Students’ peer written feedback in paragraph

thạc sỹ, luận văn, ngoại ngữ, tiếng anh, khóa luận, chuyên đề

I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Ms Nguyen Thu Hien,M.A for her invaluable support, useful guidance and comments I am truly grateful to heradvice and suggestions right from the beginning when this study was only in its formativestage

I would also express my gratitude to all the teachers of English department at HanoiUniversity of Industry for their constructive and insightful comments, constant support aswell as suggestions for this paper

Especially, I am grateful to the students in the three classes which I am in chargefor their actively taking part in completing the writing tasks and answering the surveyquestionnaire Without their help, this paper could not have been completed

Finally, my special thanks go to my friends and my family who have been beside

me and have encouraged me a lot to fulfill my study

The analysis of the peer written feedback reveals that students gave feedback on allthe areas of the paragraph especially on grammar and vocabulary Also, the study resultsshow that the peer written feedback is fairly effective to the students’ learning of writing

Despite the effectiveness of the peer written feedback to students’ writings, a large number of students at HaUI still have difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings and providing suggestions to improve those mistakes

Based on the findings, the researcher provides some suggestions to improve the teachingand learning of writing using peer written feedback

Table of contents

Acknowledgement i

Abstract ii

Declaration iii

List of tables, figures and appendices iv

Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1 The rationale of the study 1

2 Aims of the study and research questions 2

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Organization of the paper 4

Chapter 2: Literature review 5

2.1 Theoretical backgrounds of feedback to students’ writing 5

2.1.1 Definitions of feedback 5

2.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing 6

2.1.2.1 Teacher’s feedback 6

2.1.2.2 Self-editing 6

2.1.2.3 Peer feedback 7

2.2 Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing 8

2.2.1 Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in writing 8

2.2.2 Arguments against students’ peer written feedback in writing 10

2.3 Different ways of peer feedback in writing 11

2.3.1 Written comments 12

2.3.2 Talking about the paper 12

2.3.3 Using checklists 13

2.4 Guiding principles for effective peer written feedback 14

2.4.1 Before peer written feedback 15

2.4.2 During peer written feedback 16

2.4.3 After peer written feedback 16

Chapter 3: The study 18

3.1 The current situation of teaching and learning writing at HaUI 18

3.2 Methodology 18

3.2.1 The participants 18

3.2.2 Instrumentation 19

3.2.3 Data collection procedure 21

3.2.4 Data analysis procedure 22

Chapter 4: Result and discussion 23

4.1 The current practice of students’ peer written feedback in writing 23

4.1.1 Paragraph organization 23

4.1.2 Grammar 24

4.1.3 Vocabulary 26

4.1.4 General written comments 28

4.2 Improvement of students’ writing after receiving peer written feedback 29

4.3 Students’ perceived difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers’ writings .31

4.3.1 Students’ perceived difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings .31 4.3.2 Students’ perceived difficulties in providing suggestions for the mistakes in their peers’ writings 35

4.4 Implications for the teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback 39

Chapter 5: Conclusion 41

5.1 Summary 41

5.2 Limitations of the study 41

5.3 Suggestions for further studies 42

References Appendices Lists of tables Table 1: Students’ giving feedback on grammar 25

Table 2: Examples of students’ giving feedback on grammar 26Table 3: Students’ giving feedback on vocabulary 27Table 4: Examples of students’ giving feedback on vocabulary 28Table 5: Students’ improvement in grammar and vocabulary after receiving peer writtenfeedback 30Table 6: Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback 30Table 7: Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback 31Table 8: Students’ perceived difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings 32Table 9: Students’ perceived difficulties in providing suggestions for the indicatedmistakes in their peers’ writings 36

List of figures

Figure 1: The proportion of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization 23Figure 2: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for the grammaticalmistakes 24Figure 3: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for the vocabulary mistakes 27Figure 4: The proportion of students who gave general written comments 29

List of appendices

Appendix 1: Questionnaire IAppendix 2: Checklist IIIAppendix 3: Symbols for correcting mistakes IV

Chapter1: Introduction

1.1 The rationale of the study

Nowadays, English is considered to be one of the key factors that help our countrymake faster progress on the way of industrialization and modernization Therefore, thedemand to use English fluently as well as to master the four basic skills is becomingessential among all students in general and students at Hanoi University of Industry inparticular Of the four skills, writing seems to be the most difficult but really importantbecause it is especially necessary for them to acquire ESP lessons in their last term.Therefore, helping students enhance their writing skills is one of the teachers’responsibilities This can be done in a number of ways as Skroll (2003, p115) notes,

“Second language writers often benefit most and make most progress when teacherscontribute to this goal through a variety of intervention strategies available in classroomsettings” One of these intervention strategies is students’ peer written feedback in writing

It is obvious that one of the most meaningful and important methods of teachingwriting is the use of students’ peer written feedback In this way, students write the firstdraft and exchange it with their peers Then, they read each other’s paper and providefeedback, usually based on the checklist given by the teacher The checklist focuses onthree main areas of the writing: organization, grammar and vocabulary

The use of peer feedback especially peer written feedback in writing classroomshas been generally supported in the literature as a potentially valuable aid for its socialcognitive, affective and methodological benefits (see, Mendonca and Johnson (1994),Villamil and De Guerreco (1996), Jacobs (1998), Brinton (1983) They all believe that peerfeedback is very important and has great influence on the success of teaching and learningwriting Keh (1990) states that Peer feedback is essential to the teaching and learningwriting as peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can and do reviseeffectively on the basis of comments from peer readers Besides, it is found that whenstudents become critical readers of others’ writings, they will be more critical readers andrevisers of their own writings (Rollinson, 2005) These are the main reasons why a lot ofteachers have chosen to use peer written feedback in the writing classroom However,using peer written feedback in writing is not easy as it takes the teachers a lot of time andeffort to teach writing skills

Recently, every school and university in Vietnam has tried to apply the latestmethodology in teaching language skills in general and in teaching writing skills inparticular in order to make language teaching and learning as effective as possible HanoiUniversity of Industry is certainly not an exception Founded in 2006, HaUI has differenttraining programmes Since its establishment, the university has paid great attention toEnglish as one of the main subjects so that students after graduating should be able to useEnglish confidently in their jobs and read documents written in English in their majors.Therefore, all students at HaUI study English for five terms During these terms, they learnand practice the four basic skills and some ESP lessons The textbooks such as

International express - Elementary (Keith Harding and Liz Taylor, 2005), International express – Pre-intermediate (Keith Harding and Liz Taylor, 2005) and International Express – Intermediate (Keith Harding and Liz Taylor, 2005) are chosen as the materials at

HaUI The students share the same English course for the first four terms (each termincludes 120 periods, 45minutes/period) and some ESP for the last term In the first fourterms, students learn different skills, which are integrated in a lesson as organized in thetextbooks However, writing skills are especially necessary for them

Each of the textbooks like that consists of twelve lessons with specific topic,vocabulary and grammar At the end of each lesson, students are usually asked to write aparagraph of approximately 100 to 120 words based on the topic of the lesson to revisewhat they have learnt This writing not only helps them revise the vocabulary and grammarbut also gives them a chance to get used to writing and expressing ideas in English Theimportance of writing is undeniable, yet, it places a heavy burden on teachers A hugeamount of feedback from teachers is required In order to relieve the teachers’ heavyworkload of marking the papers and make this process meaningful to students’ learning, anew way of giving feedback- peer written feedback provided by the intermediate students

in their third term- was introduced

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions

This research is designed to investigate students’ peer written feedback inparagraphs writing skills among Intermediate students at Hanoi University of Industry Itsaims are to investigate students’ current practice of peer written feedback giving, theeffectiveness of the peer written feedback and the students’ perceived difficulties whengiving feedback to their peers’ writings The thesis also desires to propose some

implications for the teaching and learning writing using peer written feedback and providesome suggestions for further study.

In order to achieve those aims, the research attempts to answer the followingquestions:

1 How do students respond to their peers’ writings?

2 How do students improve their writings after receiving peer written feedback?

3 What are students’ perceived difficulties when giving feedback to their peers’writings?

1.3 Scope of the study

Feedback in writing is such a broad topic including teacher’s feedback and peerfeedback Therefore, within the framework of a minor thesis, this study focuses only onone type of feedback -peer written feedback- in paragraph writing skills amongintermediate students at Hanoi University of Industry

1.4 Significance of the study

Theoretically, the study proves that peer written feedback is crucial to the teachingand learning of writing Peer written feedback offers a number of advantages Indeed, peerwritten feedback gives both the readers and the writers more opportunities forcollaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate It also givesthe teacher a better chance of closely following the progress of individuals and groups,both in terms of the feedback offered and revisions made

Practically, the study shows that using peer written feedback not only eases theteachers’ burden in giving feedback to students’ writings but also helps students improvetheir writing skills Obviously, when students read their peers’ writings, they not only helptheir peers recognize and correct the mistakes but also become more critical writers

1.5 Methods of the study

In this study, two methods were used in order to obtain adequate information forthe study They were document analysis and survey

First, document analysis of 100 students’ first drafts with the peer written feedbackwas done to find out how students provide written feedback to their peers’ writing Then,the students’ first drafts were compared with their second drafts to see whether the peerwritten feedback helps students improve their writing

Second, the survey was done on the 100 students who had given peer writtenfeedback to find out the students’ perceived difficulties in responding to their peers’writing

1.6 Organization of the paper

The paper consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 – Introduction – briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims,research questions, scope as well as the significance and organization of the study

Chapter 2 – Literature review- discusses the literature related to the feedback tostudents’ writing, different views and ways of peer feedback in writing as well as theguiding principles for effective peer written feedback

Chapter 3-The study-describes the current situation of the teaching and learningwriting at HaUI and the methodology which deals with the participants, instrumentation,data collection procedure and data analysis procedure

Chapter 4 – Results and Discussion- analyzes and discusses the data and then drawsthe implications for the teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback

The last chapter – Chapter 5 – summarizes the major findings of the study,acknowledges its limitations and provides suggestions for further study

Chapter 2: Literature review

2.1 Theoretical backgrounds of feedback to students’ writing.

2.1.1 Definitions of feedback

Although there have been so far few attempts in the literature to define the termfeedback in teaching writing, researchers seem to have reached a consensus of the natureand function of the feedback

Various researchers define the term “feedback” in different ways, among which theone put forward by Keh (1990) is one of the most comprehensive Keh considers feedback

as “any input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to thewriter for revision” (p 294) In other words, when giving feedback, the reader gives thewriter comments, questions and suggestions with an aim to help him/her revise the writing.According to Chaudron, (1988, p.133) feedback which is contrasted with the narrowernotion of correction is therefore “an evitable constituent of classroom interaction” and

“from the teacher’s point of view, the provision of feedback is a major means by which toinform learners of their accuracy of both their formal target language production and theirclassroom behavior and knowledge” Thus, feedback can be considered as an effectivemeans to communicate to the students about their writing Through feedback, the studentknows whether he or she has misled or confused the reader by not supplying enoughinformation, illogical organization, lack of development of ideas, or something likeinappropriate word-choice or tense (Keh, 1990)

However, this information is much more helpful if it is provided on preliminary andintermediate stage, rather than on the final one as Seow (2002) claims that feedback isregarded as teacher’s quick initial reaction to the students’ drafts Added to this, Rynandyaand Richards (2003) state that if students write only one draft which is then graded by theteacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition comes too late This meansfeedback should be provided in the process of writing rather than in single act of producing

a text as Raimes (1983, p.139) notes, “Responding to students’ writing is very much a part

of the process of teaching writing” That means feedback is very necessary for the success

of the writing tasks

2.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing

A review on the literature on writing reveals three major areas of feedback asrevision These areas are: teacher’s feedback, self-editing and peer feedback

2.1.2.1 Teacher’s feedback

There has been limited literature on the effectiveness or the way in which teachers

“correct” students’ compositions (Shrum and Glisan, 2002) It raises the question ofwhether teachers’ kind of correction and comment match students’ expectations (Murphy,1994) or still presents a mismatch (Charles, 1990) It’s necessary to find out the ways toimprove the quality of students’ written work (Shrum &Glisan, 2000)

In terms of a mismatch between teachers’ and students’ expectations, Charles(1990) says that students are interested in comments on vocabulary, organization andcontent as surface-structure problems, meanwhile, teachers prefer to comment primarily onsurface level features (Zamel, 1985) In other words, “much of the conflict over teacherresponse to written work has been whether teacher feedback should focus on form or oncontent” (Fathme and Wholly, 1990, p178) As a result, to improve the quality of teacher-feedback, teachers must decide whether to focus on form (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, andmechanics) or on content (e.g., organization and amount of detail) Much of the literature

on correcting written errors supports the claim that learners’ writing skills may improvewith teacher feedback that focuses on content rather on form Besides, in order to maketeachers’ feedback more effective, teachers should give students more control over thefeedback they receive by underlining the parts of the text they are dissatisfied with Thiswill enable students to evaluate their own writing and set their goal (Charles, 1990).Hyland (1990) also agreed that this will lead to a high success rate

2.1.2.2 Self-editing

Raimes (1984, p.149) notes that “What students really need more than anythingelse is to develop the ability to read their own writing and to examine it critically, to learnhow to express their meaning fluently, logically, and accurately” He also believes thatstudents need to be able to find and correct their own mistakes Students’ attempt inlanguage learning is one of the crucial factors towards their success If a learner was aware

of self-editing and tried to learn from his own failure, he would receive more chances ofovercoming difficulties in learning than others who did not care why they failed Besides,the techniques of reading closely and analyzing the writing develop students’ critical skills

to their own writing Importantly, the students need to develop the critical skills inchecking their own writing right in the early stage when ideas are forming However, inorder to help students to revise their own writings effectively, the teacher should providestudents with correction codes to work with

2.1.2.3 Peer feedback

According to Bartels (2004), peer feedback means feedback from your fellowstudents If one student is working on the same assignment as another student, peerfeedback can mean exchanging drafts and comments on each other’s drafts Additionally,Hansen and Liu (2005:1) also state that peer feedback is “the use of learners as source ofinformation, and interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles andresponsibilities normally taken on by teachers in commenting and critiquing each other’sperformance in both written and oral formats” In the literature on writing, peer feedbackreferred to many names, for example, peer response, peer editing, peer critiquing, and peerevaluation Each name connotes a particular slant to the feedback, mainly in terms ofwhere along the continuum this feedback is given, and the focus of the feedback Whateverform it may take, this kind of feedback gives students a chance to read each other’s papersand to provide feedback to the writer, possibly based on specific questions the teacher hasprovided These responses can be oral or/and written

Oral peer response, as presented in Mittan (1989)-a classic article- calls for students

to work in groups of four or five Each student gives one copy of her paper to everymember of the group Then usually out of class for homework, each group member readsother students’ papers and prepares a response to each of them, using focus questionsprovided by the teacher In the following class, students give oral comments on each paperthey have read, as well as ask and answer clarifying questions Each student then uses thisfeedback from the other group members to rewrite his/her paper

Bartels (2004) also states that nowadays teachers have changed the ways ofconducting peer feedback For example, many teachers now train their students to givepositive, useful feedback and give students practice in evaluating written work Stanley(1992) and Zhu (1995) found that untrained students tend to focus on surface errors ratherthan on organization or style Nelson and Murphy (1992) also believe that feedbackformulated in a negative way can be more discouraging than helpful Therefore, instead ofhaving their students give oral feedback to their peers’ writings in group setting, many

teachers today have students write feedback, which is then given directly to the author ofthe paper After receiving this written feedback, students are given time to read it and askany questions or seek clarification about what their peers have written As in oral peerfeedback, this feedback is then used to write the final draft of the paper Johnston (2004)has found that, when oral peer response is possible, there are advantages to having studentsgive written responses to their peers’ writing

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

As mentioned above, although in recent years, the use of peer feedback in Englishwriting classrooms has been generally supported in the literature as a potentially availableaid for its social, cognitive, affective and methodological benefits, doubts on the part ofmany teachers and students are not uncommon Therefore, some of these real concerns will

be discussed in this part

2.2.1 Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing

Peer feedback is part of a larger category of educational activities (Jacobs, 1989).The use of peer feedback is becoming more common for two reasons First, the growingpopularity of teaching writing as a process with several dimensions has made peerfeedback more appropriate because there is more emphasis on revision Second, thesedimensions of the writing process- creating ideas, shaping those ideas into a piece ofwriting, and then fixing the form of that writing- provide more points at which feedbackcan be offered Therefore, peer feedback in many famous researchers’ point of view has alot of advantages that help to make the teaching and learning of writing more effective

One of the key advantages of peer written feedback is that peer readers can provideuseful feedback This point is supported by several researchers Rollinson (1998) foundhigh levels of valid feedback among his students Similarly, Caulk (1994) found that thecomments and suggestions that students made were useful These prove that the commentsfrom peer readers can help students revise their writings effectively Indeed, Mendonca andJohnson’s study (1996) showed that 53% of revisions made were incorporation of peercomments Rollinson (1998) found even higher levels of uptake of reader feedback, and65% of comments were accepted either completely or partially by readers

In addition, Rollinson (2005) finds out that peer written feedback gives bothreaders and writers more time for collaboration, consideration and reflection Similarly,

Bartels (2004) shows that peer written feedback provides instant feedback and negotiation

of meaning Although negotiation of meaning is considered a vital element in languagelearning, it is difficult to create situations in which students have the opportunity tonegotiate meaning in regard to their writing However, when students get written feedback

to their writings, they spontaneously request clarification, ask questions such as "Whatexactly do you mean by…?"; "What about this paragraph did you find confusing?" and

"Don't you think it would be a little boring if I added more detail here, as you suggested?".Students even argue about the feedback, giving their peers instant feedback and anexcellent opportunity for negotiation

Another advantage of peer written feedback is that every student has a chance togive and receive peer written feedback (Bartels, 2004) If a student misses the class the daythat oral peer feedback is done, she does not receive any feedback on her writing andmisses the opportunity to give feedback to her peers With peer written feedback, studentscan still give and receive feedback, even if they miss the class Giving this responsibility tostudents may also foster learners’ independence

Peer written feedback also gives the teacher a better chance of closely following theprogress of individuals and groups (Rollinson, 2005) First, peer written feedback helpsteachers check if students are giving the proper type of feedback and can provide actualexamples of positive and negative feedback, which is difficult to do with accuracy anddepth in oral feedback Second, when writing assignments are turned in accompanied bythe previous draft(s) and the peers' comments, it is easier for the teacher to ascertain whichideas originated with the student author and how well the student was able to respond toand incorporate the feedback and suggestions from peers, something that would not even

be possible with oral feedback

Furthermore, peer written feedback also changes students’ role in the class AsJacobs (1989) says that with the teacher feedback, the students’ role is limited to producingwriting which will be read and evaluated solely by the teacher In contrast, peer writtenfeedback broadens learners’ involvement by giving them the additional roles of reader andadvisor to go with that of writer Keh (1990) also discovered that when students read thewritings of their classmates, they can find out their mistakes and at the same time, thishelps to remind them to avoid and correct such mistakes

Besides, peer written feedback is considered to be more at learners’ level ofdevelopment or interest (Chaudron, 1984) And since multiple peers may be used, learnerscan gain a sense of wider audience than simply the one teacher The reader learns moreabout writing through critically reading others’ paper They will write with a more specificfocus because they know that their peers will also be reading their paper Students also findpeer written feedback useful for obtaining immediate feedback and detecting problems inothers’ papers.

What is more, teachers’ time may be saved by eliminating certain editing tasks,especially in large classes, thus freeing them for more helpful instructions and guidance(Rollinson, 2005) Also, in large classes, teachers often do not have enough time to writethorough comments on each student's paper Instead, peer written feedback providesstudents with thorough feedback because peer reviewers will notice different aspects of thepaper (Caulk 1994)

Finally, peer written feedback also provides the readers with a written record forrevision (Rollinson, 2005) It is obvious that when students are listening to oral feedback,some listen and make very few notes on what is being said Often, they rewrite their paperswithout the benefit of remembering what the feedback from their peers was and after thesemester is over, they have little material to review besides the teacher's comments Peerwritten feedback provides students with reference materials for their own writing

In short, it can be inferred from those advantages above that peer written feedbackcan be very useful in a wide variety of classes with students of different levels Peerwritten feedback can also be valuable in classes where improving speaking skills is just asimportant as improving writing skills Overall, this technique can be instrumental inhelping students understand the process of writing and become independent thinkers andwriters

2.2.2 Argument against peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing

Against those enthusiastic claims and generally positive findings, however, thefollowing considerations should be taken into account

One of the disadvantages that make peer written feedback difficult to be applied inmany writing classes is the time constraints In other words, the peer written feedback itself

is a lengthy one (Rollinson, 2005) Indeed, the peer written feedback often includes reading

a draft (probably more than one), making notes, then write the comments, or engaging

orally with the writer in a feedback circle All these activities will certainly consume asignificant amount of time Furthermore, before the peer written feedback process begins,some form of pre-training is crucial if the activity is to be really profitable That meansstudents can only get benefits from peer written feedback when they are taught a variety ofbasic procedures as well as other essential skills, such as arriving at a consensus, debating,questioning, asserting, depending, evaluating the logic and coherence of ideas, andexpressing criticisms and suggestions in a clear and comprehensible, yet tactful way Theconsumption of time in this case is considerable.

Another issue requiring some consideration is the student characteristics Rollinson(2005) also affirms that many students may not easily accept the idea that their peers arequalified enough to evaluate their writing, so they may need a significant amount of initialpersuasion of the value of peer written feedback Besides, some students may feeluncomfortable to give critical comments either because they want to maintain groupharmony or because they were reluctant to claim a degree of authority (Carson and Nelson,1996) In addition, the age of students can also limit the co-operative and collaborativeaspects of peer written feedback

Finally, teachers might find it hard to hand over a significant degree ofresponsibility to the students (Rollinson, 2005) He also mentions that it may be difficultfor teachers not to interfere by providing feedback in addition to that of the student readers

as it might well reduce the students’ motivation and commitment to their own responding

No less significant is the fact that the teacher’s role as trainer and supervisor may be ratherarduous

2.3 Different types of peer feedback in writing

As argued by Keh (1990) and Mangeldorf (1992), writing is the process in whichdifferent ways of feedback such as written comments, talking about the paper and using thechecklist could be carried out According to Shrum & Glisan (2000), responding to writingsimply used to mean that the teacher correct students’ errors in grammar, vocabulary, andtypical types of mistakes However, this narrow view of correction has been expanded inrecent years because we can consider the effect that various kinds of feedback have onimproving the quality of students’ written work Obviously, the understanding of differentways of giving feedback to students’ writing will help teachers make the right decisionabout which kind of feedback to apply in certain teaching situations

2.3.1 Talking about the paper

According to Raimes (1984), ‘talking about the paper’ means students discuss theirpeers’ papers with each other to find out what the other is trying to say in his writing Italso means “peer review” where students read their peers’ written papers in order to makesuggestions for revision (Mangelsdorf, 1992) It can be conducted after students write theirdrafts Then, they exchange their writings, reading or listening to a peer’s draft andcommenting on what they find most interesting, what they want to know more about,where they are confused and so on The writers then use this feedback to decide how torevise their writing

Although ‘talking about the paper’ can be time-consuming, a talk of just a fewminutes can be productive During a discussion, students can take notes of what the otherstudent says (Raimes, 1984) The student is then surprised at the ideas produced in a fewminutes The written notes then can be used as basis for further rewriting activities

Mangelsdorf (1992) allows students to collaborate in pairs on a student’s essay.This way they can decide together what comments to give and how to express them Byworking together, students often have more exact and better comments because they candiscuss ideas with each other Collaboration also enables students to feel more confidentabout the feedback they are giving their classmates (Mangelsdorf, 1992)

2.3.2 Using checklists

One way to help students approach the feedback task is to provide them with a set

of yes/no questions to be answered while they read and analyze each other’s paper Thisdocument, or checklist, according to Raimes (1983, p.147) “is a very useful tool as astarting point for training as it directs the students’ attention to the elements which should

be focused on during peer feedback sessions”

Raimes (1983) also says that a checklist should be short and it should be used first

by the student to check a piece of writing then by a teacher to evaluate it In each writingassignment, a new checklist can be devised to be suitable to the features of one particularwriting task as well as the objective of the lesson

Keh (1990) suggests the guide-lines for the feedback sessions should begin as verystructured checklists, and then be less structured; finally, there are no guide-lines He alsosays that the guidelines are based on lesson objectives and use vocabulary from readingsand discussions Actually, in each writing assignment, a new checklist can be devised to be

suitable to the critical features of one particular task For example, a checklist can focusattention on form and grammar, without being overwhelming in its demands or a checklistcan be used to note only success with items that have been taught in class

The checklist is used to identify any problems in the writing and is designed to givethe writer some ideas about areas which should be improved The checklist can containquestions about manuscript form, instructions about grammar, tasks to analyze content andorganization Students can use the checklist to answer questions concerning the draft’stopic, unity, development, focus and whatever the teacher wants to emphasize for thatlesson

2.3.3 Written comments

Written comments mean students respond by writing down their notes or ideas ontheir peers’ writings Normally, written comments that take the form of a paraphrase of theideas expressed, praise, questions, or suggestions are more productive than an endcomment like “Only fair,” “Good”, or “Need more work”, etc

Feedback may not always be sufficient and effective if they are too short anduninformed (Shrum and Glisan, 2000) Students preferred comments referring to specificpoints in their writing, rather than a list of general comments at the end (Todd; Mills;Palard & Khamcharoen, 2001)

To make the comments more valuable to students’ written papers, Cohen (1997)classifies students into two kinds as “good learners” and “poor learners” with respects totheir use of feedback He discovers that “good learners” pays greater attention to commentsdealing with vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics than those who report being “poorlearners”

In order to avoid ineffective comments, writers should write comments from threedifferent points of view, as a reader, as a teacher and as a grammarian (Keh, 1990) Firstly,

a reader’s comments to the writer can have the content such as ‘good point’ or ‘I agree’.Then, from a writing commentator’s point of view, it should be commented on theconfusion or the illogical ideas (e.g I as your reader am confused by …) Finally, thecomment from the view of a grammarian may refer to grammatical mistakes such as tensechoice

Raimes (1983) suggests the ways to give comments to students’ papers byparaphrasing ideas, praising, questioning or giving suggestions He also points out

“noticing and praising whatever student does well improves writing more than any kind of

or amount of correction of what he does badly” (1983, p.143)

The steps to give the comments to students’ written papers are described by Raimes(1983) as followed

 The first thing is to read the paper through then to note whatstudents have done well before writing anything on it

 Then note what students have done well from organizing ideas tousing apostrophe correctly

He argues that after students receive the praise of the strengths, they then need toknow what to do to improve the piece of writing A suggestion to “Revise” tells nothing.Suggestions must be specific, giving directions that the students can follow, step by step

Besides, he also suggests questions be useful if commentators want to lead students

to consider other options without necessarily suggesting those options themselves.Questions are valuable to direct a student’s attention to unclear content or organization orinsufficient details Questions are useful recommendations for revision

Keh (1990) also suggests six useful recommendations for writing comments:

1 connect comments to lesson objectives (vocabulary)

2 note improvements: ‘good’, plus reasons why;

3 refer to a specific problem, plus strategy for revision

4 write questions with enough information for students to answer

5 write summative comment of strengths and weaknesses;

6 ask ‘honest’ questions as a reader to write rather than statements that

assume too much about the writer’s intention/meaning

2.4 Guiding principles for effective peer written feedback

Coffin et al (2003, p.101) states that good feedback includes “positive comments”,

“criticism” and “suggestions for improvements” Therefore, this part presents guidingprinciples teachers can utilize in their own planning and student training for effective peerwritten feedback as the key to making peer written feedback a welcome component inwriting classrooms lies in teacher planning and student training Therefore, the guidingprinciples given below as Hansen and Liu (2005) state emphasize three stages: before peerwritten feedback, during peer written feedback and after peer written feedback

2.4.1 Before peer written feedback

Soares (2008) believes that simply asking students to work in pairs exchangingideas about their papers is no guarantee that the activity will achieve its goals in helpingstudents to revise their writing For peer written feedback to be useful in writing classes, it

is essential to train students how to conduct a successful peer feedback session

First, the teacher can use the checklist as “a starting point for training” (Raimes,

1983, p.147) The checklist, as is mentioned above, includes a set of yes/no questions to beanswered concerning different aspects of the paragraph The teacher can introduce a model

checklist to students and go through each item on the list discussing its content to ensure

that everybody understands what each of the questions aims at Next, students can receive

a sample text to be analyzed individually As the learners go through the checklist, they

should write down their answers to each question, identifying in the text the elementswhich support their opinion

Secondly, the teacher can suggest the ways how to deal with the mistakes in theirpeers’ writings One way of dealing with the mistakes as Haswell (1983) suggests is thatthe mistakes should be indicated only by a cross in the margins alongside the lines inwhich they occur In this way, nothing is underlined and no symbols are used to pointstudents in the right direction This helps develop students’ ability of self correction as theyhave to find out where the mistakes are and then correct the mistakes themselves.However, the most widely-used means of accomplishing this as Hyland (1990) notes is touse a set of symbols written in the margins or above the mistakes to guide the students totheir mistakes and indicate the kind of mistakes made The teacher needs to make sure thatall the students are familiar with the symbols used in the class After indicating themistakes, the students are encouraged to provide suggestions that they think are correct tohelp their peers improve the mistakes

Besides, the teacher can provide students with some useful expressions that theycan use to give comments on their peers’ writings (Hansen and Liu, 2005) For example, if

a point is not clear, or if the reader has perceived that the writer has made an error, ratherthan saying ‘This is wrong’, the reader can soften the expression by saying ‘I am not sure ifthis is right’, or ‘Could you explain what you wanted to say here?’ The teacher can alsodirect students how to ask the specific questions or to look for specific issues that areproblematic It is important to train students to ask questions that are revision-oriented so

that there is a meaningful discussion about the content, rhetoric, or grammar of the paper.Here are some useful questions Hansen and Liu (2005) suggests as follows:

- Is the topic sentence clear?

- Can you think of another example?

- I’m not sure what this means Can you clarify this?

- Could you explain this in more detail?

- Can you think of another way to say this?

- Why do you think so?

- Do you think this is necessary? Why or why not?

- Is this paragraph complete?

Besides, teachers can provide models by giving their own comments about somecommon problems of a sample paper to help students know what to look for (Hansen andLiu, 2005)

2.4.2 During peer written feedback

First, the teachers can randomly pair the students (Jacobs, 1989) or teachers canrandomly form groups (Normally, groups of three or four are preferable to larger groups)(Rollinson, 2005) Then, the teachers ask students to swap paragraphs and read theparagraphs silently, taking notes based on the checklist In this stage, teachers need toprovide students with clear criteria to use when revising each other’s work depending onthe focus of the lesson In addition, teachers should monitor student or group progress, toprovide support, and to remind students of appropriate linguistic expressions (Hansen andLiu, 2005)

2.4.3 After peer written feedback

Teachers have students review their writings based on the feedback they receivedfrom their peers This activity is probably necessary as students may find the weaknessesbut they are uncertain about the way to improve them (Mangelsdorf, 1992) The reader candiscuss with the writer his/her answers to the questions on the list At this point, it isimportant to notice that there should be negotiation between the reader and the writer asthey exchange opinions on the text and that they are free to agree or disagree with what issaid At this stage, the teacher can also provide some questions to guide the students todiscuss Here are some questions William (2003) suggests:

- Were there any comments or marking that you did not understand?

- Were there any comments or marking that you understood but were not sure what

to do with?

- Were there any things about the writing that you have questions about?

As the teacher monitors the activity, he/she may decide to intervene in order to helplearners understand each others’ divergent points of view Finally, the students are giventhe opportunity to make changes or to rewrite their texts before handing it in to the teacher

In short, teachers’ appropriate activities are characteristics of effective organization

of peer feedback

Chapter 3: The study

3.1 The current situation of teaching and learning writing at HaUI

As have been mentioned previously, all students at HaUI share the same course for

the first four terms They study International Express – Elementary in the first term, and

International Express– Pre-intermediate in the second term In the third term, they only

study the first eight lessons of the International Express – Intermediate so in the fourth

term they study the rest of the lessons in that textbook and do some preparation for TOEIC

In each of the textbook like that, there are twelve lessons During the lessons,students have chances to enrich their knowledge of different aspects of language and theycan also practice the four basic skills After each lesson, students usually write a paragraph

on the topic of the lesson using the vocabulary and grammar they have learnt Then, theparagraphs are handed to the teachers who make comments and give grades to the writings

In general, students, upon receiving their paragraphs checked, tend to focus on the gradegiven to the text and put it away, paying little attention to the meticulous commentsprovided by the teacher Although teachers have to spend a lot of time marking students’writings, the comments that the teachers make are not very useful to motivate students andhelp them improve their writing skills The writing tasks are just a burden on them andthey do the tasks quite unwillingly

proficiency students and there are both males and females Therefore, the result would bemore objective.

3.2.2 Instrumentation

In this study, in order to obtain adequate data for the study, two main instrumentswere used They were documents analysis of students’ peer written feedback and thesurvey questionnaire for students

Documents analysis of students’ peer written feedback

The students in the third term have to study the first eight lessons of theIntermediate International Express with eight different topics such as food, personalattitudes and qualities, leisure and fitness activities, etc So, all in all, the students in thisterm have to complete eight writing tasks However, the author only collected randomly

100 writing sheets with peer written feedback provided by the students themselves in onewriting task The presentation and analysis of the written feedback provided by thestudents were carried out to obtain the most truthful information concerning the currentpractice of peer written feedback giving among the Intermediate students at HaUI andregard what benefits of the feedback the students get

The following criteria which are based on the checklist (Appendix 3) are used toanalyze the peer written feedback

-the ideas put in logical order-adequate transitional devices

4 General written comments Useful

Questionnaire for students

The questionnaire is designed to elicit the information concerning students’perceived difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writing and providingsuggestions to help their peers improve those mistakes The mistakes concern differentaspects of the paragraph which are also mentioned in the checklist (appendix 2) In thequestionnaire, there are two different parts Part 1 mentions students’ perceived difficulties

in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writing The other part- part 2- deals with theirperceived difficulties in providing suggestions to improve those mistakes In each part,

students show their level of agreement for the given problems by choosing one of the fiveoptions given: EA=Extremely agree; A=Agree; N=Neutral; D=Disagree; ED=Extremelydisagree.

3.2.3 Data collection procedure

The whole process is divided into two stages At the first stage, the students wereasked to write a paragraph as homework when they had finished one lesson to revise thevocabulary and the grammar In the following class, the teacher first trained the studentsthe way to give peer written feedback using the checklist which includes grammaticalitems and the organization in the form of suggested questions In order to do that, theteacher gave explanation to help students understand the questions in the checklist Inaddition, the teacher also reminded the students of the aim of the peer written feedback,how to give comments and to provide suggestions to correct the mistakes in their peers’writings Normally, the teacher guides students to underline the words or phrases that theythink are not correct and use the symbols above them to show the kind of the mistakes.Actually, all the students were provided with a list of commonly used symbols which werepresented in the appendix 3 and they were all familiar with those symbols Then, thestudents were encouraged to provide suggestions that they think are correct for themistakes indicated In the next step, the teacher asked students to swap their paragraphsand read the paragraphs silently, taking notes and giving feedback to their peers’ writings.Finally, the students were given the opportunity to make changes or to rewrite their textbefore handing it into the teacher The teacher then collected randomly 100 students’ firstdrafts and their second drafts The students were all willing to lend their writings after theresearcher ensured them that their names would not be identified in the discussion of thedata The copies of the first drafts contained written feedback provided by their peers andthe second drafts were examined, analyzed and compared

The next stage was the questionnaire for students 100 sheets of the questionnairewere distributed to the intermediate students at the end of the term and returned in full Tomake sure that all students understood the questions properly, the researcher was alsopresent to give explanation if there required anything unclear or confusing