The use of teacher’s corrective feedback in improving students’ speaking skills at be van dan lower secondary hanoi

This study aims to investigate three issues: 1 the differences in the distribution of feedback types between two different level 6-grade classes, 2 the extent to which each feedback type

ĐỖ MỸ HƯƠNG

A RESEARCH ON THE USE OF TEACHER’S CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

AT BE VAN DAN LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL - HANOI

(Nghiên cứu về sử dụng phản hồi của giáo viên tại

trường THCS Bế Văn Đàn Hà Nội)

M.A Thesis

Major: English teaching methodology (type 1) Major code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2017

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ MỸ HƯƠNG

A RESEARCH ON THE USE OF TEACHER’S CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

AT BE VAN DAN LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL - HANOI

(Nghiên cứu về sử dụng phản hồi của giáo viên tại

trường THCS Bế Văn Đàn Hà Nội)

Signature

Đỗ Mỹ Hương Hanoi, December 18th, 2017

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supervisor, Dr Mai Ngọc Khôi, for his invaluable guidance and suggestions I would also like to thank him for such careful feedback, advice, useful resources and materials that he gave me during process of conducting this thesis Without his support, I would not have completed this thesis I highly appreciate his enthusiasm

Secondly, my sincere thanks go to 2 teachers for their participation in the research and their permission for me to attend, observe and record the lessons Appreciation

is also expressed for their detailed answers in the stimulated recall I would also like

to thank all beloved students of class 6A0 and 6A3

Last but not least, my hearty thanks go to all family members and friends, who enthusiastically encourage me to complete my thesis

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However, whether the use of teachers‟ corrective feedback has positive influences

on students‟ speaking skills has been of scorching controversy among scholars In fact, there have been many studies conducted on the field in Vietnam, yet not many studies focus on the students of secondary level This offers a gap for the researcher

to bridge This study aims to investigate three issues: (1) the differences in the distribution of feedback types between two different level 6-grade classes, (2) the extent to which each feedback type successfully led to repair and (3) the reasons behind teachers‟ choice of feedback Two classes (one English- major and one non-major) and two teachers in charge of these two classes participated in the study Class observation and stimulated recall were employed as data collection instruments The results revealed that teacher of non-major class preferred to use explicit techniques, whilst teacher of English-major class tend to use negotiation techniques Recast was used the most frequently, yet did not lead to high rate of uptake and repair Metalinguistic feedback, explicit correction, repetition and elicitation proved to be successful in generate students‟ repair In terms of factors influencing teachers‟ choice of feedback, both internal factor (students‟ ability, error types) and external factor (time limitation, lesson goals) were found out

Key words:

teachers’ corrective feedback students’ uptake reasons of feedback’s choice

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Identification of the problem 1

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions 1

1.3 Significance of the study 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Organization of the study 3

1.6 Summary 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Key concepts 4

2.1.1 Corrective feedback 4

2.1.2 Types of corrective feedback 7

2.1.3 Factors affecting teacher‟s choice of feedback 8

2.1.4 Arguments on the role of corrective feedback 9

2.2 Review of previous research on the effectiveness of corrective feedback on speaking skills 11

2.3 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Method of the study 18

3.2 Data collection instruments 20

3.2.1 Class observation 20

3.2.2 Stimulated recall interviews 22

3.3 Procedures 23

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CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28

4.1 Three research questions 28

4.1.1 Question 1: What types of corrective feedback are used in English speaking lessons in English major class and non-major class? 28

4.1.2 Question 2: What are the reasons behind teacher’s choice of corrective feedback? 31

4.1.3 Question 3: To what extent does corrective feedback lead to students’ successful repair? 34

4.2 Summary 37

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 38

5.1 Brief summary of the findings 38

5.2 Pedagogical implications 40

5.3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 41

REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 I APPENDIX 3 III APPENDIX 4 IV APPENDIX 5 V

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Identification of the problem

Speaking is absolutely part and parcel in the process of studying a foreign language like English However, the skill of speaking in a fluent way is not a gift that everybody was born with Speaking skill, in contrast, is sharpened through the long process of instruction and practice Unfortunately, in Vietnamese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms, speaking skill does not receive as much concern as others like grammar, reading or writing The syllabus mainly focuses on grammar, reading and writing, which appear in examinations Speaking lessons are only distributed once or twice a week, each lesson lasts 45 minutes As a result, students have little time to practice speaking This makes them feel embarrassed when communicating with native speakers as they fear to make mistakes and not to speak fluently enough That is to say, teachers play a key role in speaking lessons, for the reason that they have to create an effective environment for students to speak English and also instruct them how to speak or correct them when they make mistakes On the other hand, Vietnamese and English are languages which belong

to different types, making it a challenge for Vietnamese students to learn The differences are found in many aspects such as sentence word order, phonological and sentence stress The huge differences between two languages entail a great risk

of making errors Errors, on the other hand, are inevitable in mastering a language When errors are made, students can learn more from them Therefore, teachers‟ corrective feedback is dramatically vital as teachers will assist students to acquire correct English From then, they can be more self-confident while making conversation with native speakers

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions

Due to the necessity of using corrective feedback in classrooms, the study aimed to investigate the use of corrective feedback in a particular Vietnamese EFL classroom, including which types of corrective feedback teacher employs to correct

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students‟ mistakes during speaking lessons and what affects their choice of feedback Furthermore, in this study, researcher wanted to gain knowledge about how teacher‟s corrective feedback has effect on students‟ speaking skills from students‟ perspectives The aims can be operationalized into following research questions:

Question 1: What types of corrective feedback are used in English speaking lessons in English major class and non-major class?

Question 2: What are reasons behind teacher’s choice of feedback types?

Question 3: To what extent does corrective feedback lead to students’ successful repair?

1.3 Significance of the study

Due to the fact that corrective feedback plays a vital role in speaking lessons, this study was conducted with a view to becoming a guide for all teachers of English When completed, it is expected to provide some suggestions and implications to teachers By realizing which type of feedback was used and more importantly, how corrective feedback had effect on students‟ speaking skills, every teacher can apply to his/her own class This, to some extent, may help to draw students‟ attention to the lesson and raise their interest in English as well as willingness to speak English The study is a good source of information and good support as well when teachers want to improve their teaching skills, with a desire to make students feel more confident when speaking and feel more enjoyable when taking speaking lessons, making speaking lessons more joyful and efficient Last but not least, the study is a source of information for those who are in need to investigate this issue in the future

1.4 Methods of the study

This was a combination of quantitative and qualitative study Classroom observation and stimulated recall interview were employed as data collection

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instruments Then data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics to determine which types of feedback used by participating teacher and to what extent feedback helps students recognize their errors and lead to students‟ repair The stimulated recall interviews were conducted at the end of the day right after each lesson and transcribed right afterwards, and then analyzed to find out the reasons behind teachers‟ choice of corrective feedback

1.5 Organization of the study

Chapter 1: Introduction chapter comprises the rationale of the study as well as the purpose to conduct this study, the research questions, the method used and the significance of the study

Chapter 2 (Literature review) illustrates definitions of key terms and discusses related studies by both foreign and Vietnamese researchers

Chapter 3 (Methodology) shows the context of the study, samples, data collection instruments plus data collection and analysis procedures

Chapter 4 (Findings and Discussion) presents, analyzes and discusses the data collected

Chapter 5 (Conclusion) sums up the findings of research, provides implications as well as suggestions in English pedagogy and works out some limitations for further research

1.6 Summary

This chapter describes the rationale of the study, aiming at seeing the impacts

of teacher‟s corrective feedback on student‟s speaking skills In order to accomplish that aim, researcher used observation and stimulated recall interview to collect relevant data Data observed were quantitatively analyzed while after-lesson stimulated recalls were qualitatively analyzed to make the study result more objective The next chapter reviews related literature in the mentioned field

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents some key concepts relating to corrective feedback: the definitions of corrective feedback by several researchers, feedback classifications, factors influencing teachers‟ choice of feedback, argument on the effectiveness of giving feedback to students as well as related studies on the field

2.1 Key concepts

2.1.1 Corrective feedback

First and foremost, some definitions of feedback are provided Feedback is a familiar concept in theories of language teaching and learning (Sheen 2011) In fact, there are a great number of definitions for the term feedback Hattie and Timperley (2007) in their co-work defined feedback as the information which is given to a person with regard to his/her performance In a narrower sense, feedback in teaching process can be understood as the indication teacher or instructor give learner relating to learning process with a view to assisting learner in improving and accelerating their learning (Sadler, 1989) Noteworthy is, according to Sheen (2011), feedback is provided no matter how right or wrong the learner‟s response is Feedback sometimes can be given in the form of praise or encouragement Having the same point of view, Hyland & Hyland (2001) agreed that praise can be considered in terms of its functions as feedback For instance, teacher said “Well done!” after student finish their performance According to behavioral theory, receiving a positive feedback can increase the chance of action repetition in the future (Weiner, 1990) Therefore, learners can benefit from positive feedback Feedback can be categorized into many types Based on definition of Hattie & Timperley (2007), feedback can come from parents or educators as corrective information, peer feedback can be in the form of alternative strategy, book can offer information to clarify idea, parents can give encouragement to their children and even a learner can look up the answer to correct himself Peer feedback (as compared to teacher feedback or parent feedback, defined by Liu & Carless (2006),

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is “a communication process through which learners enter into dialogues related to performance and standards” (p.280) To put it differently, peer feedback is the feedback which is given by one student to another It is a two-way process in which one cooperates with each other Peer feedback can be in the forms of corrections, suggestions or ideas to each other On the other hand, teacher‟s feedback is the feedback which teachers/educators provide their learners when they make mistakes

A correction provided by a teacher, called teacher‟s feedback is an indispensable part of any classroom and is supportive of student‟s academic achievement (Siewert, 2011) Feedback can be evaluative or descriptive (Tunstall & Gipps, 1996), in which the former involves a judgement by the teacher based on implicit or explicit norms or descriptive, while the latter describes what students said or did, and provide guidance for improvement

According to Tornberg (2005) and Lange (2009), errors are natural characteristics in the process of learning a language It shows the development in acquisition of learners Any learners make mistakes when learning a language, so corrective feedback is indispensable because normally learners can not self-correct themselves

Day, et al (1984) defined corrective feedback as native speakers‟ response to what they consider errors committed by non-native speakers This definition has its limitations Feedback providers do not restrict to native speakers but all people (Chu, 2011)

Corrective feedback is known as form-focused instruction This means it intend to draw learners‟ attention towards linguistic form (Ellis 2001) Human language is compositional; that is, every sentence is made up of smaller linguistic units that have been combined in highly constrained ways Chomsky (1965) and Pinker (1999) stated that these units and rules of combination exist at the levels of

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sound (phonemes), words (morphemes), and sentences (words and phrases) Collectively, these rules comprise a grammar that defines the permissible linguistic forms in the language These forms are related to, but different from, linguistic meaning (semantics) Long (1991) claimed that meaning-focused instruction is not enough, some attention to form is needed Some researchers wondered about the effectiveness of meaning-focused instruction because of the fact that many learners show grammatical inaccuracy though they have been learning language for a long time Form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided within the context

of communicative interaction can contribute positively to a second language development in both long and short term

Another point needed to focus on, in his own work, Sheen (2011) stated that there is a basic difference to distinguish between feedback and corrective feedback Feedback is given regardless of the response is right or wrong, whereas corrective feedback entails the appearance of error That is to say, corrective feedback is given

to learners when they make mistakes in the process of making utterances Having the same point of view, Chaudron (1988) defined corrective feedback as “any teacher behavior following an error that minimally attempts to inform the learner of the fact of error” (p.150) Similarly, Lightbown and Spada (1999) also held that corrective feedback is any indication that learners receive when their use of language is not accurate

In brief, corrective feedback is the feedback which focuses on linguistic forms and is given when learner make errors This study only focused on the correction of linguistic forms due to the lack of time If there had been more time, the researcher could have included feedback on semantics aspect

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2.1.2 Types of corrective feedback

Corrective feedback can be explicit or implicit Varnosfadrani and Basturkmen (2009) defined explicit corrective feedback in general as “the process

of providing the learner with direct forms of feedback” (p.83), whereas implicit feedback means not to provide the correction directly

This study only focuses on the oral form of teacher‟s corrective feedback Normally, according to Lyster and Ranta (1997), Tedick and Gortari (1998), there are 6 main types of corrective feedback, which are recast, elicitation, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, explicit correction and repetition

 Recast: A recast is a technique used in language teaching to correct learners' errors in such a way that communication is not obstructed To recast an error, teacher will repeat the error back to the learner in a corrected form

 Elicitation: Elicitation is a technique by which the teacher gets the learners to give information rather than giving it to them Teacher normally has a pause to allow the students to complete teacher‟s utterance

 Clarification request: Teacher uses phrases like “Excuse me?”, “Pardon?” to inform students that their utterances contain mistakes that need correcting

 Metalinguistic feedback: is the type of feedback which is in form of metalinguistic rules It can be information, but normally a question posed by teacher for student to answer

 Explicit correction: Teacher directly indicate the error in students‟ utterances and at the same time provide the correct form

 Repetition: Teacher repeats student‟s error but put the tone up at the end of the utterance to make student pay attention to the error

Based on the classification of Lyster and Ranta, Sheen (2011) classified corrective feedback strategies into seven types He combined explicit correction and

Sometimes, teacher acknowledge students‟ error, yet he/she ignores the error and does not use corrective feedback for not interrupting the “flow of mind” or saving students‟ embarrassment (Fungula, 2013)

This study employed the classifications of Lyster and Ranta (1997) (six types

of feedback) because it is the most popular ways of categorizing teacher‟s corrective feedback; it was also employed by most of the research on the field

2.1.3 Factors affecting teacher’s choice of feedback

Menti (2006) mentioned some factors that influencing teacher‟s choice of corrective feedback in his study He listed the reasons why teachers opt for certain type of feedback For example, teachers use recast because they want to correct students‟ errors directly and immediately Recast will help avoid students‟ embarrassment Students‟ feelings at the moment of correction decide the teachers‟ choice of recasts In terms of factor affecting teachers‟ choice of elicitation strategy,

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Menti stated that teachers‟ belief for the linguistic and emotional conditions of the students who are being corrected determine the choice of elicitation When using elicitation, teachers believe that students can reformulate the erroneous utterance themselves Besides, finding out factor influencing metalinguistic feedback choice

is also an objective of Menti‟s study Like recast and elicitation, teachers consider what kind of assistance and when the student needs to be corrected

Gurzynski-Weiss in her study in 2016 investigated 32 instructors to find out the factors influencing Spanish instructors‟ in-class feedback decisions The study was conducted with the participation of 32 instructors during natural, university-level Spanish foreign language lessons The results of stimulated recall revealed that instructors report that contextual (error types), learners (students‟ ability, prior knowledge), instructors (research background, teaching experience, training in second language acquisition) influenced their decisions whether to give feedback or not, what type to provide as well as when Furthermore, feedback provision varies greatly between instructors This is also proved in Lyster, Saito & Sato (2013) Beside some above internal factors, there may be some external factors like time, lesson goals and so on (Gurzynski-Weiss, 2010)

2.1.4 Arguments on the role of corrective feedback

The role of corrective feedback has been a source of controversy for ages since some researchers advocate the use of corrective feedback while others said that corrective feedback is ineffective Many researchers and linguists have tried their best to make descriptions of errors and corrective feedback, as together they form an inevitable and indispensable part of second and foreign language acquisition (Hendrickson, 1978) According to Harmer (1998), correction helps students clarify their understanding of the meaning and the construction of the language Ohta (2001) agreed that if the correct form is provided, learners may have the chance to compare their own production with that of another In this way,

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corrective feedback may stimulate hypothesis testing, giving the learner the opportunity to reconstruct their grammar Tomczyk (2013) added explaining errors and proposing the ways of identifying incorrect forms during speaking support students‟ success in language learning Similarly, Kim (n.d) stated that learners may benefit from corrective feedback because corrective feedback encourage their notice and makes them pay attention to the gap between their first language and the target language From the researcher‟s perspectives, corrective feedback, to some extent, act effectively as a means of acquiring standard language However, teachers should

be concerned how to correct students as one way may be appropriate for one but not for another Harmer (1998) also suggests that it is important to praise students for their success and to correct them for their failure In this way teacher's positive attitude can dramatically change student's performance irrespective of their level

While advocates believed that corrective feedback is beneficial to language learners, others saw corrective feedback as ineffective Krashen (1982), one of its proponents, suggested that corrective feedback is useless and potentially harmful Chaudron (1988) agreed that if learners do not work hard they may not learn from corrective feedback Havranek (2001) stated that in most foreign language classrooms, teachers and students take corrective feedback for granted It is regarded as an effective means to make learners be aware of cases where their language does not match the target language At the same time, teachers and learners realize feedback do not always have the desired effect Feedback does not lead to immediate and permanent development in language Truscott (1999) explained more clearly that corrective feedback does not work in these following cases: firstly, teachers‟ incompetence lead to teachers‟ inconsistent correction, secondly, students hurt after being corrected by teacher Furthermore, correction will stand a chance of interfering with fluency Also, students may not take the corrections seriously, so they easily make mistakes again Some research points out

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that many learners make grammatical mistakes despite a long-time exposure to the target language Or in other cases, learners do not learn from the feedback (Sadler, 2010) and do not know the gap between their first language and target language Sadler also stated that the reason why learners do not learn from the feedback is that they do not understand the feedback appropriately, and they are not equipped to interpret the statements correctly Having the same point of views, Hattie & Timperley (2007) argued that it should be noted that there is the potential for feedback to be negative, in which it can discourage students‟ effort and achievement

In some cases, bad feedback can be worse than no feedback In this case, corrective feedback may have negative impact on learners

2.2 Review of previous research on the effectiveness of corrective feedback on speaking skills

In order to examine the relationship between corrective feedback and improvement in learners‟ speaking skill, several studies were conducted Lyster and Ranta (1997) conducted a study on four immersion classrooms at primary level to examine the frequency and distribution of the six different feedback types used by four teachers as well as the uptake pattern following each type of feedback A total

of 18.3 - hour classroom observation (14 subject-matter lessons and 13 French language arts lessons) was carried out, from which the results revealed that most teacher like to use recast, as corrective feedback, accounting for more than half of the total feedback provided in the class (55%) Despite the fact that the use of recast

is the subtlest, through observations, they concluded that recasts led to lowest rate

of uptake, which means it was least effective “Uptake” is a term which was mentioned the first time in their co-work, too This term refers to “a student‟s utterance that immediately follows the teacher‟s feedback and that constitute a reaction in some way to the teacher‟s intention to draw attention to some aspect of the student‟s initial utterance” (p 49) In other words, uptake is the notice of students after given feedback from teacher that their utterances need repairing

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Nevertheless, some following research have found out that, in fact, there are some kinds of recast which related to learner‟s uptake Shorter recasts, or reduced recasts may be of greater benefit to learners as they allow learners to recognize the comparison between the mistakes and the corrections easily (Lyster, 1998; Philip, 2003; Loewen & Philip, 2006; Egi, 2007; Asari, 2011)

The reason why recast is used commonly, according to Lange (2009), is that recasting is the best way to correct student‟s speech because it does not interrupt the communication between teacher and student, also it does not inhibit students Holding the same view, Jiménez Raya, Lamb and Vieira (2007) stated that recasting help students notice their language problems without lowering students‟ self-confidence and willingness to learn Scott (2008) also advocated that point of view because of the fact that when teachers recast they provide correct forms to students, thus, it does not lead to student-generated repair

Büyükbay and Dabaghi (2010) in their co-work examined the effectiveness of

Repetition as corrective feedback to see if Repetition have any contribution to

learner‟s uptake There were 30 students of 2 classes participating in the study, one control and one experimental group The researchers employed class observation and videotape recording to collect the data The results revealed that the

experimental class, which was exposed to Repetition as corrective feedback,

showed a higher level of improvement during the duration of the study The

conclusion drawn by the researchers is that Repetition, as a correction technique is

an effective way to improve student‟s speaking skill These results are similar to the results of other studies by researchers who have advocated the use of corrective feedback By and large, when students respond to teacher‟s feedback, they take chance to explore their ideas or thoughts in a thoughtful way, and, reconstruct their knowledge and apply their skills for any task (Zacharias, 2007)

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During the same year, Gitsaki and Althobaiti (2010) conducted an observational study on the effectiveness of different types of interactional feedback, then identified the types of feedback that lead to learners‟ successful uptake Two native English teachers and twenty-eight ESL students at two different level of proficiency, namely beginners and intermediate, were observed in class Some interviews with teachers were also carried out after the classroom observation The findings stated that explicit correction, followed by metalinguistic feedback was most frequently used Metalinguistic feedback and repetition were two types of feedback which always led to successful uptake

Mazloomi (2015) conducted an experimental research to compare the effectiveness of two corrective feedback types, namely recast (a category of implicit feedback) and metalinguistic feedback (a category of explicit feedback) on Iranian EFL students Forty students received eight sessions of treatment and identical pre-tests and post-tests in two groups The results obtained from T-tests revealed that both techniques contribute to the development of student‟s translation skills, however, metalinguistic feedback seems to be a more effective way to treat learners‟ errors

Moreover, some studies were conducted on the differences in the use of feedback types among different level students Recasts, which are the most popular feedback strategy among second language teaching environments, may be less effective for low-proficiency than for high-proficiency students (Mackey & Philp, 1998; Ammar & Spada, 2006) Prompts can be effective in pushing development for both high- and low-proficiency level, especially high level (Ammar & Spada, 2006) Holding the same point of view, Kaivanpanah et al (2015) conducted a study on

154 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at three different proficiency levels The results confirmed that elementary learners preferred metalinguistic feedback, whereas advanced learners preferred prompts such as elicitation, which

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leads to self-repair Low-level learners have limited knowledge about target language, so it is necessary for them to learn more about language rules through metalinguistic feedback, while high-level learners are capable of re-correcting themselves with the help of teacher‟s prompts

To sum up, many studies from the past until now, recast is considered the most popular feedback strategy yet the least effective one Metalinguistic feedback, elicitation and repetition seem to be more beneficial to students Moreover, there are differences in the use of feedback types among different level students

In Vietnam, it is a matter of fact that research on the role of corrective feedback in improving students‟ speaking skill has not drawn enough attention A study by Truong (2011) used the survey questionnaires from 286 students and semi-structured interviews with 20 students who are studying the first year in Faculty of Accountancy, Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT) The findings indicated that among three kinds of feedback (corrective feedback, evaluative feedback, strategic feedback) in the study, corrective one was used with the highest level of frequency and was considered the most effective ways to improve freshmen‟s speaking skill and also motivate them because they wanted to master their English proficiency for their future purpose especially their career in the future Evaluative feedback is the type of feedback which is given in the form of grades (mark, letter or percentage) or comments (e.g “well done”) Evaluative feedback provides some information about learning but not convey the guidance for students

to improve their learning Hattie and Timperley (2007) agreed that when feedback focuses on praise, reward and punishments, it has low effect on students‟ learning Strategic feedback, on the other hand, provides students with detailed information about the way to improve their learning It describes the next steps based on the assessment of the work at hand so that students know how to self-assess and self-correct themselves (Earl, 2003)

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Meanwhile, a study conducted in Vietnam University of Commerce (VCU)

by Vu (2012) with the participation of 126 second-year English-major students A survey questionnaire was given to each student to determine their opinion on the type of feedback they receive from their teachers Then semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 students who participated in the survey in order to obtain more detailed and comprehensive information about the effect of teachers‟ feedback

on improving students‟ oral presentation skills The results indicated that strategic feedback has the highest frequency of using (54.8%), followed by evaluative feedback (45.3%) and surprisingly, corrective feedback stands at the lowest position (29.2%) It comes as a surprise because corrective feedback is gaining increasing prominence in English teaching in Vietnam However, through interviews with students, researcher finds out that the reason why teacher does not have the habit of using corrective feedback is that she does not want to make student lose face and feel nervous when he/she is making an utterance

Another research that can be listed here is the research by Mai (2016) She carried out a qualitatively-led quantitative research at Hue University on how students perceive recasts for the correction of English vowel sounds Through 10-hour pronunciation lessons, the researcher stated that although most students showed positive attitude towards the use of recasts, some students said recasts do not help them much in improving their pronunciation for the following reasons: students can not hear the teacher‟s pronouncing clearly; they can hear the teacher‟s recast but it is hard for them to repeat correctly in the first time, even second time; and they need to listen many more times to practice the sounds

In her case study, Nhac (2011) also investigates corrective feedback and the effectiveness of feedback in EFL classrooms at Hanoi Law university with the participation of four teachers and four classes, two of which are at pre-intermediate

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level and the others are at intermediate level The findings revealed that of both intermediate and intermediate levels, recast was the most commonly used feedback strategy, however, it was the least effective in terms of students‟ uptake and repair, whereas the most successful feedback, which led to students‟ repair: Meta-linguistic feedback, clarification requests and elicitation were used at a much lower rate by teachers This study employs class observation as the only data collection method However, if researcher only uses observation, the findings seem to be subjective As

pre-a result, interviews with tepre-achers pre-and students or tests should be tpre-aken to mpre-ake findings more objective

In contrast to study by Nhac, study by Nguyen (2014) conducted on 25 student-teachers (who are teaching under the supervision of a certified teacher during practicum time) and 235 grade-10 students at Phan Dinh Phung High School concluded that repetition, recast and explicit feedback are three most efficient types, based on teacher-trainees‟ questionnaire results However, from students‟ perspectives, they tend to prefer to receive explicit correction and repetition

Although there have been many studies examining the use of teachers‟ oral corrective feedback recently, in Vietnam, little attention has been paid on this issue Most studies focus on the teachers and students at universities rather than at secondary or high schools One reason for this tendency is that the number of students in a class at universities is far fewer than that in a class at secondary or high schools so teachers have more chance to provide corrective feedback Other studies focus on corrective feedback in writing because grammar, reading and writing skills receive more concern than speaking skills Such limitations seem to have offered a gap for the researcher to study on a different target population and to investigate the reasons behind teachers‟ choice of feedback to make the results more comprehensive

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2.3 Summary

This chapter presents a brief knowledge of the key concept, namely corrective feedback and provides types of corrective feedback The related studies are also examined, presenting the effectiveness of corrective feedback as a controversial issue While some researchers are in favor of corrective feedback because of its benefits in the process of learning a language, others do not support the use of teachers‟ corrective feedback in class due to the interference with fluency

or embarrassment it creates for students The next chapter will provide the detailed

description of the method used to carry out this study

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with details of methods employed to conduct the present study It is composed of descriptions of participants and context, data collection instruments and procedures as well as data analysis procedures

3.1 Method of the study

This study employs survey research method The population participating in this study includes:

- two classes of Grade 6 at Be Van Dan lower-secondary school, which includes class 6A3 and class 6A0, the former specializing in English while the latter is not

- two teachers who is in charge of those two above classes

The researcher chose these students for her study for following 2 reasons: First, there is little research on the use of corrective feedback conducted on lower- secondary students Most research focuses on students studying at colleges or universities Second, according to Yang (2015), learners‟ corrective feedback preference relates closely to learners‟ proficiency level Researcher choses students

at different level in order to investigate whether there are any differences in the use

of teacher‟s corrective feedback between students who are specialized in English and those who are not

The reason why the researcher chose Be Van Dan school to be her study setting is that this school is one of the schools which adapt to use the new English textbook for grade 6 to 8 The speaking skills in this book is based on communicative language teaching approach Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is “an approach to foreign or second language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of language learning is Communicative Competence” (Richards et al.,

1996, p.65) and Communicative Competence is considered the ability to apply grammatical rules properly in order to form grammatically correct sentences and

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know how to use these sentences in particular context (Richards et al., 1996) CLT approach sees language from social and cultural context This approach focused meaning over form and error is a natural part of the learning process, constructing second language learner‟s system, based on Krashen‟s „natural order hypothesis‟ (1982) The errors committed by second language learners are considered as part of the process of acquisition; they are regarded as positive rather than being negative

to students because they show that learning is taking place In consequence, when students are talking, teachers should avoid immediate correction after students make errors This contrasts to „Noticing Hypothesis‟ by Schmidt (1990), stating that error correction functions as a main tool for „noticing the gap between the input and their current interlanguage (Schmidt & Frota, 1986) However, Lopez (2012) conduct a study on the new insights into error correction within CLT It is proved that error correction and CLT do not necessarily fall apart Therefore, this new finding pushed the researcher to investigate the use of teacher‟s corrective feedback within CLT context Besides, because the researcher once studied at this school; therefore, it is easier for her to get the permission from class teacher for observing the class and take the recordings of the lessons

As a matter of fact, the students of grade 6 at Be Van Dan lower-secondary school are categorized into classes based on their major There are nine grade-6 classes in total, in which 6A0 specializing in Math and 6A3 specializing in English Both classes have been using the same textbook (i.e Tiếng Anh 6 (new curriculum)) and have three English periods per week Class 6A3 has extra two English periods (tự chọn) per week The number of students in each class range from 50 to 55 students, which is much more than that of a standard speaking class This is also an obstacle for both teacher and students as students have little chance practicing speaking skills, similarly, teacher can not cover all the students‟ errors and give them corrective feedback

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The course-book used for grade-6 students at Be Van Dan lower-secondary school is new English 6 (Tiếng Anh 6 thí điểm) The book is published in 2012 under the cooperation between Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and Pearson Education The use of new curriculum at school is also a part

of 2020 Project initiated by MOET The book covers all 4 skills, namely reading, speaking, listening and writing Moreover, in this new curriculum, students will be equipped with presentation and team-work skills through “Projects” part This new book also focuses more on speaking skills by designing “Communication” part and

“Pronunciation” part, providing students opportunities to practice speaking English

as much as possible The book was adopted at Be Van Dan school in 2014 after a process of teacher-training and since then it has been used as learning material for all grade-6 students

Both two teachers have many experiences in teaching English at Be Van Dan school They have basic understanding of the use of corrective feedback in class and usually use corrective feedback during the lessons, especially the speaking lessons

as they are trained in the training program of Project 2020 proposed by MOET The training program had been launched before the new book was officially adopted at the school They have chance to get access to new techniques as well as approaches

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examining to what extent a specific teaching method is effective in a language classroom (Waxman et al., 2004) The researchers, therefore, will have more opportunity to collect large amount of reliable data of particular participants in a particular setting (Le, 2012) This method proves to be helpful as the researcher can objectively observes and take notes of what actually happens during class lessons The study, hence, can produce more in-depth results and more multilayered understandings of samplings (Mackey et al., 2005) The researcher does not employ questionnaire in this study as answers to questionnaire are sometimes inaccurate when participants do not take this questionnaire seriously (Mackey et al., 2005) To students at grade 6, class observation is obviously more appropriate and easier to conduct than designing questionnaires

In this study, the presence of the researcher does not interfere with interactions between teacher and students She merely serves as a non-participating observer who records the data and then analyze them Galton (1988) listed three basic stages of systematic observational research: (1) record the events, (2) coding events based on categories and lastly (3) analyze the events after coded Therefore, note-taking and recording techniques are used to aid this method The researcher also designed an observation checklist to make it convenient as well as accurate to take notes of the lessons

Recording actually helps a lot but it also brings about disadvantages First, quality of recordings depends on surroundings, which is often noisy during speaking lessons Second, some students are reluctant to speak because they feel embarrassed when making mistakes If they speak, it takes time to prepare well for the speeches in order to commit fewer mistakes However, recording is still chosen for its effectiveness to collect the data While recording the lessons, the researcher takes notes at the same time As it is difficult to cover all utterances made during the lessons, researcher designed an observation checklist (see Appendix) with

2016 Class 6A0 was observed in speaking periods of unit 1, 2 and 3; class 6A3 was observed in speaking periods of unit 1, 3 and 4 This method proves to be helpful because it creates solid foundation for understanding and guides to effective teaching methods (Waxman, 2004)

3.2.2 Stimulated recall interviews

The researcher employs stimulated recall interviews with teachers after the lesson to answer the second research question, which scrutinizes the explanations of teacher‟s feedback choice in a particular situation Stimulated recall method first appeared in Calderhead (1981) The use of stimulated recall resulted from an increase in the investigation of teachers‟ thoughts and decision-making The process involves the replay of videotapes or audiotapes of teacher‟s lessons in order to collect comments upon teacher‟s decisions, thoughts or activities at the time (Calderhead, 1981) Mackey et al (2000) stated that it is a useful tool which helps discover the attitudes and beliefs which do not seem to be evident through mere observation He added that stimulated recall interviews should be conducted right after the event to guarantee the reliability and the validity of the data

After each lesson, the researcher conducted a short interview with the teacher Before that, she contacted each teacher to arrange when to meet She tried her best

to conduct the interview right after each lesson to maintain the reliability of the data

Of the six interviews, there was one conducted in the evening on the same day of