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 ******************* PHẠM THỊ HỒNG PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG

PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN

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

Thực hành phản hồi theo că ̣p trong kĩ năng viết đoa ̣n của sinh viên

năm thứ 3 trường Cao Đẳng Sư Pha ̣m Hà Nam

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI, 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

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

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG

PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN

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

Thực hành phản hồi theo că ̣p trong kĩ năng viết đoa ̣n của sinh viên

năm thứ 3 trường Cao Đẳng Sư Pha ̣m Hà Nam

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr HUỲNH ANH TUẤN

HANOI, 2016

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES iv

LIST OF FIGURES v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 3

3 Scope of the study 3

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Research methodology 4

6 Organization of the thesis 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 Theoretical background 6

1.1.1 Definition 6

1.1.2 Types of feedback to students‟ writing 7

1.2 Literature review 9

1.3 Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing 9

1.3.1 Arguments in favor of students‟ peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing 10

1.3.2 Argument against peer written feedback in teaching and learning of writing11 1.4 Different types of peer feedback in writing 12

1.4.1 Oral comments 12

1.4.2 Using the checklists 13

1.4.3 Written comments 14

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Research questions 15

2.2 Research methods 15

2.2.1 The participants 15

2.2.2 Instrumentation 15

2.2.3 Data collection procedure 18

2.2.4 Data analysis method 19

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 21

3.1 Student‟s practice of giving peer written feedback 21

3.1.1 Feedback on paragraph organization 21

3.1.2 Feedback on grammar 22

3.1.3 Feedback on vocabulary 24

3.1.4 General comments feedback 26

3.1.5 Students‟ using the checklist when giving feedback 27

3.2 Students‟ difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers‟ writings 28 3.2.1 Students‟ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers‟ writings 28 3.3 Improvement of students‟ writing after receiving peer written feedback 35

3.3.1 Students‟ improvement in paragraph organization after receiving peer written feedback 35

3.3.2 Students‟ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback 37

3.3.3 Students‟ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback 37 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 39

4.1 Findings 39

4.3 Implications for teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback 41 4.3.1 Implications for teaching of writing using peer written feedback 41

4.3.2 Implication for learning of writing using peer written feedback 42

PART C: CONCLUSION 43

1 Concluding remarks 43

2 Limitation of the study 44

REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES I

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 researchers There are some main reasons why a lot of teachers have chosen to use

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 becausestudents‟ 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 year students for one 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

third-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 contrast, 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 good deal of research that covers various aspects of its broad instructional contexts

Therefore, this study mentions a method- peer written feedback and tries to find out whether feedback is crucial to the teaching and learning of writing Peer feedback gives both the reader and the writer more opportunities for collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate

Practically, using peer written feedback also relieves the teachers‟ heavy workload of marking the paper and makes this process meaningful to students‟ learning And it also helps students improve their writing skills Obviously, when students read their peers‟ writings, they not only help their peers recognize and correct mistakes but also become more critical writers

In the document analysis, 20 students‟ first drafts with the peer written feedback were collected and analysed to find out how student gave feedback to their peers‟ written paragraphs Then, the students‟ first drafts were compared with their

second drafts to see whether the peer written feedback helps students improve their writing or not

The questionnaire was done on 20 students who had given feedback to find out the difficulties students might cope with when giving feedback to their peers‟ writing

6 Organization of the thesis

The paper consists of 3 main parts:

Part A: Introduction- briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims, research questions, scope as well as the significance and organization of the study

Part B: Development -This part consists of 4 chapters

Chapter 1: Theoretical background and literature review- discusses the literature related to students‟ writing‟s feedback, different views and ways of peer feedback in writing and the guiding principles for effective peer written feedback

Chapter 2: Research methodology- describes the methodology which deals with the participants, instrumentation, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure Chapter 3: Data analysis - analyses the collected data

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion- reports the final results and draws the implication for the teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback Part C: Conclusions- summarizes the major findings of the study, acknowledges its limitation and provides suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical background

1.1.1 Definition

Various researchers define the term “feedback” in different ways, among which the definition from Hyland & Hyland (2006) is one of the most comprehensive Hyland views feedback is crucial for both encouraging and consolidating learning and this significance has also been recognized in the area of second language writing Indeed, “feedback is a key component of second language writing programs around the world, with product, process and genre approaches all employing it as a central part of their instructional repertoires” (Hyland & Hyland, 2006: 15)

According to Chaudron (1988:33), feedback which is contrasted with the narrower notion 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 to inform learners of their accuracy of both their formal target language production of their classroom behavior and knowledge” It is a significant concern of students and teachers alike and both feel it is an important part of the writing process (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Ferris, 2002) It is therefore not surprising that much has been written about the issue both in teacher education and second language research literature

However, feedback on writing is most valuable to students‟ writing development when it takes place at the beginning and middle stages of the writing process This is the time when students can use the feedback to revise and edit their writing This means that feedback should be provided in the process of the writing rather than in single act of producing a text as Raimes (1983:139) 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

1.1.2 Types of feedback to students’ writing

There are three major types of feedback in the literature on writing They are teacher‟s feedback, self-editing and peer feedback

1.1.2.1 Teacher’s feedback

Teachers certainly see responding to their students‟ written work as an inherent and important part of their job (Casanave, 2004; Ferris, 1997; Hyland, 2003; Truscott, 1996) Teachers provide feedback on students writing to support student‟s writing development and nurture their confidence as writers „Teachers‟ feedback often takes the form of written comments on their final grades composition Received by students at the end of their writing process, these comments rarely have great impact on students‟ writing development as teachers intend‟ (Peterson, 2010:1)

Furthermore, much of the research published often fails to find its way to teachers (Hyland & Hyland, 2006) With not much information and consensus, teachers have to resort to their experience and intuition, as well as information ontained from their students to guide them through their giving written feedback However, it has been suggested that there may be a mismatch between the written feedback teachers provide and the feedback learners would like to receive (Cohen & Cavalcanti, 1990; Hyland, 1998) In addition, it has also been suggested that even if students and teachers are in agreement, feedback still has great potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding (Hyland, 1998) Providing feedback is certainly an important job for all teachers, a job that requires their daily dedication, their diligence, their enthusiasm, etc

1.1.2.2 Self-editing

Self-editing is a major part of the writing process Raimes (1992:149) notes that “What students really need more than anything else is to develop the ability to read their own writing and to examine it critically, to learn how to express their meaning fluently, logically and accurately” He also believes that students need to

be able to find and correct their own mistakes Students go through after they

complete a draft of their written work It is when they check for things like grammar mistakes, continuity, spelling errors, typos, missing words, repetition, awkward sentences, passive voice, subject-verb agreement, clarity, misplaced modifiers, homonyms and the list goes on and on… if a learner was aware of self-editing and tried to learn from his own failure, he would receive more chance of overcoming difficulties in learning than other who did not care why they failed Unfortunately, correcting mistakes in our own writing is very difficult We can usually see other people's written mistakes without a problem, but it is a different story when we edit our own work Therefore, in order to help students to revise their own writings effectively, the teacher should provide students with correction codes to work with

1.1.2.3 Peer feedback

Peer feedback has been defined as “the use of learners as sources of information … in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor or editor in commenting on and critiquing each other's drafts in both written and oral formats in the process of writing” (Liu & Hansen, 2002:1) In the literature on writing, peer feedback has been referred to by many terms, for example, peer response, peer editing, peer critiquing, and peer evaluation Each term connotes a particular slant to the feedback, mainly in terms of where along the continuum this feedback is given, and the focus of the feedback Whatever form it may take, this kind of feedback given students a chance to read each other‟s papers and to provide feedback to the writer, possibly based on specific questions the teacher has provided These responses can be oral or/and written

Peer feedback has been supported as a potentially valuable aid for its social, cognitive, affective and methodological benefits (Mendonça and Johnson, 1994; Villamil & de Guerrero, 1996) Peer feedback is seen as a way of giving more control to students since it allows them to make active decisions about whether or not to use their peers' comments as opposed to a passive reliance on teachers' feedback (Mendonça and Johnson, 1994; Mittan, 1989) In peer feedback sessions

students not only compose their own texts but read the texts written by other students, adopt the role of interested readers and commentators, and help each other in the elaboration of better texts This collaboration increases a range of social and communication skills, including negotiation skills and diplomacy, verbal communication skills, giving and accepting criticism, justifying one's position and assessing suggestions objectively

1.2 Literature review

Despite the important role of peer written feedback especially its great effect on students‟ writing revision, the number of studies on peer written feedback is still limited and outnumbered by studies on the teacher written feedback Moreover, there have been few researches including those in Vietnam such as “An investigation into the use of peer written feedback in the first year writing classes at the English Department in College of Foreign Language, Vietnam University, Hanoi (Trần Văn Phong, 2007), “Peer written feedback in writing portfolios by third year students in the English Department in College of Foreign Language, Vietnam University, Hanoi (Phan Thị Hảo, 2008), “Students‟ peer written feedback in writing skills among Intermediate students at Hanoi University of Industry” (Nguyễn Thị Lãi, 2008) These studies only present the current situation of using peer written feedback, students‟ attitude, reaction as well as their expectation of peer written feedback but include no discussion about the way their writing has been affected by peer written feedback and whether this kind of feedback improve students‟ writing revision as well as their writing skills or not These studies do not also discuss the difficulties students cope with when giving feedback For these reasons and be motivated by previous studies, the author wishes to conduct this research to gain more insight into current students‟ practice of giving feedback, effectiveness of peer written feedback and the difficulties students coped with when giving feedback

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

The literature on peer feedback mainly focuses on the advantages and drawbacks of peer feedback While some of the studies show positive effects of

peer review, others discuss its problematic areas Therefore, some of these real concerns will be discussed in this part

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

Peer feedback in many famous researchers‟ point of view has a lot of advantages that help to make the teaching and learning of writing more effective

One of key advantages of peer feedback is that both givers and receivers of feedback improved their writing ability and also enhanced their critical thinking skills Peer readers can provide useful feedback so that peer writers can and do revision effectively on the basis of comments from peer readers And when students become critical readers of others‟ writing, they will be more critical readers and revisers of the own writings In addition, Lundstrom and Baker (2009) carried out a study in a similar context to investigate whether it is receivers or givers of peer feedback who benefit most The authors point out that although the givers and receivers of feedback benefitted equally, students who gave feedback surpassed their peers in their writing abilities This strongly implies that students are able to look at their own writing in a more critical manner while they participate in the process of providing feedback

Seow (2002) states that peer feedback allows students to gain confidence and reduce apprehension by seeing peers' strengths and weaknesses in writing Therefore, more positive attitudes towards writing are generated In addition, providing their views in terms of contexts in which peer feedback takes place, Liu and Hansen (2002) assert that peer feedback not only increases an awareness of audience by creating a collaborative drafting process but also provides opportunities for students to practice English in a meaningful context

Peer written feedback also gives the teacher a better chance of closely following the progress of individuals and groups (Rollinson, 2005) First, peer written feedback helps teachers check if students are giving the proper type of feedback and can provide actual examples of positive and negative feedback, which

is difficult to do with accuracy and depth in oral feedback Second, when writing assignments are turned in accompanied by the previous draft(s) and the peers‟ comments, it is easier for teacher to ascertain which ideas originated with the student author and how well the student was able to respond to and incorporate the feedback and suggestions from peers, something that would not even be possible with oral feedback

Furthermore, peer written feedback also changes the students‟ role in the class Yang et al (2006) also studied the effects of peer response in an EFL environment Their focus was on whether peer feedback could be introduced into the traditional classroom where teacher feedback plays an important role while peer feedback plays an insignificant part The findings revealed that peer response could still be successfully instituted in an EFL environment Therefore, Yang et al suggest that it is likely that peer response could also be successfully introduced into the ESL environments, as peer feedback is not affected by the dominant culture They also found that peer feedback, while not always integrated in later drafts, promotes better self-editing skills, therefore, displaying more autonomous writing skills

What is more, teacher‟ time may be saved by eliminating certain editing task, 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 write students with thorough feedback because peer reviewers will notice different aspects of the paper

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

While some of the above studies suggest positive aspects of peer feedback, other researchers point out that peer review is a difficult task.According to them, this

is due to various reasons

A major problem with peer response is that students find it hard to identify problem areas and may even offer inaccurate or misleading advice (Horowitz, 1986) Students also find it difficult to judge the validity of their peers‟ comments

(Leki, 1990) Aspects such as cultural and educational backgrounds as well as a lack

of training are significant factors that can contribute to the success or failure of peer feedback (Leki, 1992; Nelson & Carson, 2006)

Another issue requiring some consideration is that student characteristics Rollinson (2005) also affirms that many students may not easy accept the idea that their peers are qualified enough to evaluate their writing, so they may need a significant amount of initial persuasion of the value of peer written feedback Besides, some students may feel uncomfortable to give critical comments either because they want to maintain group harmony or because they were reluctant to claim a degree of authority

1.4 Different types of peer feedback in writing

According to Shrum & Glisan (2002), responding to the writing simply means that the teacher correct students‟ errors in grammar, vocabulary, and types of mistakes However, this narrow view of correction has been expanded in recent years The teacher can consider the effect that various kinds of feedback have on improving the quality of students‟ written work And peer feedback is an outstanding suggestion As argued by Keh (1990) and Mangeldorf (1992), there are

3 types of peer feedback They are oral comments, using the checklist and written comments Certainly, the understanding of the different ways of peer feedback will help teachers make the right decision about which kind of peer feedback to apply in certain teaching situations

1.4.1 Oral comments

Oral peer response, as presented in Mittan(1989), calls for students to work

in groups of four or five Each student gives one copy of her paper to every member

of the group Then usually out of class for homework, each group members reads other students‟ papers and prepares a response to each of them, using focus questions provided by the teacher In the following class, students give oral comments on each paper they have read, as well as ask and answer clarifying questions Each student then uses this feedback from the other group members to

rewrite the paper

Although oral comments can be time-consuming, a talk of just a few minutes can be productive During a discussion, students can take notes of what the other students says (Raimes, 1983) The students is then surprised at the ideas produced in

a few minutes The written notes then can be used as basis for further rewriting activities

With oral comments, students can decide together what comments to give and how to express them By working together, students often have more exact and better comments because they can discuss ideas with each other Collaboration also enables student to feel more confidents about the feedback they are giving their classmates (Mangelsdorf, 1992) However, using oral comments has one drawback When students listen to their friend, they may not write down all the information, or they may misunderstand their friend‟s ideas And the result is they could not revise their writing correctly

1.4.2 Using the checklists

Another 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 An education specialist, Dr Kathleen Dudden Rowlands believes checklists are more than just a way for students to stay organized and on task Checklists help students feel in control and hold them accountable by removing obstacles to success such as “I didn‟t know we were supposed to do that,” or “I forgot to do that part.”

According to Raimes (1983), checklists should be short, easy to understand and should be used first by students to check a piece of writing then by the teacher

to evaluate in The teacher should prepare a new checklist to be suitable to the features of each particular writing task as well as the objective of the lesson

The checklist is used to identify the problems in the writing and is designed

to give the writer some ideas about areas which should be improved The checklist can contain questions about manuscript form, instructions about grammar, tasks to

analyze content and organization Students can use the checklist to answer questions concerning the draft‟s topic, unity, development, focus and whatever the teacher wants to emphasize for that lesson

1.4.3 Written comments

In the written comments method, students, after reading their peers‟ writings, give comments by writing down their notes or ideas on those Written comments that take the form of a paraphrase of the ideas, expresses, praises, questions, or suggestions are more productive than an end comment like “Good”, “Not Bad”,

“Well done”

An effective way for students to provide feedback to their peers is written comments on assignments and assessments Written feedback is concrete and permanent Their peers can read and reread the feedback to better understand and then improve their writing sheets better Shepherd (2005) and Black et al (2004) point out that students are more likely to meet their learning goals when commenting focus on the specifics of the learning task and the student‟s learning issues The best comments help the student think about what he is doing well, identify what he needs to do to improve and understand how to improve

Keh (1990) suggests five useful recommendations for writing written comments:

1 Connect comments to lesson objectives

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 weakness

In this study, the researcher focuses on HCE students‟ practice of giving written peer-feedback, the difficulties they might encounter, and whether the practice

is effective in improving their writing skill All the above five recommendations by Keh (1990) have been incorporated into the checklist for peer written feedback given to students prior to their practice

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter covers two main parts: research questions and research methods In the research methods section, discussions were made concerning the selection of the participants, instrumentation, data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure

2.1 Research questions

As mentioned in the introduction part, this study aims to investigate how the third-year students of HCE give feedback to their peers‟ written paragraphs, the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback, and whether the method is effective This aimisguided by the following research questions:

1 How do the third-year students of HCE give feedback to their peers’ written paragraphs?

2 What difficulties might the students encounter when giving feedback to their peers ’written paragraph?

3 To what extent do the students improve their writings after receiving feedback from their peers?

2.2 Research methods

This section presents the participants, instrumentation, data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure

2.2.1 The participants

20 third-year students of the Foreign Language Faculty of HCE participated

in this study These students were mixed in their levels of English proficiency The students had to do 2 terms of writing in one academic year Each term lasted 30 periods including 3 types of paragraph writing: narrative, process, and descriptive After finishing their study on one type of paragraph (about 10 periods), the students were asked to write a paragraph based on a given topic It means that each student is required to write a total of 6 writing tasks in the third year

2.2.2 Instrumentation

In order to obtain adequate information, this study used two methods They were document analysis of students‟ peer written feedback and survey questionnaire

for students Document analysis helps the author find out the data to answer

research question number 1: “How do the third-year students of HCE give feedback

to their peers’ written paragraphs?” and research question number 3: “To what extent do student improve their writings after receiving feedback from their peers?”,

and the questionnaire provides information to help the author answer research

question number 2: “What difficulties might students encounter when giving feedback to their peers ’written paragraph?”

Interview and observation could have been used to answer question 3 However, due to the limitation of time and ability, these instruments were decided not to be utilized

Documents analysis of students’ peer written feedback

Data analysis is the process of systematically applying statistical and/or logical techniques to describe and illustrate, condense and recap, and evaluate data According to Shamoo and Resnik (2003) various analytic procedures provide a way

of drawing inductive inferences from data and distinguishing the signal (the phenomenon of interest) from the noise (statistical fluctuations) present in the data

While data analysis in qualitative research can include statistical procedures, many times analysis becomes an ongoing iterative process where data are continuously collected and analyzed almost simultaneously Indeed, researchers generally analyze for patterns in observations through the entire data collection phase (Robinson, 2004) The form of the analysis is determined by the specific qualitative approach taken (field study, ethnography content analysis, oral history, biography, unobtrusive research) and the form of the data (field notes, documents,

There are three primary types of documents:

• Public Records: The official, ongoing records of an organization‟s activities

Examples include student transcripts, mission statements, annual reports, policy manuals, student handbooks, strategic plans, and syllabi

• Personal Documents: First-person accounts of an individual‟s actions,

experiences, and beliefs Examples include calendars, e-mails, scrapbooks, blogs, Facebook posts, duty logs, incident reports, reflections/journals, and newspapers

• Physical Evidence: Physical objects found within the study setting (often called

artifacts) Examples include flyers, posters, agendas, handbooks, and training materials

In the light of these discussions, the data of this study is personal documents because it is the students‟ personal writing

The data analysis of this study was done as follows The author collected 40 writing sheets with peer written feedback provided by the students themselves in two writing tasks (20 writing sheets per task) The presentation and analysis of the written feedback provided by the students were carried out to obtain the most truthful information which helps answer the question about the current practice of peer written feedback of students at HCE and whether the method is effective

The following features concerning students‟ practice of giving peer written feedback are analysed:

- The areas they gave feedback to (paragraph organization, grammar, or vocabulary)

- Their tendency to provide suggestions and general comments

Questionnaire for students (Appendix 1, p I)

McDonough (1997) believe that questionnaires are very popular among educational researchers in general There are some factors as to why a researcher chooses questionnaires to collect data from students The questionnaires have some advantages over other data collecting methods (e.g interviews): a) questionnaires tend to be more reliable as they are anonymous b) they encourage greater honesty from respondents, c) they save the researchers and participants’ time and effort (more economical), and d) they can be used in small-scale issues and large scale issues

In the questionnaire, there are two parts Part 1 includes questions concerning difficulties the students encountered when giving their peers written feedback Part

2 is questions concerning difficulties the students coped with when providing suggestion to improve their peers‟ writing In each part, the students were asked to

show their level of agreement for the given problems by choosing one of the five options given: SA= Strongly agree; A= Agree; N= Neutral; D= Disagree; SD= Strongly disagree

The desire of the author is to find out all the difficulties which students might encounter when giving feedback and to be honest, questionnaire only gives the author the level of agreements of students for the given problems, not the real problem which students are encountering And the best way to help the author find the data to answer the research question number 2 about the difficulties students might encounter is interview and observation However, due to the limited ability and knowledge, only some aspects can be surveyed and discussed That is the reason why the questionnaire is designed to collect the information to answer the

second research question: “What difficulties might students encounter when giving feedback to their peers ’written paragraph?”

2.2.3 Data collection procedure

The author divided the process of the data collection into 2 stages At the first stage, students were asked to write a paragraph based on a given topic as homework after having finished the lesson in the class In the following class, the teacher asked students to give the feedback to their peers‟ writing However, before students could do that, teacher had to train them the way to give peer written feedback by using a checklist (see appendix 2, p III) which covered such areas as paragraph organization, grammar, and vocabulary The checklist also included students‟ general comments on their peers‟ writing First, the teacher explained to help students understand all the questions in the checklist Then, the teacher told students how to give comments, how to provide suggestions to correct their peers‟ writing The teacher also provided students a list of commonly used symbols for common mistakes (appendix 3, p IV) The students based on these to give the symbols above to the mistakes they underlined After that, students were encouraged to provide suggestions to correct the mistakes they underlined Finally, the teacher asked students to take notes and give feedback to their peers‟ writing

After receiving writing sheets with the written feedback from their peers, students rewrote their text before handing it to the teacher Then, the teacher collected 20 students‟ first drafts and the second draft When collecting students‟ writing sheets, the researcher had to ensure the students that their names would not be identified in the discussion of the data The first drafts with written feedback from their peers and the second drafts were examined, analyzed and compared

In the second stage, a questionnaire was distributed to 20 third-year students The researcher had to give explanations to make sure that all students understood the questions clearly

2.2.4 Data analysis method

2.2.4.1 Data analysis procedure

Firstly, the analysis of the peer written feedback was done on 20 writing papers with feedback to investigate the current practice of giving peer written feedback among the third-year students of HCE The analysis mainly focuses on the area in which students gave feedback (paragraph, organization, grammar, and vocabulary) to find out which area students tend to give feedback, their tendency to provide suggestions and general comments

Secondly, the copies of the first drafts containing written feedback provided

by their peers and the second drafts were examined, analyzed and compared to see whether the peer written feedback helps students improve their writings The analysis focuses on the changes students made after receiving feedback from their peers (paragraph, organization, grammar, and vocabulary)

Finally, the analysis of the survey questionnaire was also done to find out the difficulties students might encounter when giving written feedback to their peers‟ writing The analysis focuses on the amount students ticked on each level of agreement to find out which difficulty students suppose is the most difficult and which is the least

2.2.4.2 Data analytical framework

There are 3 research questions in this thesis The data analysis is to answer these 3 questions

With the first question: “How do the third-year students of HCE give

feedback to their peers’ written paragraphs?” the data analysis focuses on the areas

the students gave feedback (organization, grammar, vocabulary) The collected data were analyzed as the framework below:

- The percentage of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization

- The percentage of students who gave feedback on grammar

- The percentage of students who gave feedback on vocabulary

- The percentage of students who gave general comments

Besides, the researcher also wanted to find out whether or not and how the students followed the checklist when giving feedback Analysis of this is based on students‟ feedbacks on the first draft of their peers‟ writings Students‟ names as appearing in the analysis are their pseudo-names for ethical reasons

With the second research question: “What difficulties might students encounter when giving feedback to their peers ’written paragraph?” the data

analysis focuses on the amount the students ticked on the level of agreements for the given problems to find out which difficulty is the most difficult and which is the least The collected data were analyzed as framework the percentage of students who strongly agree; agree; neutral; disagree; strongly disagree with the given problems

With the third research question: “To what extent do students improve their writings after receiving feedback from their peers?” the data analysis focuses on the

changes students made after receiving their peers‟ feedback The data collected were analyzed as framework below:

-The percentage of students‟ improvement in paragraph organization

-The percentage of students‟ improvement in grammar

-The percentage of students‟ improvement in vocabulary

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter serves two functions (1) giving a presentation on the data collected by analyzing students‟ written feedback and the survey questionnaire and (2) making interpretation based on the data analysis

3.1 Student’s practice of giving peer written feedback

Analysis of this section is to answer question 1 and is based on the students‟ giving feedback to their peers‟ first drafts

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the three areas of their peers‟ writing the students were asked to give feedback to be paragraph organization, grammar, and vocabulary They were also expected to give some general written comments

To help them with their giving feedback, a checklist (appendix 2, p III) was given

to them prior to their task assignment

3.1.1 Feedback on paragraph organization

The four main points in paragraph organization the students were expected to give feedback to are the topic sentence, supporting ideas, the conclusion and the coherence of the whole paragraph Students were informed to focus on these four main points when giving feedback to their peers The data analysis shows that not many students focused on the mistakes related to the paragraph organization as revealed in figure 1 below

Figure 1: The percentage of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization

This chart shows that the percentage of students who gave feedback on coherence is the least (only 20%) Coming after is conclusion (30 %) The percentage of students who gave feedback on supporting ideas was higher but not much It is only 35% And the highest percentage of area students gave feedback on was topic sentence It makes up 45%

And among 9 students gave feedback on paragraph organization, there is 3 students (30%) providing suggestions for their peers to correct the mistakes while the rest did not

Figure 2: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the grammatical mistakes

Although all students indicated the mistakes of grammar, not all of them provided suggestion for correcting mistakes This is shown in the chart 2 55% the students provided suggestion while 45% of them did not

The most common mistakes related to grammar that students made were use