Students’ preferences for and responses to teacher written feedback on grammatical errors a case study at le quy don private primary school

TRẦN THỊ PHƯƠNG CHISTUDENTS’ PREFERENCES FOR AND RESPONSES TO TEACHER WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON GRAMMATICAL ERRORS: A CASE STUDY AT LE QUY DON PRIVATE PRIMARY SCHOOL Sự yêu thích và phản hồi c

TRẦN THỊ PHƯƠNG CHI

STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES FOR AND

RESPONSES TO TEACHER WRITTEN FEEDBACK

ON GRAMMATICAL ERRORS: A CASE STUDY AT

LE QUY DON PRIVATE PRIMARY SCHOOL

(Sự yêu thích và phản hồi của học sinh về phương pháp chữalỗi ngữ pháp của giáo viên: Một nghiên cứu điển hình tạitrường Tiểu học Dân lập Lê Quý Đôn, Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 601410

M.A course: 19

HANOI, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDIES

TRẦN THỊ PHƯƠNG CHI

STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES FOR AND

RESPONSES TO TEACHER WRITTEN FEEDBACK

ON GRAMMATICAL ERRORS: A CASE STUDY AT

LE QUY DON PRIVATE PRIMARY SCHOOL

(Sự yêu thích và phản hồi của học sinh về phương pháp chữalỗi ngữ pháp của giáo viên: Một nghiên cứu điển hình tạitrường Tiểu học Dân lập Lê Quý Đôn, Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 601410

M.A course: 19Supervisor: Pham Minh Tam, M.Ed

HANOI, 2013

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Students’ Preferences for and

Responses to Teacher Written Feedback on Grammatical Errors: A Case Study at Le Quy Don Private Primary School” is the result of my own research

for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University - Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution.

Hanoi, May 2013Signature

Trần Thị Phương Chi

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore the fit between teachers’ written feedback ongrammatical errors and the students’ preferences and strategies for handling thefeedback on their written works in a primary school in Hanoi The study used atriangulation of participants and methods in which the practice of feedback wasseen from the perspectives of students and teachers Data were collected fromstudents’ worksheets, questionnaires and interviews Firstly, worksheets of 25fourth-graders marked by two teachers were collected in order to work out theteacher’s feedback types on grammatical errors Participants were then asked tofill in the questionnaires concerning their feedback preferences Finally, semi-structured interviews were employed to seek for students’ responses to thefeedback they received The results indicated that students’ preferences forteacher feedback vary from class to class and the students’ strategies forhandling feedback varied depending on the type of feedback each teacher gave

on the students’ paper

Key words: teacher written feedback, grammatical errors, preferences,

responses, English as a foreign language

My thanks also go to all teachers at the Faculty of Post-Graduate studies,University of Languages and International studies, VNU- Hanoi It is theirprecious lectures and instructions as well as valuable suggestions that help meunderstand issues related to my study and teaching.

I would also like to thank the authors of the books and studies that I haveconsulted in order to understand and investigate my research problem

Last but not least, I must record my deep gratitude to all members in myfamily It is their enduring love, care, support and encouragement that help mefinish this study

1.1 Statement of the Problem and Rationale for the Study 1

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Language Errors

2.2 The Role of Written Feedback

2.2.1 Error Correction as Focus-on-Form Intervention 132.2.2 Error Correction to Facilitate Noticing 142.3 Teacher Written Feedback on Grammatical Errors

2.3.1 Definitions of Teacher Written Feedback 14

2.3.3 Error Correction Codes 162.4 Students’ Preferences and Responses for Teacher Feedback 17

3.8 Validity and Reliability of Data

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

APPENDIXES

Appendix C: Sample worksheet marked by Teacher A 52Appendix D: Sample worksheet marked by Teacher B 53Appendix E: Interview Question (English version) 54Appendix F: Interview Question (Vietnamese version) 55Appendix G: Questions for Interview (English version) 56Appendix H: Questions for Interview (Vietnamese version) 56

TABLES

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter begins with the presentation of the statement of the problem and rationale for the study Next, it presents the aims and scopes of the study as well as the research questions to which the study seeks to find answers This is followed by a brief description of methodology used in the present study Finally, the chapter concludes with a description of the organization of the thesis.

1.1 Statement of the Problem and Rationale for the Study

Teacher feedback has long been regarded as an essential part in languageteaching and learning because it not only helps students to correct their ownmistakes but also enhances more confidence about their language competences.Feedback may focus on either forms or contents or both

It was clearly seen that young learners of English as a foreign languageoften commit grammatical errors in their writing Therefore, teachers’ givingfeedback on their errors is considered to be necessary for students’ proficiency.However, the effectiveness of feedback does not lie in itself but by many otherfactors such as students’ preferences for and responses to the teacher feedback.That is the reason why teachers need to take into account some questions:

―What feedback strategies does a teacher actually use when providing feedback

on grammatical errors‖, ―Do students like their teachers’ feedback type?‖,

―How do they react when receiving feedback?‖

Up to now, studies of language education have given considerableattention to the issue of how to provide feedback on students’ writing (Diab,

2005, Wang, 2010; Katayama; 2007) Yet, the effectiveness of written feedback

on grammatical errors has been under-explored (Russel, J.M 2003) Someattention has been given to investigate whether certain types of written feedback

may be more effective than the others, but the findings are not inclusive.Additionally, which feedback strategies would fit the needs of particular students

is still questioned Addressing these issues will require time and commitment of

a number of researchers The research being reported in this study contributes tothe agenda by investigating the fit between teachers’ practices, students’preferences and strategies for handling feedback on their written work

Much as important written feedback on grammatical errors is, there havebeen few studies comprehensively dealing with the issue There is also a lack ofconsensus over such matters as what feedback strategies is the most effective tocorrect grammatical errors in particular context, what feedback types arepreferred by students and how students respond when they receive teacherfeedback Moreover, almost all of the feedback studies on students’ preferencesand responses have been conducted in college/ university setting

Owing to the lack of consensus on the effectiveness of teacher feedback,this study aims to gain more insights into giving effective feedback by askingwhat students think, want and do after they receive teacher feedback

There is a paucity of research that addresses the elementary context InVietnam, a focus on primary school students is important since they are thosewho have chances to access English as a foreign language from the very youngages (7-11) This study is an attempt to examine the real situation of writtenfeedback on grammatical errors conducted at the Le Quy Don Private PrimarySchool and to propose some suggestions for the betterment of the currentpractice

As most of the past studies have pursued the inquiry of teacher feedback

in two general ways, namely students’ preferences for teacher feedback(Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1994; Hiroko, 1994; Leiki, 1999) and students’responses to teacher feedback (Cohen,1987; Ferris, 1995, Chiang, 2004), thisstudy follow the similar traits and attempts to find out how students perceive

teacher feedback, what they are concerned about, and what they do after

receiving teacher feedback

1.2 Objectives of the Study

This research is conducted for the following purposes:

1 To explore the teachers’ written feedback types in respond to students’ grammatical errors

2 To investigate the students’ preferences towards different types of

feedback

3. To find out the students’ strategies for handling feedback after they have received their written work

1.3 Research Questions

This study is conducted to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the types of teacher written feedback on the students’

grammatical errors?

2 What are the students’ preferences for different types of teacher feedback

on grammatical errors?

3 How do students handle the feedback they receive?

1.4 Scope of the Study

This study limits itself to the exploration of the types of written feedback

on grammatical errors that were commonly used by the teachers in the study, thestudents’ preferences for and responses to each feedback type Alternative typessuch as oral corrective feedback by teachers and peer-to-peer feedback from thestudents are beyond the scope of this study The impact of teacher feedback onlearners’ proficiency is also not the objective of the study

The present research was conducted at a private primary school in Hanoi,with two teachers and two classes of young learners enrolled in Let’s Go 4course Teachers and students in classes that are not in primary school systemare outside the scope of this study

1.5 Methodology of the Study

This is a case study with the presence of two teachers and two groups ofstudents The teachers were teaching English to fourth-graders at Le Quy DonPrivate Primary School in Hanoi Data were then analyzed by means ofdescriptive statistics to identify the patterns of feedback employed by theteachers The students’ preferences were elicited through the questionnaires andstudents’ responses to teacher feedback on grammatical errors were collectedfrom teacher’s interviews

1.6 Significance of the Study

Providing feedback involves in teachers’ regular practice Feedback, as ameans of communication from the teachers, needs the responses from thelearners in order to enhance its efficacy Consequently, the link betweenteachers’ practice of giving feedback, students’ preferences and students’responses in primary school context are taken into account in this study

Feedback provides students with the information on their performance andlearning progress Therefore, it is important to know the feedback types preferred

by the young learners in the primary language classroom Additionally, it offersteachers of English a number of pedagogical implications in terms of writtengrammar correction to the learners in this context Specifically, teachers can beinformed about the effects of different feedback patterns, based on which theycan choose the ones that suit their students’ preferences and work for the types offeedback that students react positively

1.7 Organization of the Study

The thesis is composed of 5 chapters

Chapter 1 presents the research focus and provides the rationale for it as well as

its aims, scopes, method, research questions and the significance ofthe study

Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature, setting the theoretical foundation for

the data collection and analysis

Chapter 3 presents the methodology employed to carry out the present study.

This includes a discussion of the participants, the data collectioninstruments and the procedures for data collection and analysis

Chapter 4 presents the findings of the study with reference to the teacher written

feedback strategies and students’ preferences and response tofeedback and also their relationship

Chapter 5 gives a brief summary of the main findings, from which pedagogical

implications are derived This chapter also acknowledges thelimitations of the present study and provides suggestions for furtherstudies

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this chapter is to review the literature on the relationship between teacher's written feedback and students‟ preferences and responses to feedback on grammatical errors This chapter starts with an overview of language errors, and approaches to error correction Literature on teachers‟ corrective feedback and students‟ preferences and reactions is also reviewed.

2.1 Language Errors.

2.1.1 Definitions of Language Errors

The definition of language errors is rather complex as different authorshave different ways of defining it Regarding learners’ errors, error analysisenthusiasts made a distinction between mistakes and errors, which are

―technically two very different phenomena‖ (Brown, 2004, p 216)

In one study, Corder (1967, p.114) distinguished ―errors‖ and

―mistakes‖ He stated that ―An error takes place as a result of lack ofknowledge (i.e., it represents a gap in competence)‖ and ―A mistake is aperformance phenomenon, reflecting processing failures that arise as a result ofcompeting plans, memory limitations, and lack of automaticity.‖

Brown (2004) also maintained that a mistake can be self-corrected, but anerror cannot Therefore, native speakers can identify and correct themimmediately because they are fully aware of their mother tongue structures andrules Non-native speakers or second language learners not only make mistakes,but also they commit errors since their knowledge of L2 structures and rules isnot sufficient Brown (2004, p 216) also stated that ―a mistake refers to aperformance error in that it is a failure to utilize a known system correctly; while

an error is a noticeable deviation from the adult grammar of a native speaker,reflecting the interlanguage competence of the learner.‖

There may exist other ways of defining language errors, nevertheless, inthe scope of this study, the author concur that ―errors‖ are made when learner’sknowledge of second language structures and rules are not sufficient and

―errors‖ cannot be corrected Whereas, ―mistakes‖ are the results of competingplans, memory limitations, and lack of automaticity and they can be self-corrected

2.1.2 Classification of Language Errors

Errors can be classified in different ways depending on the nature ofclassification and the purpose of the author In this thesis, the researcher providessome typical ways of error classification

Corder (1967) makes a distinction between expressive and receptive errors which are manifestations of expressive and receptive behaviour and

depend upon knowledge of the ―formation rules‖ of a language: ―Inadequateknowledge of these rules will therefore show itself in both sorts of behaviour.Yet, it is much easier to detect imperfect knowledge in the case of expressivebehaviour Expression leaves traces transient, but recordable, in the case ofspeech, permanent in the case of writing.‖

Types of errors - Corder (1967) Types of errors Description

Expressive errors  Are manifestations of expressive behaviour

Receptive errors  Are manifestations of receptive behaviour

In 1974, Burt and Kiparsky classify errors into two categories: local and global errors in terms of communicative perspective.

Local errors do not hinder communication and understanding the meaning

of an utterance Global errors, on the other hand, are more serious than localerrors because global errors interfere with communication and disrupt themeaning of utterances Local errors involve noun and verb inflections, and the

Local  Do not hinder communication and understanding the meaning of an utterance

errors  Involve noun and verb inflections, and the use of articles, prepositions, and

auxiliaries.

Global  Interfere with communication and disrupt the meaning of utterances

errors  Involve wrong word order in a sentence

It is also possible to categorize learner errors on the basis of the linguisticlevels testifying to their manifestation Lee (1990, p.50), for instance, elaborates

on the following classification of learner errors:

Types of errors Explanation

Grammatical Stress the need for grammatical accuracy in both speech and writing, may

errors hinder communication but errors at the sentence level ―often reflect

performance ―mistakes‖ for which immediate teacher correction is not necessarily appropriate‖

Discourse errors Depend on the observance of the rules of speaking and writing and reflect

learners’ cultural and pragmatic knowledge of language use.

Phonologically Be manifested in wrong pronunciation and/or intonation; in the case of English

-induced errors studied as a foreign language such errors necessitate timely correction on the

part of the teacher because vowel length, voiced and voiceless last consonants,

word stress, etc may have a meaning-differentiating function, as in live/leave,

leave/leaf, exit (n.)/exit (v.), and so on.

Lexical errors Belong to the other linguistic levels, may also hamper communication and

intelligibility

As can be seen, each researcher provided his/ her own way of classifyingthe language errors In their classifications, grammatical errors are proved to beone kind of language errors that are in need of correcting to improve the

learners’ proficiency Moreover, this thesis aims to investigate the teacherwritten feedback on grammatical errors so grammatical errors are discussedfurther in the next part.

2.1.3 Grammatical Errors

Grammar can be defined as a set of shared assumption about howlanguage works – (Yulianti, 2007, p 11) Knowing about how grammar works is

to understand more about how grammar is used and misused – (Yulianti, 2007,

p 12) It means that there is a possibility of error occurrence in students learning

In this research, the term of error in grammar will be called grammatical errors

Many definitions of grammatical errors can be found in various studiesand there are also many ways of classifying errors in terms of grammaticalaspect

According to Dulay, et al in 1982, p.138-139 grammatical errors are

categorized into 6 groups

Types of errors Description and examples

Omitting  Items that do not contribute much to the meaning of sentences, as in

grammatical He hit car.

morphemes

Double marking  a semantic feature (e.g past tense) when only one marker is required, as

in She didn‟t went back.

Regularizing rules  womans for women

Using archiforms  One form in place of several – such as the use of her for both she and

her, as in I see her yesterday Her dance with my brother.

Using two or more  Alternation even though the language requires the use of each only

forms in random under certain conditions, as in the random use of he and she regardless

of the gender of the person of interest

Misordering items in It requires a reversal of word-order rules that had been previously

constructions acquired, as in What you are doing?, or misplacing items that may be

correctly placed in more than one place in the sentence, as in They are

all the time late.

Another ways of classifying grammatical errors is found in Chaney’s

analysis of learner errors in 1999 cited in Ferris and Roberts’s (2001)

Description of Error Categories

Verb errors: All errors in verb tense or form, including relevant subject-verb agreement

errors.

Noun ending  Plural or possessive ending incorrect, omitted, or unnecessary; includes

errors relevant subject-verb agreement errors.

Article errors  Article or other determiner incorrect, omitted, or unnecessary.

Wrong word  All specific lexical errors in word choice or word form, including preposition

and pronoun errors Spelling errors only included if the (apparent) misspelling resulted in an actual English word.

Sentence  Errors in sentence/clause boundaries (run-on, fragments, comma splices), word

structure order, omitted words, or phrases, unnecessary words or phrases, other

unidiomatic sentence construction.

In order to classify grammatical errors among different types of errors inwriting, I adopted the description of grammatical errors of Channey (1990) cited

in Ferris and Roberts’s (2001) as one of the key factors to collect research data.Therefore, a description of the grammatical errors that have been used in thisstudy comes below:

errors

Verb errors Errors in verb tense or form I meet her last week.

We have not complete the project yet.

Noun ending Noun ending (plural or possessive) These book are mine.

errors missing or wrong My father car is new.

Article Article (a,an, the) or other determiner There are much books on the table.

errors (some, any, a lot of, much, many…) I live in the Tabiz

missing or wrong

Wrong word All types of lexical errors in word My mother learned me how to ride a

choice or form, including preposition bike.

and pronoun errors I was interested at history.

Sentence Errors related to sentence/clause My father took the bus Because the bank

structure boundaries was not near.

errors Wrong word order What you are doing?

Omitting words or phrases from a I know he is He is at the park.

sentence Insertion of unnecessary words or The woman whom I saw her was my

2.1.4 Approaches to Error Correction

There are a large number of differences in attitudes towards errors and

error correction between traditional and modern methods of language teaching

The brief overview of teacher roles, learner roles, error handling in

Grammar – Translation Method and Communicative Language Teaching are

listed in the table below:

Grammar-Translation Method Communicative Language Teaching Learner  Try to learn grammatical rules.  Learners as negotiator, interactor,

Roles 

Read and write giving messages as well as taking

 Memorise rules.

Teacher  Authority in the classroom  Facilitator of the communication

Roles The medium of instruction is Native process, participant tasks and texts,

Language need analyst, counsellor, process

 Grammar taught deductively manager.

Error  Mistakes are corrected immediately.  Mistakes are tolerated, the emphasis

In traditional language classes, errors were not allowed Errors were seen

as evidence of ineffective learning or even laziness Also, teachers paid littleattention to how to correct errors effectively If they corrected an error, it would

be giving the student the correct model and getting him/ her to repeat it.However, Van Lier (1988) noted that in the late sixties and early seventies,teachers began to comprehend that errors might be more an indication of learnerefforts to form a new linguistic system rather than linguistic failure Specifically,

in the light of communicative language teaching, errors are seen as positive stepstowards learning The teacher’s attitude towards correction is positive andcorrection techniques are used to encourage students, not to put them down ormake them feel stupid For these teachers, a perfect lesson is full of students'errors, in which teachers' correction is an integral part

Error correction is now seen as a technique to get students correct theirown errors and improve their linguistic competence It means that in languageclasses, when error correction is carried out, the negotiation of meaning and

negotiation of form, at the same time are of equal value Thus, error treatment in

second language acquisition classroom has been investigated in a larger scaleand in a larger sense These studies have all borrowed the framing questions ofthe issue of error correction in the classroom used by Hendrickson (1978) Thosequestions mentioned what, when, how and who should do the error correction

Should learners' errors be corrected?

When should learners' errors be corrected?

Which errors should be corrected?

How should errors be corrected?

Who should do the correcting?

In conclusion, error correction has been investigated from the early time

of Communicative Language Teaching In the scope of this study, the researcher

only examined teacher written feedback on grammatical errors in one primaryschool to confirm conclusions drawn from earlier research

2.2 The Roles of Written Feedback

It can be argued that providing written feedback is indispensable because

it plays an important role in guiding, motivating and encouraging students toimprove their accuracy in L2 writing (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982) Despite theprocess of providing written feedback being frustrating, difficult and timeconsuming, teachers still prefer to provide written feedback as it allows forindividualized teacher-to-student communication that is rarely possible in theday-to-day operations of an L2 writing class (Ferris, Pezone, Tade & Tinti,1997) It is stated that written feedback serves two roles: Focus-on-FormIntervention and Facilitate Noticing

2.2.1 Written Feedback as Focus-on-Form Intervention

Feedback is one of the pedagogical tools identified as focus-on-forminstrument (Ellis, 2005) According to Long (1991, p 46), the focus-on-formapproach ―overtly draws students’ attention to linguistic elements as they ariseincidentally in lesson whose overriding focus is on meaning andcommunication.‖ In other words, the L2 students’ attention will be drawnexplicitly to linguistic features as necessitated by communicative demand

In addition, Long (1991) argues that language instruction based on on-form can be achieved in two principal ways First, language activities can bedeveloped by requiring students to communicate while also focus their attention

focus-on specific language structures Secfocus-ond, language teacher can decide to providecorrective feedback on students’ errors during the course of communicativeactivities

Considering this perspective, it can be inferred that feedback is provided

to focus students’ attention on grammatical accurate forms within the context ofperforming a communicative task

2.2.2 Written Feedback to Facilitate Noticing

As aforementioned, the Noticing hypothesis states that in order forstudents to learn any aspect of L2, they need to ―notice‖ the relevant material inthe linguistic data provided within the environment Thus, implications regardingwritten feedback in L2 instrucition emerge First thanks to teacher feedback,students are able to pay attention to the existence of new features of L2 Inaddition, students become aware and are able to locate the gaps between their L2usage and that of L1 speakers Secondly, written feedback might help students todiscover the limitations of their L2 communication abilities with their given L2resources Therefore, it can be argued that written feedback could function as a

―noticing facilitator‖ that directs the attentions of the L2 students not onlytowards errors, but also towards new features of the target language

2.3 Teacher Written Feedback on Grammatical Errors

2.3.1 Definitions of Teacher Written Feedback

Kepner (1991, p 141) defines feedback in general as any procedures used

to inform a learner whether an instructional response is right or wrong

Lightbown and Spada (1999, p 172) define corrective feedback as: ―an

indication to the learners that his or her use of the target language is incorrect‖ The learners may get this indication in various ways

For the purpose of this research, feedback will strictly refer to the writtenfeedback given by teachers as responses to their students’ grammatical errors inwriting The terms ―feedback‖, ―teacher feedback‖, ―teacher feedback ongrammatical errors‖ and ―teacher written feedback‖ in this research will be usedinterchangeably and they do not constitute any real difference

2.3.2 Classification of Written Feedback

An area of concern in the research on teacher feedback in foreignlanguage learners is error correction and its effects on student writing accuracy

In this context, the errors are grammatical errors committed by ESL/EFL

students on their written texts Thus, ―teacher written feedback‖ refers to the

feedback teachers give on students’ written errors

In addressing grammatical errors on students’ writing, teacher can use

different feedback strategies such as direct and indirect feedback (Lee, 2003)

Types of Written Feedback (WF)

Type of WF Description Example

Direct feedback  Locate and correct errors  Has went gone

(Direct location  Locate errors and identify error types  Has went verb form

of errors)

 Indirectly locate errors  Putting a mark in the margin to

(Indirect location  Indirectly locate errors and identify  Writing ―verb form‖ (or V‖) in

form error on a specific line

(adapted from Lee, 2003a)

Direct feedback refers to overt correction of student errors, that is,

teachers locating and correcting errors for students Indirect feedback refers to

teachers indicating errors without correcting them for students Some teachers,

when giving indirect feedback, locate errors directly by underlining or circling

the errors, while others may locate errors indirectly, for instance, by putting a

mark in the margin to indicate an error on a certain line Whether teachers locate

errors directly or indirectly, they can further decide if they want to identify the

error types — by using symbols, codes, or verbal comments For direct location

of errors, teachers normally put the symbols, codes or comments right above or

next to the errors underlined or circled For indirect location of errors, teachers

may put a code or symbol in the margin to identify the error type on a certain

line Table above summarizes the major error feedback techniques, with

examples to illustrate each type of feedback

2.3.3 Error Correction Codes

Is the use of error codes (e.g ―T‖ for ―Tense‖, N for ―Noun‖) in givingerror feedback coded feedback? Is it more beneficial than uncoded feedback?Coded feedback rests on the premise that students are better able to correct errorswhen alerted to the error types One advantage of coded feedback is that the errorcodes provide a common ground for teachers and students to discuss errors(Raimes, 1991) Error identification, however, can be ―cumbersome for theteacher and confusing for the students‖ (Ferrris, 2002, p 67) Also, the use oferror codes is based on the assumption that students have a good understanding

of grammar and that when they see the codes they are able to correct errors rightaway Lee (1997) has, however, cautioned that teachers may be overestimatingstudents’ ability in using marking codes, and that teachers may be ―using awider range of metalinguistic terms than students could understand‖ (p 47) Theusefulness of marking symbols/ codes has been further questioned by Ferris andHelt (2000) and Ferris and Roberts (2001), who found that students did notcorrect more errors when they were provided with error codes Research has yet

to find out how useful and meaningful it is for teachers to mark students writingall over the place with codes, especially with codes that are unfamiliar to or notyet mastered by students

Error Codes Used by Teachers

adapted from Lee (2003)

2.4 Students’ Preferences on Teacher Feedback

Students’ attitudes and preferences have also been explored in recentliterature on written feedback Previous studies have consistently shown that L2writing students want, expect, and value teacher feedback for the improvement

of their writing accuracy (Ferrris, 1995; Hedgecock & Lefkowitz, 1994; Komura,1999; Leki, 1991) Research also indicates that students rely on teachers forfeedback in improving their L2 writing (Lee, 2004) Further research couldexplore in greater depth how these error correction preferences affect the ability

of students to develop their writing

Results from two separate studies by Ferris (1997, 2001) indicated that allstudents who participated in the study preferred their teachers to providecorrective feedback to improve their L2 writing accuracy; the most preferredtypes was implicit written feedback through the use of codes that label errors intheir writing This suggests that students pay a great deal of attention to teacherfeedback and they appreciate having their errors implicitly corrected as a means

of improving their writing accuracy Ferris’ findings also indicate that studentsperceive implicit written feedback to be more effective in improving theirwriting accuracy than explicit written feedback

The findings from a study by Perpignan (2003) to explore the preferences

of Israeli post-graduate students taking up a course in EFL Accademic Writingindicate that students’ preferences regarding corrective feedback vary betweenexplicit and implicit written feedback Findings from the study indicate that wasrarely any agreement in the preferences of the students; which may havestemmed from their varying beliefs in written feedback This suggests that eventhough the importance of students’ preferences in written feedback cannot beignored, diversity of preferences is also a possibility

Considering the literature, it is noticeable that teachers view the provision

of written feedback as a positive pedagogic strategy However, the findings from

previous studies suggest that teachers performed the task of providing writtenfeedback in a number of ways, which may be influenced by their differentexperiences and judgement about what is acceptable in L2 writing In addition,findings from previous studies suggest that teacher’s beliefs differ from theactual written feedback that they utilize in the classroom Furthermore, findingsfrom recent studies have shown that students value having their errors corrected

by their teachers By reviewing the literature, it can be inferred that there is aneed for further research to investigate and explore teacher’s beliefs, practices,and students’ preferences regarding written feedback

A recent proponent of the value of grammatical feedback, John Bitchener,has performed several studies investigating grammatical feedback (e.g.Bitchener, et al., 2005; Bitchener & Knoch, 2009; Bitchener & Knoch, 2010) Inhis 2005 study, Bitchener placed ESL students into three groups: the first group

received direct correction of their grammatical errors followed by a conferencewith the teacher discussing the errors, the second group received directcorrection only, and the third group, the control group, received no feedback ongrammar, only feedback on content Feedback was provided on threegrammatical aspects: articles, prepositions, and simple past tense verbs Theresults indicated that while the group that received direct correction andconferencing improved their grammatical accuracy significantly with regard tosimple past verb tense and articles, there was no improvement in the use ofprepositions Bitchener concludes that this method of error correction is effectivefor addressing rule-based grammar (i.e articles and verb tense), but is noteffective when it comes to item-based grammar (i.e prepositions)

In addition to the conclusions from the previous research, some generaladvice can be discerned from the literature For example, both Ferris andHedgcock (2009) and Sheen (2009) advise against responding to every error onevery draft of a paper Too much grammatical feedback can be overwhelmingand more than the student can process That type of feedback can also bestressful or discouraging for students Walvoord & Anderson (2010) suggestthat, in response to students’ grammatical errors (including both ESL and nativeEnglish speaking students), teachers should mark only ―egregious errors‖ (p.100) An explanation of what constitutes an ―egregious error‖ is not provided,but in most cases this would refer to errors that interfere with communication orlead to misunderstanding

On investigating the issue of teacher feedback types, students’ preferencesand responses, Hiroko (1994) targeted at Adult ESL learners and madeconclusions that students preferred teacher feedback to non-teacher feedback andthe students’ strategies for handling feedback varied depending on the type offeedback teacher gave on the students’ paper

Chiang (2004) examined the factors that affect the effectiveness of teacherfeedback by analyzing students’ preferences and responses to teacher feedback

on their writing in a secondary school context It is suggested that theineffectiveness of teacher feedback may not lie in the feedback itself, but in theway how feedback is delivered to students

There has been a scarcity in the research on teacher written feedback,students’ preferences for and responses to teacher feedback on grammaticalerrors in the context of a primary school in Vietnam Meanwhile, the teachersand the students are likely to be in need of those projects to find the matchbetween teachers’ practice and students’ preferences and responses to teacherfeedback

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter explains the methodology implemented in the study The first sections describe the research context, and the research questions and the research approach, and the characteristics of the participants Then, the next part is the illustration of the procedure of data collection and it is followed by the method of data analysis The last one is Validity and Reliability of data.

3.1 Research Context

3.1.1 Curriculum Policy

In Vietnam, in the 2003 – 2004 school year, in response to the need of amore systematic introduction of English at the primary level, the MOETintroduced an English curriculum for primary schools emphasizing thedevelopment of the four macro-skill, with speaking and listening being initiallystressed According to Decision No 50/2003 QD – BGD & DT, dated 30October 2003, from 2003, pupils in primary schools were required to study aforeign language as an elective subject from Grade 3 to 5 for two forty-minuteperiods per week

Furthermore, during the three years from Grade 3 to 5, students’intelligence, personality, and learning methods will have been graduallydeveloped (Ministry of Education and Training) [MOET], 2003); however,achieving these aims seems ambitious in a three - year period (Moon, 2009)

In 2008, Decision 1400 on the improvement of foreign language teachingand learning in the national education system for the 2008-2020 period wasissued with the aim to enable the wide-spread introduction of English at Grade 3all over the country The latest MOET directive, issued in August 2010, broughtabout guidance for the implementation of pilot English language programmes atthe primary level

3.1.2 The Case

Le Quy Don Private Primary School is located in My Dinh District, a newurban zone in Hanoi It is a large school with 2,100 students in five grades(Grades 1 to 5) The average class size in this school is around 30 and theclassrooms are well-equipped with furniture, light, drinking water, computers,LCD projectors, CD players, screens and blackboards

There are 20 English–language teachers whose teaching experience variesfrom 1 to 20 years All of them are female With regard to students, there areabout 30 students of mixed levels in each class In overall, there are 17 classes ingrade 4 One class specializes in English, one class specializes in Mathematicsand Vietnamese, the other 15 classes study in accordance with the schoolcurriculum with no specialization Therefore, students participating in this studyare not chosen from the two specializing classes

The course book chosen is Let’s Go 4 Third Edition which emphasizescommunication within a carefully controlled grammatical syllabus The themesand situations throughout the books are universal to children everywhere.Students are regularly presented with new vocabulary and structures so that theyhave adequate language to communicate

What is more, although English is not a compulsory subject in the nationalcurriculum, the students are willing to join in the classes as they haveopportunities to learn and speak English with native teachers from Australia,America, and England Another reason may come from the belief that studentshere do not have to worry about getting low marks or being punished for notcompleting their homework Each week, every student is given a two - A4 pagesworksheet with the exercises to practice the grammar points they have learnt.The worksheets are then handed in to the teachers for marking and comments atthe beginning of the following week

Most teachers believe that providing students with effective feedback ontheir grammatical errors can help them learn from the mistakes and they mayimprove their proficiency However, students do not always like their teacher’sways of giving feedback or maybe they have some difficulties in understandingthe feedback so that they are likely to ignore it Thus, factors like students’preferences for and responses to teacher feedback on grammatical errors are inneed of being examined

3.2 Research Questions

This study is conducted to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the types of teacher written feedback on the students’

The study’s quantitative traits allowed the researcher to determine theteacher feedback strategies as well as how students prefer each feedback type.The numerical representation was obtained by coding each feedback according

to a specific taxonomy, thereby producing a more controlled result (Matveev,2002) On the other hand, qualitative data gave the researcher an opportunity toexplore students’ strategies for handling feedback they received and the

underlying reasons for those This represents the affective side that quantitativedata may not be able to show easily.

This study uses a triangulation of data sources such as documentation,questionnaire and interviews to construct validity It is important to mention thatthe results of this study cannot be generalized due to the small number ofparticipants

3.4 Participants

The students

The population for the study consisted of students from group A andgroup B of fourth-graders at Le Quy Don Private Primary School in Hanoi Thestudents were informed of the conditions of the study and what theirparticipation would consist of For group A, only 15 students volunteered to takepart in the study and 13 for group B What’s more, the research was conductedover four weeks so students with four worksheets would be counted as theparticipants in research Although there were some students not participating inthe study, all the students were treated equally during the classes and carried outall of the class activities The work of those who did not want to participate inthis research was not used It is important to note that the names of allparticipants in the current study are pseudonyms in order to protect their privacy

The teachers

Along with the students, the present study involved two English teachers

at Le Quy Don Private Primary School who were invited to take part in theresearch Their ages were between 23 and 30 years old and their experience inteaching English to young learners at primary level ranged from 1 to 7 years.None of the instructors is English native speaker Teacher A and B are teachers

of group A and B respectively They were teaching the students who participated

in this study The remarkable thing was their permission for the author to use thestudents’ worksheets as the material in the Study

Participant Profile

Teachers Class Age Year of university Teaching experience

graduation (No of years)

3.5 Data Collection Instruments

To collect the data, the researcher employed three techniques: documentanalysis, questionnaire, and interview According to Fraenkel and Wallen (1993),the use of multiple sources of evidence in case study allows a researcher to gainvalid data Below is the explanation of the techniques used in collecting the data

3.5.1 Document Analysis

In order to find out the way teachers gave feedback on learners’grammatical errors, a focus on written production was chosen The targetlanguage used for this research was ―the changes of irregular verbs in the pastsimple‖ as they were immediately relevant to the learners and they werepresented in their course book, Let’s Go 4 – Third Edition The irregular verbs inthe past simple change without any predicted rules These forms are likely tocause problems for Vietnamese students, thus they should not be left unattended.The students have not encountered this kind of grammar in their mother tongue

It is noted that after each worksheet was designed by one teacher, it wasphotocopied and delivered to students in grade 4 at the end of the week Hence,the students in two groups had the same worksheets The samples of students’worksheets were collected in each class Teacher feedback on these samples wasgiven without intervention from the researcher Each teacher provided differentways of providing feedback

Firstly, after collecting marked papers, the researcher adopted thedescription of grammatical errors of Channey (1990) – Appendix A to classifygrammatical errors among various types of written errors The teacher feedback

on these errors are then listed and analysed to find out which feedback type theyemployed according to types of written feedback in the study of Lee (2003a) –Appendix B

3.5.2 Questionnaire

In order to reveal students’ preference for feedback quantitatively, theopen-ended questionnaire is an appropriate way to gather the data It provides ameans of communication between respondents and researcher and allows therespondents to give a totally free answer as they were expected to choose theanswer category which came closet to or best presented their feeling, beliefs,attitudes, opinions, behaviors, or knowledge of a situation (Labaw, 1980, p.131).Besides, students can express their real thoughts when answering thequestionnaire, which is like a paper-pencil test, on which they answered toexpressing what is in their mind

The questionnaire was composed of two main parts: the respondents’information and the contents of the survey The former contained three questionsregarding learners’ background The later, the main part of questionnaire, wasadapted from the one used in Leki’s (1991) research on the preferences of ESLstudents for error corrections However, since the objective of this study aimed atinvestigating students’ preferences for teacher feedback in a primary schoolcontext, some questions were modified and added to make the questionnairerelevant and appropriate for the participants The items dealt with students’preferences for different types of written feedback with Likert scale format Thequestionnaire was written in English and Vietnamese (see Appendix C and D) Inorder to help students answer the questions easily, the Vietnamese versions weredelivered to them

3.5.3 Semi - structured Interviews

While the questionnaire would provide with quantitative information ofthe study, semi-structured interview were conducted to obtain qualitative data.The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and aimed to find out what theyactually did after having received their teacher feedback

McMillan and Schumacher (1993, p.426) claimed that qualitative researchinvolves interviews that have open-ended questions to obtain data fromparticipant meanings - how individuals perceive their world and how theyexplain or make sense of the important events in their lives In this research,semi-structured interview is considered to be a research data technique carriedout with the definite purpose of gathering data by means of the spoken wordthrough the use of a planned series of questions

The open-ended questions adapted from Chiang (2004) are modified toserve the aim of the research Interviews were conducted in Vietnamese inJanuary 2012 The first five students finishing the questionnaires in each groupwere chosen to take part in the interview Hence, there were ten students to beinterviewed All interviews were tape recorded, and verbatim responses to eachquestion were translated and transcribed by the researcher, using a standardizedtranscription protocol (McLellan, MacQueen, and Niedig 2003) The reason forsuch small size was confirmed in Huberman & Miles (2002) They did state that

―qualitative research focuses on the quality of information obtained rather thanthe quantity and size of the sample There is little guidance regarding exactsample sizes for qualitative research in the literature, as sample size is influenced

by the available resources and the feasibility of acquiring the sample (Procter &Allan 2006) According to Burns & Grove (2011, p 318) a small sample size can

be adequate for a qualitative study, ―when the quality of the data is high, with arich content‖ and for this reason the author requires a sample of between 15 and

25 staff members for interviewing

3.7 Data Collection Procedure

In order to seek the answer to the research questions, the main study wasconducted over a one-month period in April 2012

So as to find out teacher’s written feedback strategies, the researcherinvestigated the way teacher gave feedback on their students’ work First,students had to hand in their take-home worksheet every Monday Teachercollected to check whether their students finished their tasks and to ensure thatall of them had reviewed their lessons by doing the worksheets One-hundredper-cent of worksheets were handed in due date as they are young learners andthus, they followed most of their teachers’ instruction The teachers corrected allthe worksheets and returned them to the students at the end of the week

The questionnaire was done after the researcher analyzing the linguisticdata Before the questionnaire was administered in the main study, it was piloted

on a few students The necessary revisions were made to make problematicquestions easier to understand The researcher asked for teachers’ permission tocome to the classes during the break time and had students finish thequestionnaire The Questionnaire in Vietnamese was distributed to participants.Before students started to write the questionnaire, the researcher explained thepurpose of the questionnaire to them This instrument was constructed to inquireabout their preferences for each kind of feedback (i.e., direct feedback, indirectfeedback) Students were to choose one type of feedback that they would liketheir English teacher to use when responding to errors within five minutes.Student participants completed the questionnaire outside of scheduled class time

or in lieu of optional activities during class time

Once students finished their questionnaire surveys, the researcher hadindividual interviews with students to find out how they respond to teacher’swritten feedback on grammar errors Before interviews, the researcher spentsome time chatting with students so as to create a cozy atmosphere between