peer feedback was introduced

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This research aims at investigating students’ peer written feedback in paragraph writing skills among the third-year students of HCE to have a clear idea whether this method is suitable with the students and could be used in the further or not This aim of the research is specified by the following objectives The first is to examine the students’ current practice of giving peer written feedback; the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback, and to find out whether the method is effective The second is to propose some implication for teaching and learning using peer written feedback and provide some suggestions for further study

3 Scope of the study

Apparently, there are many various techniques of feedback in writing such as teachers’ written feedback, self-correction, peer feedback and oral conferences Within the framework of a minor thesis, this study only focuses on one type of feedback, peer written feedback in writing paragraphs among the third- year students of HCE

4 Significance of the study

Theoretically, writing is the most prominent skills that language learners need to learn as an essential component of their academic practice and later on in their professional life, which partially explains why teaching writing has prompted a