The types of feedback used by teachers of english at vietnam university of commerce and their effectiveness on improving oral presentation skills of the second year

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---VŨ THỊ HƯƠNG THE TYPES OF FEEDBACK USED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AT

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

-VŨ THỊ HƯƠNG

THE TYPES OF FEEDBACK USED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AT

VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS ON IMPROVING ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH – MAJOR STUDENTS

(CÁC LOẠI PHẢN HỒI TỪ GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI VÀ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA CHÚNG ĐẾN VIỆC HOÀN THIỆN

KỸ NĂNG THUYẾT TRÌNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN

NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Hanoi, 2012

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

-VŨ THỊ HƯƠNG

THE TYPES OF FEEDBACK USED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AT

VIETNAM UNIVERSITY OF COMMERCE AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS ON IMPROVING ORAL PRESENTATION SKILLS OF THE SECOND YEAR ENGLISH – MAJOR STUDENTS

(CÁC LOẠI PHẢN HỒI TỪ GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI VÀ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA CHÚNG ĐẾN VIỆC HOÀN THIỆN

KỸ NĂNG THUYẾT TRÌNH CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI CHUYÊN

NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Nguyễn Hương Giang, M.A

Hanoi, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certification……… i

Acknowledgements……… ii

Abstract……… ………iii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale……… ………1

2 Aims of the study……… …… 2

3 Scope of the study……… ……… 3

4 Method of the study……… 3

5 Design of the study……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Oral presentation 1.1.1 Definitions and characteristics……… ……….………4

1.1.2 Oral presentation organization……… ………….………5

1.1.3 Teaching oral presentation skills……… ……6

1.2 Feedback 1.2.1 Definitions of feedback……… 9

1.2.2 Types of teacher feedback on oral presentation……… 10

1.3 Effects of teacher feedback on improving students’ oral presentation skills…….….12

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Situation analysis 2.1.1 Context of the study……….……… … 16

2.1.2 Subjects of the study……….……… ……….17

2.2 Data collection instruments……….17

2.3 Data analysis……… ………19

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Findings 3.1.1 Teachers’ use of feedback on students’ oral presentation.………… … ……….20

3.1.2 Effectiveness of teacher feedback on students’ oral presentation skills……… 23

3.2 Discussions 3.2.1 Students’ attitude toward oral presentation skills and teacher feedback……… 27

3.2.2 Teachers’ feedback and its effectiveness on improving students’ oral presentation skills……….……… …29

3.2.2.1 Strategic feedback……….……… …… 30

3.2.2.2 Corrective feedback……….……… ……… 30

3.2.2.3 Evaluative feedback……….……… ……… 31

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Summary of the study……… … 33

2 Recommendations……… ……… 34

3 Limitations and suggestions……… ………35

REFERENCES……….……… 37

APPENDIX 2……….IV

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

There is a considerable amount of research which confirms that presentation skillsare essential skills that need to be taught to students because of their popularity in mostworking places Morley (2006) points out that oral presentation skills are essential foremployability and true academic study as they lead students to enter into debate andsustained reasoning Oral presentation tasks enable students to fully participate in theirlearning, show their persuasiveness, their influence on whatever they want to do in thefuture and help them develop competency in a vital area of their work Furthermore,Powell (2003) states that through the process of presenting, individuals not only becomefully effective in organization, management and expression of ideas and arguments butalso have many advantages when they write a report or an essay However, giving oralpresentation is one of the most difficult skills for students because it not only requiresthem to produce the language most of the time, spontaneously or without enough time toconstruct the appropriate and correct utterances but also calls for all aspects of language

to be involved Due to a lack of English exposure in non-English speaking countries, mostVietnamese learners do not have sufficient opportunity to improve their oral proficiency

in English Therefore, language teachers play important roles in helping students toimprove their oral presentation skills

Current tendencies in education, especially teaching foreign languages, are morestudent-centered than teacher-centered In student-centered pedagogy, the teacher movesfrom the traditional role as an authoritative expert to the new role of a facilitator instudents’ learning This new trend requires teachers to create a supportive learningatmosphere, acquire interaction skills, develop cooperative learning skills and know how

to apply technology in improving effectiveness of their teaching Furthermore, workingwith students on oral presentation is a challenging job for teachers since it not onlyrequires teachers’ skill and knowledge about speech communication and public speakingbut also calls for more time and effort in lesson planning and teaching strategies (King,2002) Moreover, due to students’ lack of chances to communicate with English native

speakers, teacher feedback to students’ speech is of great importance Orsmond et al.(2005) suppose that students use feedback to enhance motivation and learning, toencourage reflection and clarify understanding In addition, while good feedback can have

an impact on students’ motivation and autonomy, bad feedback, on the other hand, canbecome a demotivating factor to their learning process Therefore, the kind of feedbackand the way feedback should be given to the students so that it fosters their learning andimproves their oral presentation skills is quite frustrating – the problem that most teachers

of English in Vietnam encounter in their speaking classes

As a result, teaching oral presentation skills at Vietnam University of Commerce(VCU) causes certain difficulties for teachers With the hope of contributing to a moreeffective oral presentation teaching and learning in VCU, a minor study was carried out tofind out how teacher feedback can help to improve oral presentation skills of the secondyear English – major students at this university

2 Aims of the study

This study examines the types of feedback which are mainly used by teachers ofEnglish at VCU when their second year English – major students give oral presentations;thenceforth, finds out how effectively each type of feedback contributes to enhancingstudents’ oral presentation skills as perceived by students

With a view to achieving the aims of the study, the research questions will beaddressed as follows:

1 What types of feedback are mainly used by teachers of English at VCU when their second year English – major students make oral presentations?

2 How do those types of feedback contribute to the improvement of oral presentationskills of the second year English – major students as perceived by students?

3 Scope of the study

Due to the framework of this minor thesis, limited time and experience, theresearcher cannot discuss all the aspects related to the broad topic of teacher feedback.The research just focuses on finding the types of feedback teachers at VCU give to their

English major students when they deliver their speech Moreover, the researcher hopes toprovide significant insights into what teachers do to respond to students’ oral presentationand effectiveness of some certain kinds of feedback in promoting students’ presentingskills which leads to some suggestions for improving teacher feedback and helpingstudents to make the best use of teacher feedback to enhance their oral presentation skills.

4 Method of the study

In order to realize the aims, this study employs both qualitative and quantitativeresearch methods:

A survey questionnaire was done on 126 second year English-major students atVietnam University of Commerce to collect their opinions on the types of teachers’feedback they received and the effectiveness of these types of feedback on improvingstudents’ oral presentation skills

Interviews were conducted with 10 students in order to explore further issues beinginvestigated

5 Design of the study

This study has three parts: Part A – Introduction, Part B – Development includingliterature review, methodology, findings and discussions and Part C – Conclusion

The introduction part presents the rationale, aims and scope of the study, method

of the study and organization of the study

The literature review chapter conceptualizes the framework of the study throughthe discussions of issues and ideas on theories of oral presentation and feedback

The methodology chapter includes situation analysis, data collection instrumentsand data analysis

The findings and discussions chapter indicates the results of the study, from whichmajor findings and some discussions are revealed

The conclusion part at the end gives a summary of the main issues that have beendiscussed so far in the study and suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Oral presentation

1.1.1 Definition and characteristics

An oral presentation, according to the learning centre of New South WalesUniversity, is “a short talk on a set topic given to a tutorial or seminar group”, in whichone or more students present views on a topic based on their readings or research Fromthis view, we can see that oral presentation is the practice of showing or explaining thecontent of a topic to audience(s), so that it can come in nearly as many forms as there are

in life situations Ohio Wesleyan University, in their “Guidelines for Oral Presentation”shares the opinion that oral presentations are “brief discussions of a focused topicdelivered to a group of listeners in order to impart knowledge or to stimulate discussion”

Mentioning characteristics of oral presentation, Clark supposes that both

presentations and reports are “ways of communicating ideas and information to a group”, however, a presentation not only allows immediate and direct interaction between

participants but also carries the speakers’ personality better than a report does As far as

he is concerned, a good presentation has at least for elements Firstly, it has content which

contains information people need, yet, it depends on the amount of information that the

audience can absorb at certain time Next, an oral presentation has structure which

requires a logical beginning, middle and end so that the audience can understand it

During the process of wandering among different parts of the presentation, the presenter must keep to hold the floor and not to loose the audience Another important element is

packaging, it means that the presentation must be well – prepared for the audience is at

the mercy of the speaker Last but not least, a good presentation has human in it which

makes it better to remember and differentiates it from a report To be more detailed, Comfort (as cited in Ha, Nguyen Thi Van, 2007:11) identifies the criteria which can be used to evaluate an effective oral presentation: Over all:

- awareness of the audience

- clear objectives

- planning – have a clear structure and a sense of timing

- organization – have clear connections between the different parts of ideas

- information – make sure that it is interesting and relevant to your audience

- impact – make sure to have strong introduction and conclusions

- clear, simple, and fluent

- use of natural spoken language

- use of pauses for emphasis Body language:

- use of strong, clear gestures for emphasis

- good eye contact with the audience

- positive, confident, and relaxed manner

- no distracting gestures

- clear and simple messages

- efficient, professional use of equipment

1.1.2 Oral presentation organization

A number of researchers on oral presentation share the opinion that an oral

presentation consists of three main parts: the introduction, body and conclusion (see Comfort: 1995; Dwyer: 2000; Emden & Backer: 2004) In which the introduction aims to

state the topic and get the audience’s attention The learning centre of New South WalesUniversity mentions that “An introduction is like a road map that tells your audience thedirection your presentation will take” Because it gives the audience a preview of thepresentation, it is necessary to capture their attention and stimulate them at this stage.Although an introduction is advised to be short and briefly informative, it should includegreeting the audience, introducing the name of the presenter; stating the topic and the

purpose of the presentation; providing an outline of the main points and necessarybackground or some definition of terms Lewis & Reinders (2003:95) adds that at thisstage, it is necessary to mention when the audience may ask questions, either to interruptthe presenter during his speech or at the end of the presentation.

Once your audience has a clear idea of what is going to come next, you can start

developing the body where the main points, examples and evidence are presented These

main points need to be arranged in a way that is clear and easy to understand for bothpresenter and audiences The information in the body should be well – structured, based

on a certain organizing principle; it can be chronological order, theme or order ofimportance, and so on Also in this part, it is the presenter’s duty to informs, persuades orentertains the audience, so an interesting and lively presentation is determining factor Toachieve this, the presenter should use personal experience, examples, facts, illustrations orvisual aids, and a very important element – humor Gigliotti (1995) supposes that it willnot matter how important the content of a presentation is if it is not heard due to lack ofinterest Graphic illustrations and visual aids can help to clarify the message, add color toattract your audience and help them easy to memorize your presentation as “A picture isworth a thousand words”

The last part of a presentation is the conclusion The conclusion is usually a

summary of the main points made in the body of the talk and leave the audience with afinal impression of the subject In this part, you should not introduce any new informationbut take the opportunity to show that you have covered all the points given in theintroduction “The ending needs to be dynamic too so that the presentation leaves a lastingimpression on the audience and the key points are remembered” (Lewis & Reinders,2003:95) In this part, the presenter is also suggested to give some remarks orrecommendations for the audience to take away as significance or further consideration

1.1.3 Teaching oral presentation skills

This literature review presents the ideas of some scholars, researchers, andeducators who have contributed so much to the literature on teaching presentation skillsand whose theories are highly appreciated

As a matter of facts, the purposes of oral presentations are to help learners developtheir fluency and increase their confidence when speaking (Underhill, 1987; Vo, 1994).Making oral presentation brings students a lot of advantages including bridging the gapbetween language theory and language practice, using four language skills in a naturallyintegrated way; enhancing skills of group work and making students more active andautonomous in their learning and communicating However, students often encounter a lot

of difficulties in delivering a speech Brown and Yule (1983) states that a student who canmake good conversations in English may not be successful in oral presentations becausethe presenter has to take responsibility for creating “a structured sequence of utteranceswhich must help the listener(s) to create a coherence of what he is trying to say” Therefore, it will not be easy for teacher to train students to produce short turns and hopethat they will succeed in performing in long turns Underhill (1987) suggests that teachershould ask students to present in a less formal situation or mini-presentation as part of theteaching schedule Each day, a learner takes turn to make his presentation in front of theclass He is encouraged to use notes and simple aids such as overhead projector, chalk,black board, pictures but he is not allowed to read his notes aloud At the end of thepresentation, it is his duty to answer all the questions related to the topic raised by theaudiences Teachers are advised not to intervene in the whole activity from the beginningthrough the presentation and Q&A session to the final summary He also says thatchoosing the topic is of great importance The chosen topics should be relevant to theaims of the program and the needs of the learners; it should contain new information or anew viewpoint of an already – discussed issue as well It is also necessary that the chosentopic has the teacher’s agreement to make sure that it is appropriate to the age and ability

of the listeners so that it can arouse the learners’ interests and create enjoyable classroomatmosphere

Vo (1994) gives suggestions for teachers when assigning oral presentations (givetopics and let students have time to prepare before going to class), in which the procedure

of oral presentation should come as below:

1 At the beginning, let students know that all of them will have chances to speak

in front of the class

2 Put up a large calendar so that students can choose the date they prefer

3 After the break of every class session, have one student come forward and speak about his/ her topic

4 The teacher sits in the audience during the speech

5 Time limit for each student should be about five minutes

6 Let other members of the class raise their questions and comment until thespeaker has finished (if the presenter has difficulty in answering the audience questions, theteacher and other students can help)

7 After each speech, give the speaker some feedback (it is highly recommendedthat compliments should come before criticism in order not to discourage the speaker)

According to Jane King (2002), confidence is vital to effective oral presentationssince lack of it produces students’ stress and nervousness He supposes that in order tobuild confidence in students, teachers firstly need to “free them from their detailed –oriented learning strategies” by instructing students not only how to organize the mainideas and develop a logical, coherent outline but also how to get the generalunderstanding of the material they read Additionally, teacher should help studentsconquer their fear of making grammatical and pronunciation errors by informing themthat they will not be graded by the mistakes they made In his opinion, the teacher’s role

in oral presentation involves organizing groups, helping students to select topics, guidingtheir research, instructing them the use of various visual aids, providing feedback andevaluating their performance

In brief, teaching oral presentation skills is a really challenging job for teachersbecause they are required to play a lot different roles at the same time However, withstructured planning and appropriate method of teaching and giving feedback, oralpresentations can be beneficial and enjoyable activities for learners

1.2 Feedback

1.2.1 Definitions of feedback

Feedback is an essential component in all learning contexts and serves a variety ofpurposes including evaluating students’ achievement, developing students’ competences,and enhancing students’ motivation and confidence (Hyland, 2000) In a purelyinstructional sense, feedback can be seen as any communication or procedure given toinform a learner of the accuracy of a response, usually to an instructional question (Carter,1984; Sales, 1993) More broadly, feedback allows the comparison of actual performancewith some set standard of performance (Johnson & Johnson, 1993) This view is quitesimilar with Ramapsasad’s (1983:4) which is extensively used in education literature

“Feedback is information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of

a system parameter which is used to alter the gap in some way” Littlewood (1981) andLewis (2002) point out that feedback can be either oral or written, and it means “tellinglearners about their progress and showing them their errors in order to guide them to areasfor improvement” According to Race (2001), feedback can be seen as informationcommunicated to the learner as a result of learning – oriented action in teaching andlearning activities in higher education Ur (1996:242) considers feedback as “informationthat is given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually withthe objective of improving this performance” According to him, feedback has two maindistinguished components called assessment and correction While in assessment thelearner is simply informed how well or badly he has performed, in correction, teachersprovide some specific information on aspects of the learner’s performance by explaining,suggesting better or other alternatives or eliciting these from the learner Ferris (1999)views feedback as “any response a teacher may give his or her students” To be moredetailed, Ypsilandis (2002) shares the idea that feedback is “reaction, a response that isusually triggered and received by the learners and provided by teacher” and as an

“assistance mechanism, a key factor for successful learning, offering support to thelearning process”

There remains argument about whether a feedback should contain judgement ornot Ur (1996:243) finds the opinion that teacher feedback should be “non - judgemental”

unrealistic and supposes that “Any meaningful feedback is going to involve some kind ofjudgement” However, he also adds that the teacher should try to make more positivejudgement in order to help and promote learning in students Robert (2003) shares thesame view when proposing that “feedback should only ever be used as a basis forimprovement It should not be mistaken for negative criticism and vice verse” Bound(1991) points out that helpful feedback should make a conscious distinction between theperson – who is always valued – and particular acts or specific work – which may be thesubject to critical, so no matter how distasteful an oral presentation might be, the commonhumanity should be respected Weaver (2006) agrees with this view when pointing out thefeedback that is considered unhelpful to learning improvement involves comments whichare too general or vague, unrelated to assessment criteria, lack guidance and focus onnegative To sum up, most researchers agree on the aspects that feedback should not beused as a correction tool only; it should be a motivating factor for students’ learning aswell, so most of them suppose that the teacher’s feedback should base on the facts, notbeliefs, assumptions or personal opinion.

Feedback, according to Kouritzin and Vizard (1999), is continuous, ongoing andinteractive; it comes not only from teachers, but also from peers, parents, and friends.Feedback assumes the form of grades, comments, error – correction, body languages,facial expression, conversation, self – evaluation and it may be spoken, written, audiotaped or videotaped and so on, yet, in this study, the writer focuses on the types offeedback teachers use in class and its effects on improving oral presentation skills only

1.2.2 Types of teacher feedback on oral presentation

Numerous researchers (Gattullo, 2000; Harmer, 2001; Dweck, 2000; Hattie &Timperley, 2007) have noted the importance of teacher feedback to students’ learning, yetdifferent researchers have different ways of classifying types of feedback, below are some

of their views

Gattullo (2000) and Harmer (2001) divide feedback into three different types:corrective, evaluative and strategic First of all, corrective feedback focuses on helpinglearners notice and correct errors In language learning, it explains why responses are

correct or wrong and primarily concerns with accuracy Evaluative feedback provides ajudgement on students’ performance, and this type of feedback, according to Gattullo (ascited in Al-Fahdi) is widely used in second and foreign language classrooms Withevaluative feedback, teachers use words or phrases to show the students the extent towhich their performance is good or not Thirdly, strategic feedback aims at helpingstudents to overcome their mistakes by themselves, so in this type of feedback, teachersoften give advice on what students should do to improve their performance.

Unlike this opinion, Llinares (2005) distinguishes two main types: interactionalfeedback and pedagogic feedback Interactional feedback includes expressions ofagreement, disagreement and acknowledgement (with this expression, teacher respondsaffirmatively to the content and ignores error by moving on to topic continuation) Thisfeedback reflects “comments made by teacher, with no evaluative or corrective purpose”and aims at enhancing the students’ linguistic production Whereas, pedagogic feedbackrefers to “acknowledgment or comments made by teacher, with the purpose of correctingand evaluating students’ performance”, it involves making positive and negativeevaluation, correcting errors, giving a clue for right answer and prompting the students torespond

Sutton (1997) and Stobart (1993) offer another way of feedback separation whichdifferentiates between descriptive feedback and evaluative feedback According to theseresearchers, descriptive feedback describes strengths to establish further growth anddevelopment, articulates the manner to suggest how performance which falls short ofdesired criteria can be remediated and gives information to enable learners to adjust towhat he is doing so as to get better, hence, this feedback has positive effect on learning.Alternatively, evaluative feedback tells the learner how he has performed in comparisonwith others or some set standard Shared the same opinion, but to be more detailed,Tunstall and Gipps’ (as cited in Knight, 2003:44) distinguish eight types of feedback.They indentify two major types: descriptive feedback and evaluative feedback in whicheach of them consists of four minor types Descriptive feedback includes specifyingattainment, constructing achievement, specifying improvement and constructing the way

forward while evaluative one involves rewarding (most positive), approving, punishing(most negative) and disapproving The former directs student attention to task andemphasizes mastery of the task and further improvement, so it is said to be task –involving; whereas, the later directs student to external forces (rewards or punishment)and focuses on self – worth and comparison, so it is ego – involving This typology ofTunstall and Gipps’ (1996) also indicates that evaluative feedback can be either positive

or negative, but all descriptive feedback is positive However, the feature of evaluative ordescriptive feedback is not the matter of presence or absence, it is the matter of degree, sothere is no clear – cut and sometimes exist some fuzzy areas between them

Additionally, McNamara (1999) and Ayoun (2001) argue that teacher’s oralfeedback might affect students’ attitudes toward their learning positively or negatively,thus, feedback can be categorized as positive or negative Positive feedback showslearners that the teacher is interested in their performance and this, as a result, encouragesthem On the other hand, negative feedback expresses the teacher’s displeasure,frustration or sometimes punishment towards students’ performance

In this study, the researcher follows the categorization of Gattullo (2000) andHarmer (2001), which means that this study will examine the feedback VCU teachersgive to students’ oral presentation under three types: corrective, evaluative and strategicand then investigate the effectiveness of each type of feedback on the development ofstudents’ oral presentation skills Therefore, in the next part, the researcher will discussthe effects of teacher feedback on students’ oral presentation skills

1.3 Effects of teacher feedback on improving students’ oral presentation skills

It cannot be denied that feedback, if properly used and given, have a greatinfluence on the learners’ improvement However, the type of feedback and the way itshould be given in a specific situation must be taken into consideration in order to achievethis effect Askew (2000), as cited in Terése (2005:8), states that “As soon as we ask forfeedback, we open ourselves to the possibility of criticism – something which many of usfind difficult to handle” Terése (2005) supposes that when feedback is given with adominating attitude, the students will most likely be defensive; and when a person

become defensive, he will neither listen nor process the given feedback Terése’s studywhich was conducted in an upper secondary school to find out the students’ reaction toteacher feedback when learning English as a foreign language indicates that oral feedback

is of value to students since they get a lot benefit from the feedback Students in this studyalso say that they are mostly corrected in pronunciation and grammar, beside this, words,expressions, context, sentence structure and verb forms are represented as well Moreover,they point out an important feature that feedback should be delivered nicely, even when it

is not positive one, it should be delivered in positive way so that students do not feelembarrassed or insulted

Another study, carried out by Nugrahenny (2007) to explore Indonesian students’attitude towards teacher feedback shows that generally teachers and students have amarked preference for teacher feedback Interestingly, student preferences for teacherfeedback originate from their awareness that teachers control grades and if they do notfollow the feedback, teachers might give them low grades Nugarhenny (2007) also pointsout that students respond favorably to the teacher comments which are explicit and theybenefit if teachers use easy language and familiar terms to deliver their feedback

Dinham (2008) supposes that feedback is “vital in schooling and performs avariety of functions including recognizing, correcting, encouraging, challenging andimproving student performance” Feedback also keeps students “on track” and is an aid toclassroom management Negative feedback can discourage student effort andachievement (Hattie & Timperlay, 2007), so in some cases, bad feedback can be worsethan no feedback Dinham (2008) also states that effective feedback needs to beequivalent, constructive and instructive; moreover, it should neither hurt someone’sfeeling nor destroy their confidence Book (1983:6) shares the view that feedback onspeeches informs the speaker about the audience’s reaction to the speech, this helps tomake suggestions for improvement on future speech and motivate the speaker to speakagain or to enjoy the speaking

Moreover, Tsui (1995) as cited in Ribas (2010) states that teacher’s feedback, apartfrom evaluating and providing information related to students’ responses, has many other

functions such as acknowledging information or providing personal comments onstudents’ responses He also emphasizes the role of teacher feedback when showing thatwhen feedback is absent, students know that there must be something wrong orunsatisfactory with their answer Al Fahdis (2005) agrees with Tsui’ opinion whensupposes that “giving feedback is one of the key roles that teachers play in theclassroom” Both researchers think that this is an important role because the way theteacher handles it can have a strong influence on the learners’ experience Particularly, theway teachers respond to learners can have a powerful impact on learners’ attitudestowards the subject (Tsui, 1985).

Lynch and Maclean (2003) conducted a study investigated the effects of teacherfeedback on changes in the spoken language performance of a group of advanced learners

of English in the Netherlands In this study, feedback is explicit, arose primarily inprepared presentations The results show that most of the participants “did improve their

“strike - rate” of correct L2 forms in the areas that had been brought to their attention bytutor” (p.20) The most striking finding is the learners’ awareness of their language useincluding language problems identified in teacher feedback and changes in their languageperformance For instances, in this very short course of English for Medical Congress, 21out of 24 participants perceive gains in pronunciation, 8 out of 24 perceive gains ingrammar, 2 perceive gains in fluency and two realize an increase in their confidence forspeaking The researchers argue that it is right for teachers and learners to consider theprovision of feedback as a beneficial element of a speaking skill course What is more,their research suggests that if teachers provide feedback on spoken performance in writtenform and on an individual basis, and combine it with recording the performance, it canmake feedback more accessible, more easily retrievable later and possibly more effective(p.22)

In general, the indispensable role of teacher feedback is shown in the point thatteacher feedback reflects to students what and how they perform, showing them theirstrong points to bring into play and the weak points to improve Therefore, if the feedbackstudents receive on their presentation has the characteristics of a good feedback, if they

receive sufficient often enough and in enough detail, it is learning-focused and relevant tothe learning outcomes, it can help a lot with improving their presentation skills.

2.1.1 Context of the study

The study was conducted at Vietnam University of Commerce (VCU) Because ofthe increasing demand of English-competent workforce, Faculty of English wasestablished at VCU in 2007 The aim of this institution is to provide students basicknowledge of the socio-economic, business management, to be master of BusinessEnglish in order to work effectively in the fields of goods and services trading,commercial investment and intellectual property rights and moreover to meet therequirements of national and international transactions Students who want to enter thisfaculty have to take examinations in English, literature and math Each year, Faculty ofEnglish enrolls about 240 new students There are forty-three teachers aged 23-57 ofEnglish at this faculty and the number is always on the rise On the whole, the teachingstaff at this university is eager to knowledge and willing to apply effective methods ofteaching in order for their students to master English

The learning program of English major students consists of 138 credits in eightsemesters for all subjects Of which 60 credits are allotted to the development of fourlanguage skills and 30 credits for other English courses including phonetics, semantics,literature, business, translation and so on The rest is rationed to the general subjectsapplied for all the VCU students and are taught in Vietnamese The textbook used for

developing students’ four skills is “The Business” series (Pre-intermediate, Intermediate

and Upper-intermediate) by Karen Richardson, Marie Kavangh, John Sydes, JohnAllison, Jeremy Townend and Paul Emmerson which adhere to communicative approach.Each unit consists of six sections: about business, vocabulary, grammar, speaking, writingand case study The four language skills are taught inseparably throughout the syllabus

and the target for the second year English major students is Intermediate level In thesecond year, the students study four subjects English II.1, II.2, II.3, II.4, with the structure(42, 12, 18, 3) It means students will have 42 periods for class meeting, 12 for groupdiscussions and presentations, 18 for self-study and 3 periods for revision with 50 minutesper periods.

2.1.2 Subjects of the study

Although English is taught to both English-major students and non-English-majorstudents, the researcher focuses on English major ones who are the target population ofthis study The subjects of this study include 126 second year English-major students whoare studying at the faculty of English – VCU Most of them are about twenty years oldand come from different parts of Vietnam – from rural areas to urban ones These studentshave studied English for at least three years and are going to finish the second year ofCommercial English at the time of the study, so they are supposed to get familiar with thelearning and teaching methods used at VCU It may be very difficult to select a randomsample of individuals due to researcher’s limited time and experience In this case, instead

of randomly selecting individuals, the researcher randomly selects classes or groups forinvestigation Because English major students who belong to a class in their English classmay belong to another class in general subjects like macroeconomics or contrastivelinguistics (which are taught in Vietnamese), this selection can meet the requirements thatthe respondents come from different English classes and are taught by different teachers

of English

2.2 Data collection instruments

This study was done in the light of both quantitative and qualitative methods inorder to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is investigated.Quantitative methods of analysis would be suitable to identify the types of feedbackmainly used by teachers of English when teaching the second year English – majorstudents at VCU However, so as to get deep insights into how those types of feedbackcontribute to improving students’ oral presentation skills in those classes, the researcher

supposes that a qualitative method is needed Interviews as a qualitative tool will giveparticipants chances to select, reconstruct and explain details of their experience whichcan offer insights into students’ feelings, thoughts or opinions – things that may beundetected with quantitative methods.

In this study, data is gained through the employment of two research instruments,namely questionnaire and interviews Quantitative data is collected from self – reportquestionnaire and qualitative data is achieved from semi – structured interviews Thequestionnaire consists of three parts, which will be discussed in details as follows:

Part 1: This part is the questionnaire about students’ perception of oral

presentation skills and teachers’ feedback Questions 1, 2, 3, 4 are designed to find outstudents’ attitude towards oral presentation skills Questions 5, 6, 7, 8 are used to detectstudents’ attitude towards teachers’ feedback

Part 2: This part includes 10 statements about the frequency of teachers’ using

three kinds of feedback namely corrective feedback (statements 1, 2, 3, 4), evaluativefeedback (statements 5, 6, 7, 8) and strategic feedback (statements 9, 10) in Englishspeaking class

Part 3: This part focuses on the effectiveness of the three kinds of feedback

mentioned above Of which, statements (1, 2, 3, 4) mention the effectiveness of correctivefeedback, statements (5, 6, 7, 8) estimate the effectiveness of evaluative feedback and thetwo statements (9, 10) investigate the effectiveness of strategic feedback

Table 1: The layout of students’ questionnaire

Part 1 Students’ attitude toward oral Q (1, 2, 3, 4)

presentation skillsStudents’ attitude toward teachers’ Q (5, 6, 7, 8)feedback

Part 2 Frequency of corrective feedback S (1, 2, 3, 4)

Frequency of evaluative feedback S (5, 6, 7, 8)

Frequency of strategic feedback S (9, 10)Part 3 Effectiveness of corrective feedback S (1, 2, 3, 4)

Effectiveness of evaluative feedback S (5, 6, 7, 8)Effectiveness of strategic feedback S (9, 10)

Additionally, the researcher conducts semi-structured interviews with 10 studentswho participated in doing the questionnaire in order to obtain more detailed andcomprehensive information about the effect of teachers’ feedback on improving students’oral presentation skills

2.3 Data analysis

After piloting the questionnaire to a small sample of 10 students to check itsvalidity and reality, it was then re-edited and distributed to 150 students a month beforethe end of school year 2011 – 2012 Finally, 126 questionnaires were returned Afterreceiving the completed questionnaires, the researcher classified and counted them usingthe functions DCOUNT, AVERAGE and SUM

After analyzing the questionnaires, the researcher chose 10 students among all therespondents to interview, 3 of them were identified as highly appreciated correctivefeedback, other 3 of them were considered as prefer evaluative feedback and the other 4respondents prefer strategic feedback The researcher interviewed them one by one andtook notes all the information The content of the interviews then was typed and printed.After all, she read each response and sorted out the frequency of teacher using each type

of feedback as well as its effects on improving their oral presentation skills Thus, thefollowing chapter will deal with findings and discussions

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter answers the research question proposed at the beginning of the study, so the types of feedback are mainly used by teachers of English when their second year English – major students make oral presentations and the influence of each type of feedback on students’ improvement of oral presentation skill will be in focus The results are reflected through the data collection from questionnaires and interviews lead to a better understanding of feedback types and their role in laying a more effective learning and teaching method of speaking skill.

3.1 Findings

3.1.1 Teachers’ use of feedback on students’ oral presentation

As discussed in the chapter of literature review, the researcher based on theclassification of Gattullo (2000) and Harmer (2001) to divide teacher feedback into threegroups namely corrective feedback, evaluative feedback and strategic feedback Duringoral presentation, teachers use these kinds of feedback with different rates of frequency.Table 2 below shows the level of frequency of using these three types of teacherfeedback Surprisingly, the strategic feedback had the highest frequency of using (54.8%),followed by evaluative feedback (45.3%) and corrective feedback (29.2%)

Table 2: Frequency of teachers’ feedback on oral presentation kills

Corrective feedback

correct mistakes yourself

your mistakes

utterance by asking questions like

“what do you mean by…?” or

“Excuse me?”

to mistakes by repeating your

mistakes with a change in

intonation