USING INDIRECT CORECTIVE FEEDBACK ON STUDENTS’ WRITING TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS FOR GRADE 10TH MIXED LEVEL STUDENTS AT VAN NOI HIGH SCHOOL IN DONG ANH, HANOI AN ACTION RESEARCH

DECLARATION I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Using indirect corrective feedback on students ‘writing to improve writing skill for grade 10 th mixed level students at Van Noi h

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-

NGUYỄN THI ̣ QUỲNH THU

USING INDIRECT CORECTIVE FEEDBACK ON STUDENTS’

MIXED LEVEL STUDENTS AT VAN NOI HIGH SCHOOL IN

DONG ANH, HANOI- AN ACTION RESEARCH

(VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIỆC SỬA LỖI GIÁN TIẾP ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 CÓ TRÌNH ĐỘ KHÁC NHAU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT VÂN NỘI, ĐÔNG ANH, HÀ NỘI, MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU

HÀNH ĐỘNG)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

-

NGUYỄN THI ̣ QUỲNH THU

USING INDIRECT CORECTIVE FEEDBACK ON STUDENTS’

MIXED LEVEL STUDENTS AT VAN NOI HIGH SCHOOL IN

DONG ANH, HANOI- AN ACTION RESEARCH

(VIỆC SỬ DỤNG VIỆC SỬA LỖI GIÁN TIẾP ĐỂ CẢI THIỆN KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 CÓ TRÌNH ĐỘ KHÁC NHAU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT VÂN NỘI, ĐÔNG ANH, HÀ NỘI, MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU

HÀNH ĐỘNG)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: NGUYỄN THI ̣ MINH TÂM , Ph.D

HANOI – 2017

DECLARATION

I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Using indirect corrective feedback on students ‘writing to improve writing skill for grade 10 th mixed level students at Van Noi high school in Dong Anh, Ha Noi-An action research” is the study of my own research and the substance of this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution

Hanoi, April, 2017

Signature

Nguyễn Thi ̣ Quỳnh Thu

Secondly, my sincere thanks also go to all lecturers and staff of the department

of Post- Graduate studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps Thanks to their lessons as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing the study

I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of my colleagues and the students at Van Noi high school in contributing to the data collection presented in this study Last but not least, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my family for their encouragement and great support during my time of fulfilling this thesis

ABSTRACT

Most second language learners encounters difficulties when writing in the target language For the students at Van Noi high school, the problem might be serious Because of their different and especially low levels when entering this school, the students found it difficult to master writing skill in English In order to solve the problem, students need to understand the nature of writing as well as the detailed instructions from the teacher As a result of this, this project was set out to help the students improve their writing skill using indirect corrective feedback (ICF) The research was formulated as an action one which used a questionnaire, interviews and writing assignments as research instruments to collect quantitative and qualitative about the students‟ attitudes and the effectiveness of using ICF in teaching and learning writing As can be seen from the qualitative and quantitative data, difficulties, limitations and challenges still occurred during the research; however, to some extent, the students‟ writing was also improved The results suggested the use of ICF as one of the effective ways to teach and learn writing in English

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Background to the study and statement of problem 1

2 Aim of the study 2

3 Research question 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Learning and teaching writing skill in English as a foreign language 4

1.2 Types of CF in writing 4

1.3 Teacher‟s ICF feedback in writing 7

1.4 Effects of ICF on students' ESL/EFL writing 9

1.5 A brief review of previous studies on CF 9

Summary 13

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14

2.1 Rationale for the use of Action research 14

2.2 Context of the study 16

2.3 Subjects 16

2.4 Research instruments 17

2.4.1 The researcher’s analysis of the students’ writings (See Appendices for more detail) 17

2.4.2 A semi-structured Interview 17

2.4.3 A survey questionnaire (See Appendices for more detail) 19

2.3.4 Research procedures 19

2.3.5 Data analysis 23

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24

3.1 Findings 24

3.1.1 Findings from the researcher’ analysis of the students’ writings 24

3.1.2 Findings from interview with the students 26

3.1.3 Findings from the student questionnaire 30

3.2 Discussion of the findings 33

CONCLUSION 35

1 Recapitulation 35

2 Implication of the study 36

3 Limitations of the study 36

3 Suggestions for further study 37

REFERENCES 38

APPENDICES I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CF: Corrective feedback

DCF: Direct corrective feedback

EFL: English as Foreign Language ELT: English Language Teaching

ESL: English as Second Language ICF: Indirect corrective feedback

WS: Writing Session

L2: Second language

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Types of Feedback 5

Table 1 2: Error code 8

Table 1.3: Review of previous studies on corrective feedback 10

Table 2.1: Schedule for five in-class writing sessions 22

Table 3.1 Reliability Statistics of items included in the questionnaire 24

Table3.2 The percentage of students‟ attitudes towards ICF regarding detailed questionnaire clusters 31

INTRODUCTION

1 Background to the study and statement of problem

Second language (L2) writing has always been a hot topic for second language researchers The emergence of the field of L2 writing is a relatively recent phenomenon, but it has come of age Historically speaking, the field of L2 writing originally focused on the teaching of writing to the increasing population of international ESL writers at institutions of higher education in North America in the late 1950s and the early 1960s Over around the last 50 years, the number of inquiries into L2 writing issues have grown rapidly and produced fruitful results Although the outstanding work provides invaluable insights, a comprehensive review of major issues and the relevant findings in L2 writing is still in a small number As an effort to address this lack, this paper aims to retrospectively provide

a relatively comprehensive and systematic overview of the development of L2 writing research and to summarize the unsolved problems so as to inspire future studies Due to quite varied research interests of individual researchers, it will not

be possible neither necessary for us to report every study in great detail So, in this research, a review of the studies on the major topics in the five areas of L2 writing research and their findings will be presented, which, we firmly believe, will help those inexperienced L2 writing researchers and those interested in this field of inquiry to know better about the development of L2 writing research Also, based

on the existing literature, we will propose a few unsolved problems which require further discussion

At Van Noi High School, writing is not being taught as a single subject in the English curriculum; yet it is treated as a skill integrated with all other skills supporting a specific theme or topic in each unit in the course book In fact, as observed from the author‟s teaching experience, when dealing with a writing assignment, the students at Van Noi High School do not often struggle with ideas since a number of language activities and skills supporting the writing topics have been conducted as pre-writing tasks preceding the students‟ self-written compositions in every unit Then the major problem relatively prevalent among

errors, lexical choice errors and mechanics errors; as a result of these errors, writing accuracy as well as the quality of the students‟ written work has been considerably diminished

Facing these afore-stated issues, a number of strategies have been introduced

in teachers‟ writing instruction; however, treating the students‟ language errors in their written documents, or giving corrective feedback (CF), is regarded as the most preferable tactic used by teachers at Van Noi High School In fact, direct

CF has been commonly used to deal with errors in the students‟ written work, whereas indirect corrective feedback (ICF) has not been considerably exploited

by the English teachers Sparking from the reality, the author of this paper wishes

to carry out an action research entitled: “Using indirect corrective feedback on

students ‘writing to improve writing skill for grade 10 th mixed level students at Van Noi high school in Dong Anh, Ha Noi-An action research” to investigate

how ICF strategy may affect the students‟ writing accuracy and skill improvement as well as their attitudes towards their teacher‟s use of ICF in writing A number of recommendations involving the use of teacher‟s ICF in writing tasks will also be withdrawn in this research

2 Aim of the study

The aim of this study is to find out the extent to which the use of ICF on students‟ writing helps to improve writing skill for grade 10th mixed levels of students at Van Noi high school in Dong Anh, Ha Noi

3 Research question

This study is an attempt to investigate the students‟ attitude and behavior as well as the effect of using ICF on the students‟ writing in order to help improve their writing skill by answering the following question:

To what extent can the teacher’s ICF influence the writing skill of students at Van Noi high school?

4 Scope of the study

The research was carried out on 15 grade 10th students of mixed levels at Van Noi high school in Dong Anh, Hanoi It would be challenging for this minor thesis

influence of using the ICF on the students‟ writing in some following aspects: verb tenses/ tense, articles, preposition and spelling

5 Significance of the study

By bringing out the result of the influence of using ICF on the students‟ writing

at Van Noi high school in Dong Anh, Hanoi, the study hopefully will somehow make the following contributions First, the finding of the study may be served as reference to EFL teachers to gear their teaching towards a more effective approach

to the teaching of writing Second, the dissemination of findings could help me and

my colleagues to better our own teaching at Van Noi High School, as well as those who are teaching English writing skill to high school students at other schools in Vietnam with the same situation as at Van Noi High School

6 Organization of the study

The study is organized into the following parts as follows:

INTRODUCTION presents the background and the statement of the problem for conducting the study, aims of the study, research questions, the scope as well as the significance of the study

Chapter 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW - provides a theoretical framework for the study, including process approach in ESL/EFL writing, writing accuracy, students‟ written errors and teacher‟s ICF in ESL/EFL writing

Chapter 2 – METHODOLOGY - deals with an overview of Van Noi High School as well as English teaching and learning at the school, and then describes the methodology used in the research including data collection instruments, participants, the procedures employed to carry out the research

Chapter 3 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS – reports and discusses the findings of the study

CONCLUSION summarizes the main issues that have been addressed in the study, points out the limitations, draws pedagogical implications concerning the research topic and suggests several solutions

Following this chapter will be the REFERENCES and APPENDICES

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses the theory and research into the areas which form the underpinnings for the present study: overviews of learning and studying writing English as a foreign language, types of teacher’s corrective feedback and teacher’s ICF in writing as well as a discussion of empirical studies on the use of ICF in writing

Writing is one of the most difficult skills that second-language (L2) learners are expected to acquire, requiring the mastery of a variety of linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural competencies (Seyyed et al., 2015). Therefore many teachers attest, teaching L2 writing is a challenging task as well

Feedback on students‟ writings is integral to L2 instruction Writing feedback would help writing teachers know how well their students have done in the writing assignments, which is considered one of the most important responsibilities of writing teachers For students, they also expect feedback in order

to know how well they have succeeded in their writing tasks and what they should improve in their future writings There are two sources that feedback is from in the context of the writing classroom, namely L2 writing instructors and student peers (Zhang, 2008)

1.2 Types of CF in writing

Feedback as a specific term is rather new in research Early studies from Behaviorist researchers around the 1950s and 1960s were more focused on error prevention than error treatment Errors should not be tolerated and at all times be prevented The claim was that errors could be habit-forming and if they were allowed to exist, they would interfere with more preferable habits If the students responded incorrectly they were given CF Only when the student practiced responding correctly, learning would occur (Bitchener & Ferris, 2012) Many teachers and researchers – Ferris (1999) was one of the first – felt that Truscott´s claim that “grammar correction is ineffective and potentially harmful and should therefore be banned (Truscott‟s, 1996, p.118)” was premature and totally false

Despite this consensus in the teacher profession, extensive research was needed to

be able to falsify this claim and to find out how feedback should be given in order to have the greatest effect on students writing skill

Feedback in general refers to that specific information teachers provide to their students related to the task or learning process The purpose is to fill in the gap between what the student understands at the moment and what is aimed to be finally understood (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) Furthermore a distinction has to be made between ICF as the different effects of these two types of feedback is what is aimed

to be investigated One easily understood definition of these two is: “While indirect corrective feedback only consists of an indication of an error (i.e by underlining the error or providing an error code), direct error correction identifies both the error and the target form” (Van Beuningen, 2008, p 282) Therefore indirect correction of errors is left to the student to find and correct (Zaman & Azad, 2012), while the teacher provides the correct form in direct error correction (Ellis, 2009A) Furthermore Ellis gives a brief explanation of all different corrective feedback (CF) types that are being used in research The types of feedback in the table 1.1 cover all

types used in the studies reviewed in this paper

Some researchers report no significant difference between the direct and ICF

In their research, Robb et al investigate four types of feedback including direct feedback and indirect feedback where the number of errors was given in each line

of text However, the students‟ improvement in accuracy in Robb et al.‟s and Ferris

& Roberts‟s is considered only by the revised texts instead of by students‟ new pieces of writing, which cannot provide adequate evidence of the long-term effect

of written CF on students‟ accuracy

Table 1.1: Types of Feedback (Ellis, 2009a, p.98)

1 Direct CF The teacher provides the student with

the correct form

2 ICF The teacher indicates that an error

Exists but does not provide the

correction

A: Indicating + Locating the error This takes the form of underlining and

use of cursors to show omissions in the student´s text

B: Indication only This takes the form of an indication in

the margin that an error or errors have taken place in a line of text

3 Metalinguistic CF The teacher provides some kind of

metalinguistic clue to the nature of the error

A: Use of error code Teacher writes codes in the margin (e.g

ww = wrong word; art = article)

B: Brief grammatical Description Teacher numbers errors in text and

writes a grammatical description for each numbered error at the bottom of the text

4 The focus of the feedback This concerns whether the teacher

attempts to correct all (or most) of the students´ errors or selects one or two specific types of errors to correct This distinction can be applied to each of the above options

A: Unfocused CF Unfocused CF is extensive

B: Focused CF Focused CF is intensive

5 Electronic feedback The teacher indicates an error and

provides a hyperlink to a concordance file that provides examples of correct usage

6 Reformulation This consists of a native speaker´s

reworking of the students´ entire text to

make the language seem as native-like

as possible while keeping the content of the original intact

The role and treatment of errors or CF has been viewed differently within different theories of SLA These differing views also have had an impact on the research on corrective feedback in SLA and L2 writing The following subsection gives the different ways to give CF in L2 writing

The type of feedback a teacher gives will no doubt affect how their students approach the writing process, view feedback, and make revisions to their writing (Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1996; Lockhart & Ng, 1995) In order to make this clear, a number of L2 writing research studies have seen quite a wide range of features in students‟ L2 written texts that teachers respond to, such as students‟ ideas, rhetoric organization, grammar, word choices, spelling, and punctuation (Conrad & Goldstein, 1999; Ferris, 1995, 1997; Ferris, Pezone, Tade & Tinki, 1997; Hedgcock

& Lefkowitz, 1994; Reid, 1994; Saito, 1994) Teacher‟s ICF is a combined strategy which embraces all the characteristics of the contained types in dealing with written errors Generally, teacher‟s ICF, as described in Bitchener and Ferris‟s (2012), is the teacher‟s action of drawing students‟ attention to the locations of their errors without providing corrections In a more comprehensive way, Joe describes the way a teacher implicit the existence of errors needed repairing in students‟ written work Two preceding approaches to teacher‟s ICF relatively reveal the nature of the assigned strategy, yet its description of teacher‟s operations has not been clarified in the definitions Conceptualized by Ellis (2006), ICF is defined as the indication of the error without giving correction, and it can be done by teachers

by encircling, underlining, highlighting, writing cursors or using error codes near the error of the text In this regard, a brief review of error code being taken into consideration can be illustrated in the following table

Table 1 2: Error code (adapted from Tribble [65, p.154])

or marked with codes without teacher‟s direct correction in the process of writing Students will play a centered role in doing a writing task while teacher will act as an indicator of students' errors The author considers this the most appropriate framework adopted as the working definition throughout the study

1.4 Effects of ICF on students' ESL/EFL writing

Investigation into whether CF has effects on students‟ writing has involved a great number of studies, yet there is also controversy among researchers about the benefits of CF on ESL/EFL learners‟ written outcomes Truscott concludes that all error correction is unnecessary, ineffective, and even harmful since it diverts time and energy away from more productive aspects of writing instruction However, other researchers advocate the usefulness of CF as well as ICF The comparison between the effectiveness of DCF and ICF may be informative for better understanding about the effectiveness of ICF Of all the studies that consider the effectiveness of DCF and ICF, the reported results are somewhat contradictory

Furthermore, although it is found in Chandler (2003) that students who receive direct CF often perform better than students who receive ICF, Lalande (1982) and Lee (2009) report more progress in accuracy for students whose texts are indirectly corrected over those whose texts are directly corrected In addition, it is noted in Lalande (1982) that ICF caters “guided learning and problem solving” Therefore, ICF is considered more likely to lead to long-term learning

All in all, the effectiveness of different kinds of CF is still argued by different researchers Together with the research supporting the use of DCF, there are a great number of studies asserting the effectiveness of ICF These studies which conclude that DCF is more effective also agree that ICF can have effects on

students‟ problem-solving skill and their long-term learning

1.5 A brief review of previous studies on CF

There have been a number of studies and articles regarding different issues

of CF such as comparing the effect of different types of written feedback or comparing the effect of different types of written feedback with no feedback In order to match the aim of this study which examines the influence of ICF on the students‟ writing in general and on specific types of errors, the researcher consulted these following studies and scientific articles

Table 1.3: Review of some related previous studies on corrective feedback

Chandler

(1982)

Study 1: An investigation into the efficacy of the correction of grammatical and lexical errors

Study 2: An investigation into

Group 1: Direct correction

Group 2: Underlining and

description of error type

Group 3: Description

of error type Group 4: Underlining

Study 1: Correction

is significantly effective Study 2: Direct correction and simple underlining of errors are significantly

superior to describing the types

of errors for reducing long-term error Direct correction is best for accurate revision Lalande(1982) An investigation

into the effect of two types of written feedback

on the writing of

60 intermediate German FL learners

Group 1: Direct error correction Group 2:

Indirect coding

Learners reported advantage for indirect feedback over error correction No statistical difference was reported between the two treatments

Van

Beuningen et

al.(1979)

An investigation into the effect of direct and indirect

Group 1: Direct corrective feedback Group 2: Indirect

Direct and indirect feedback improved writing accuracy

feedback on writing accuracy

feedback Control 1:

Self-editing but no feedback Control 2:

No self-editing and no feedback

Direct corrective feedback is effective for better grammatical

accuracy and indirect feedback is better for non-grammatical

accuracy

Ferris (2002) An evaluation of

Truscott‟s (1996) argument on grammar

correction

Grammar correction should be used

Ellis et

al.(2008)

The effect of focused and unfocused

corrective feedback compared with no feedback

Group 1: Focused feedback on articles Group 2: Unfocused feedback Group 3:

Control

Focused and unfocused

corrective feedback improved students‟

accuracy but no difference

between the two

feedback Teachers should provide corrective feedback

Teachers should provide corrective feedback

feedback Nguyen Thi

Khanh (2012)

Effectiveness of indirect corrective feedback in English writing at the Faculty of English, Hanoi National

University of Education

Group 1: indirect corrective feedback Group 2: direct corrective feedback

The research shows the remarkable improvement on writing accuracy in the indirect corrective group and their positive attitudes towards the use of teacher‟s ICF in writing Pham Lan

Anh (2011)

The impact of indirect feedback

on learners‟

grammatical errors in EFL writing classes

Group 1: using DCF Group 2: using ICF

Students in the experimental

condition commit many fewer grammatical errors than their counterparts in the control group when errors are treated as

a single group ICF helps reduce more error categories and more errors in each category, especially those related to the simple past tense

It is obvious that all the studies and articles above focus on the effectiveness

of ICF in different educational setting The common point of these studies is that they were conducted with the support of experimental or quasi-experimental

CF strategies, and their performance in two tests – pretests and posttest – will be used to assess the degree of effectiveness From all the studies as mentioned, the research came to the hypothesis that ICF could have positive impact on students‟ writing skill This action research, therefore, is conducted in order to find out the extent to which ICF influence the writing skill of students at Van Noi high school With all of her expectation, the study brought about the most convincing and consistent findings of ICF effects in writing in her educational setting

Summary

To sum up, there have been a number of studies carried out to find if ICF was the appropriate way to improve the students‟ writing when learning English as a foreign language The use of ICF has been considered as one of the effective strategies

in helping the students to recognize and correct their writing in English

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

The purpose of the chapter is to present the specific plan of procedure of the study The chapter begins with the rationale of the use of action research, the context of the study, and followed by participants of the study, research instruments, methods of data collection and data analysis respectively

2.1 Rationale for the use of Action research

Action research is described as “a small scale investigation by teachers on specific classroom problems for the purpose of curriculum renewal and/or professional development” (Field, 1997; LoCastro, 1994; Markee, 1996, Nunan,

1993 cited in Griffee (2012:109) ) According to Bassey (1998: 93), action research

is “an enquiry which is carried out in order to understand, to evaluate and then to change, in order to improve educational practice” That is, action research is designed and conducted by teachers with the aim of improving their own teaching One significant feature of action research is context-specific (McDonough & McDonough, 1997) In other words, an action research is usually carried out in a specific classroom by a particular teacher in order to bring about a change in their teaching and learning issues As a teacher, I am aware that every teaching situation

is unique regarding content, student level, student skills and learning styles and many other factors Therefore, in order to enhance student learning, a teacher must discover what work best in her particular situation When considering a proper methodology for this thesis, the research as a teacher found that an action research

is the most appropriate method as a way of improving students‟ writing skill

The Action Research Process

There is no consensus on the number of stages involved in an action research While a researcher lists eleven stages (Burn, 2005), another research only lists six or seven stages Most of the action research models were influenced by the work of Kurt Lewin who in 1940s proposed a four-stage action cycle: planning, acting, observing and reflecting

Figure 1: Cycle of Action Research Adapted from Richards & Lockhart (1998, p.12)

The other model of action research suggested by Kemmis & McTaggart (2000, p 564) gives a deeper understanding of the cyclical processes involved in action research However, due to limited time of this research, the researcher find it hard to apply Kemmis and McTaggart‟s (2000) model in the real teaching and research context The model of action research proposed by Nunan (1990) is, therefore, chosen

The theoretical framework for the design of the thesis followed the model of action research proposed by Nunan (1992) This is one of many action research procedures described by many researchers However, the reason why I chose it is the simplicity of the way it is presented by the author as well as its appropriateness regarding the context of the study According to Nunan (2012:35), a cycle of action research consists of the following steps:

baseline date to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the problem In the light of these initial data, a hypothesis is formed The intervention stage takes place after the hypothesis During the intervention stage, teachers devise and implement a number of strategies in their teaching Evaluation is done for the purpose of evaluating the intervention stage The dissemination is a step in which the researcher reports the result Follow-up stage explores alternative solutions for the problem

2.2 Context of the study

The study was conducted in Van Noi High School in Dong Anh, a rural area and the students haven‟t got chances to practice or use their English occasionally There are more than two thousands of students taking classes here divided into three groups: group 10, group 11 and group 12 It can be seen that because English is not one of the subjects that students have to take when they enter the school so the level

of the students is quite various and in general is low This is one of the causes that makes the work of teaching and learning English become more and more difficult for both the teachers and the students in this school especially for the students of group 10 (when they have just entered the school and get early start with the new studying environment)

The textbook is used to teach English to the students of group 10 is English

10 which is nationally used in Vietnam This textbook is divided into units and each

unit consist 5 parts: reading, listening, speaking, writing and language focus Therefore writing is also one of the main skills in each unit This is one of the advantages for the teachers and the students because the teachers could make a lesson plan for writing in detail and use suitable technique to teach writing and keep the student stay focused on their writing work during a period

2.3 Subjects

The subjects of the study were 15 students from group 10 with mixed level

of English They were randomly chosen and coded from S1 to S15 when taking part

in this research and feel excited to the new way of correcting feedback that the teacher applied

- Structure of researcher‟s analysis of the students‟ writings: This analysis, organized in tables and checklists, contained the students‟ names, the students‟ codes, number of committed errors, number of corrected errors, notes on errors in students‟ writing assignments during her adoption of ICF The scheme for analysis will be presented at 2.3.4.2

- Participants: The participants were 15 grade 10th students of mixed levels at Van Noi high school

- Procedure: The researcher started to record information since the first week using her ICF until the last week of the treatment procedure

2.4.2 A semi-structured Interview

A semi-structured interview is a qualitative method of inquiry that combines

a pre-determined set of questions or topics which prompt discussion with the opportunity for the interviewer to explore particular themes or further responses Respondents are not limited to a set of pre-determined answers, yet they are allowed

to discuss and raise issues involving the investigation theme Therefore, using structured interviews, it is not only an insight of the research theme to be explored but it also gives the researcher a great deal of flexibility and allows a degree of freedom in getting information from interviewees The ideas above work as the rationale for the choice of semi-structured interviews in this study

semi-Two designs of interviews which were used can be described as follows:

* Semi-structured interview design for writing teachers :( See Appendices for

more detail)

- Purpose: The interview was conducted before the employment of teacher‟s ICF with the aim of primarily investigating the reality of teaching writing at Van Noi High School, the students‟ level of English writing proficiency and the effects

of existing CF strategy on the students‟ writing accuracy and writing skill

- Structure of semi-structured interview: The interview included 5 ended questions plus sub-questions for discussion, and data withdrawn from the interview would drive the researcher to the hypothesis that using teacher‟s ICF might be beneficial to her students

open Participants: The interviewees were three teachers of English at Van Noi High School with at least 2-year teaching experience

- Procedure: The researcher contacted the chosen teachers of English and set

up an appointment for the interview after her analysis of students‟ sample writings and before the employment of ICF In order to get reliable information, the content and purpose of the interview were not be informed beforehand

* Semi-structured interview design for the students: (See Appendices for

open-+ Questions 1, 2, 4 & 5 dealt with the impact of teacher‟s ICF on the students‟ writing

+ Questions 3, 6 & 7 referred to the students‟ reaction and attitudes towards teacher‟s ICF

+ Question 8 asked for the students‟ suggestions for better use of teacher‟s ICF in the future

The language used for this interview was Vietnamese

- Participants: The interviewees were 3 students chosen from the researcher‟s writing class One of them was the lowest, one was the medium and the other was

- Procedure: The interview was before the conduction of the survey questionnaire

2.4.3 A survey questionnaire (See Appendices for more detail)

Questionnaire is a powerful tool in gathering information about affective aspect of teaching and learning such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation, preferences, etc Among a large number of respondents within a relatively short time Hence, this instrument was chosen to be utilized in this study

- Purpose: The survey questionnaire was designed to measure the students‟ reactions and attitudes towards the teacher‟ ICF in writing

- Structures: The survey questionnaire was adapted from the original version

of Ryan & Deci‟s Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (2000) The questionnaire containing 20 statements followed by a five-point Likert scale was written in Vietnamese in order to specify the students‟ level of agreement on the following four points:

+ Statements 1, 2 & 3 investigated the students‟ interests and enjoyment towards the researcher‟s use of ICF

+ Statements 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10 investigated the value and usefulness of ICF on the students‟ writings

+ Statements 11, 12, 13, 14, &15 investigated the students‟ tension and anxiety when ICF was used in writing

+ Statements 16, 17, 18, 19, & 20 referred to the students‟ expectations and suggestions for better use of teacher‟s ICF

- Participants: The survey was delivered to the 15 students in Group 10A

- Procedure: The survey was conducted after the student interview

2.3.4 Research procedures

This classroom action research was carried out in three main phases consisting of Pre-action, Action and Post-action The detailed steps proposed by Nunan were applied in these phases as well

2.3.4.1 Phase 1: PRE-ACTION

Step 1: Initiation

The Initiation step then involved the students in dealing with errors in a given paragraph as well as in accustoming the students with the different error codes; and from the result of the students‟ performance in this primary task, the researcher determined the need of intervention to be conducted in the class to improve their writing skill

Step 2: Preliminary investigation

As a teacher in the research setting, the researcher identified dilemma impeded group 10 with mixed level of English in doing writing task by analyzing the students‟ two sample writing assignments in the previous terms and interviewing three teachers of English at Van Noi High School

* Analysis of the students’ sample writing assignments:

The researcher chose two latest writing assignments and it could be seen that errors in terms of Tenses/ Verb forms, preposition, articles and spellings were also seen as the most frequent linguistic flaws with the total number Others are run-on sentences, word order and word choice

In summary, the students at Van Noi High School made a variety of errors, most of which belong to grammatical and mechanics items

*Semi-structured interview with teachers:

A semi-structured interview with three teachers of English in order to discuss the problems faced by the students in doing writing tasks as well as their employment of direct and indirect correction strategies in the students‟ error treatment The responses from these teachers revealed such various issues on the researcher‟s concerns amplifying the data analyzed from the students‟ writing assignments above, shown as follows

- The students‟ major problems in doing writing tasks

The teachers were initially asked about their students‟ writing proficiency in English and major issues struggling them in doing writing tasks All three teachers, sharing the same consideration, uttered that the students can write short paragraphs about common topics such as family, friend, house, hobbies or work However, they often get a lot typical errors as mentioned above in the students‟ writing samples

In summary, from the researcher‟s analysis of the students‟ sample writing assignments and pre-action interview responses from three teachers, the researcher clarified the students‟ weaknesses of linguistic accuracy in their compositions and the short-term effects of the DCF currently used at Van Noi High School These revealed the rationale and hypotheses for the trial of the teacher‟s ICF in doing writing tasks Due to the time constrain, the researcher was not ambitious to cover all types of errors; she chose four typical ones – verb tenses/ tense, articles, preposition and spelling – as indicated in the analysis of the students‟ writing above

to act on in this action cycle

Step 3: Hypotheses

The hypothesis, figured out then, was that the intervention of teacher‟s ICF could help the students enhance their linguistic competence in terms of verb tenses/ tense, articles, and preposition and spelling in the students‟ writings based on that, their writing skill would be better

2.3.4.2 Phase 2: ACTION

Having identified the problem, a plan for implementing teacher‟s ICF was established and carried out in 5 weeks with the aim of improving the students‟ writing accuracy and eliminating some types of basic errors in their compositions

Step 4: Intervention: Teacher’s indirect corrective feedback

In order to implement teacher‟s ICF, a writing session (WS) had to be conducted every four weeks following by the teacher‟s provision of ICF in the students‟ writings and the students‟ revision of their in-class writing assignments The topic for each writing assignment was chosen randomly and popular to the students The whole intervention stage lasted 5 weeks

The schedule for four in-class writing sessions is described in the table below

Table 2.1: Schedule for five in-class writing sessions

WS02

Writing

- The students were asked to write a paragraph with no more than 150 words talking about their school activities in given writing sheets after joining discussions relating to the given topic in class

Re-writing

-The students were asked to re-write their paragraph after receiving the teacher‟s ICF

2.3.4.3 Phase 3: POST-ACTION

Step 5: Teacher’s evaluation

After the completion of the teacher‟s ICF instruction, a semi-structured interview and a survey questionnaire were conducted to explore the students‟ responses and attitudes towards the teacher‟s use ICF in their writings as well as the students‟ specific ways to correct the four assigned error types including verb

tenses/ tense, articles, preposition and spelling (See Appendices for more detail)

2.3.5 Data analysis

The data used in this study was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively The quantitative analysis included records on the students‟ errors during five-week investigation and the questionnaire for the students at the end of the intervention

The qualitative analysis was conducted with interview data

Summary

In short, this chapter has covered an overview of English teaching and learning

at the educational setting, and then described the methodology used in the study Preliminary investigation of the issues existing at Van Noi High School and the procedure of the ICF intervention has been presented preceding the findings in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the analysis of the data collected through the research procedure described in chapter 2

3.1 Findings

3.1.1 Findings from the researcher’ analysis of the students’ writings

The researcher‟s diary consists of the students‟ writings (both in-class

writing assignments and final versions) and the students‟ error records during

5-week intervention These data was then coded, categorized and analyzed to verify the impact of the teacher‟s ICF on the students‟ writings Although the researcher just focused on four typical errors among the 15 grade 10th students of mixed levels, she still expected to examine the overall writing linguistic accuracy before evaluating the distribution of those error types in her students‟ writing assignments

3.1.1.1 Distribution of error types in the students’ five WSs

During the intervention of ICF in this class, the researcher only clarified four error types including verb tenses/ tense, articles, preposition and spelling which were prevalent in the students‟ writings The error occurrence was coded and

calculated (See Appendices for more detail), and the result was then mapped into a

distributional chart in order to compare which error type could gain the most beneficial from teacher‟s ICF

Table 3.1 Distribution of four typical error types in the students’ WSs