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

Errors are considered an indispensable part of any language learning processbecause they help make students more „mature‟ in their language proficiency.However, whether the use of teache

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

GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ MỸ HƯƠNG

A RESEARCH ON THE USE OF TEACHER’S CORRECTIVE

FEEDBACK AT BE VAN DAN LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL - HANOI (Nghiên cứu về sử dụng phản hồi của giáo viên tại trường THCS Bế Văn Đàn

Hà Nội)

M.A Thesis

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

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

GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ MỸ HƯƠNG

A RESEARCH ON THE USE OF TEACHER’S CORRECTIVE

FEEDBACK AT BE VAN DAN LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL - HANOI (Nghiên cứu về sử dụng phản hồi của giáo viên tại trường THCS Bế Văn Đàn

I hereby state that I, Đỗ Mỹ Hương, class: QH2014.23B, being a candidate for thedegree of Master of Arts accept the requirements of the University relating to theretention and use of Master Thesis deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or

reproduction of the thesis

Signature

Đỗ Mỹ HươngHanoi, December 18th, 2017

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude towards mysupervisor, Dr Mai Ngọc Khôi, for his invaluable guidance and suggestions Iwould also like to thank him for such careful feedback, advice, useful resources andmaterials that he gave me during process of conducting this thesis Without hissupport, I would not have completed this thesis I highly appreciate his enthusiasm

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

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

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

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

Errors are considered an indispensable part of any language learning processbecause they help make students more „mature‟ in their language proficiency.However, whether the use of teachers‟ corrective feedback has positive influences

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

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

Key words:

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACCEPTANCE i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Identification of the problem 1

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions 1

1.3 Significance of the study 2

1.4 Methods of the study 2

1.5 Organization of the study 3

1.6 Summary 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Key concepts 4

2.1.1 Corrective feedback 4

2.1.2 Types of corrective feedback 7

2.1.3 Factors affecting teacher‟s choice of feedback 8

2.1.4 Arguments on the role of corrective feedback 9

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

2.3 Summary 17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Method of the study 18

3.2 Data collection instruments 20

3.2.1 Class observation 20

3.2.2 Stimulated recall interviews 22

3.3 Procedures 23

3.3.1 Data collection 23

3.3.2 Data analysis 25

3.4 Summary 27

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28

4.1 Three research questions 28

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

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

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

4.2 Summary 37

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 38

5.1 Brief summary of the findings 38

5.2 Pedagogical implications 40

5.3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 41

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

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Distribution of corrective feedback of class 6A0

Table 2 Distribution of corrective feedback of class 6A3 (specializing in

English) Table 3 Uptake following each type of feedback at class 6A0

Table 4 Uptake following each type of feedback at class 6A3 (specializing in English)

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Identification of the problem

Speaking is absolutely part and parcel in the process of studying a foreignlanguage like English However, the skill of speaking in a fluent way is not a giftthat everybody was born with Speaking skill, in contrast, is sharpened through thelong process of instruction and practice Unfortunately, in Vietnamese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms, speaking skill does not receive as muchconcern as others like grammar, reading or writing The syllabus mainly focuses ongrammar, reading and writing, which appear in examinations Speaking lessons areonly distributed once or twice a week, each lesson lasts 45 minutes As a result,students have little time to practice speaking This makes them feel embarrassedwhen communicating with native speakers as they fear to make mistakes and not tospeak fluently enough That is to say, teachers play a key role in speaking lessons,for the reason that they have to create an effective environment for students to speakEnglish and also instruct them how to speak or correct them when they makemistakes On the other hand, Vietnamese and English are languages which belong todifferent types, making it a challenge for Vietnamese students to learn Thedifferences are found in many aspects such as sentence word order, phonologicaland sentence stress The huge differences between two languages entail a great risk

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

1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions

Due to the necessity of using corrective feedback in classrooms, the studyaimed to investigate the use of corrective feedback in a particular Vietnamese EFLclassroom, including which types of corrective feedback teacher employs to correct

students‟ mistakes during speaking lessons and what affects their choice offeedback Furthermore, in this study, researcher wanted to gain knowledge abouthow teacher‟s corrective feedback has effect on students‟ speaking skills fromstudents‟ perspectives The aims can be operationalized into following researchquestions:

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

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

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

1.3 Significance of the study

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

1.4 Methods of the study

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

instruments Then data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics todetermine which types of feedback used by participating teacher and to what extentfeedback helps students recognize their errors and lead to students‟ repair Thestimulated recall interviews were conducted at the end of the day right after eachlesson and transcribed right afterwards, and then analyzed to find out the reasonsbehind teachers‟ choice of corrective feedback.

1.5 Organization of the study

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

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

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

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

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

1.6 Summary

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

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

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

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

2.1 Key concepts

2.1.1 Corrective feedback

First and foremost, some definitions of feedback are provided Feedback is afamiliar concept in theories of language teaching and learning (Sheen 2011) In fact,there are a great number of definitions for the term feedback Hattie and Timperley(2007) in their co-work defined feedback as the information which is given to aperson with regard to his/her performance In a narrower sense, feedback inteaching process can be understood as the indication teacher or instructor givelearner relating to learning process with a view to assisting learner in improving andaccelerating their learning (Sadler, 1989) Noteworthy is, according to Sheen(2011), feedback is provided no matter how right or wrong the learner‟s response

is Feedback sometimes can be given in the form of praise or encouragement.Having the same point of view, Hyland & Hyland (2001) agreed that praise can beconsidered in terms of its functions as feedback For instance, teacher said “Welldone!” after student finish their performance According to behavioral theory,receiving a positive feedback can increase the chance of action repetition in thefuture (Weiner, 1990) Therefore, learners can benefit from positive feedback.Feedback can be categorized into many types Based on definition of Hattie &Timperley (2007), feedback can come from parents or educators as correctiveinformation, peer feedback can be in the form of alternative strategy, book can offerinformation to clarify idea, parents can give encouragement to their children andeven a learner can look up the answer to correct himself Peer feedback (ascompared to teacher feedback or parent feedback, defined by Liu & Carless (2006),

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

A correction provided by a teacher, called teacher‟s feedback is an indispensablepart of any classroom and is supportive of student‟s academic achievement (Siewert,2011) Feedback can be evaluative or descriptive (Tunstall & Gipps, 1996), in whichthe former involves a judgement by the teacher based on implicit or explicit norms

or descriptive, while the latter describes what students said or did, and provideguidance for improvement

According to Tornberg (2005) and Lange (2009), errors are naturalcharacteristics in the process of learning a language It shows the development inacquisition of learners Any learners make mistakes when learning a language, socorrective feedback is indispensable because normally learners can not self-correctthemselves

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

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

sound (phonemes), words (morphemes), and sentences (words and phrases).Collectively, these rules comprise a grammar that defines the permissible linguisticforms in the language These forms are related to, but different from, linguisticmeaning (semantics) Long (1991) claimed that meaning-focused instruction is notenough, some attention to form is needed Some researchers wondered about theeffectiveness of meaning-focused instruction because of the fact that many learnersshow grammatical inaccuracy though they have been learning language for a longtime Form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided within the context

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

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

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

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

2.1.2 Types of corrective feedback

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

metalinguistic cue to form explicit correction with metalinguistic explanation Take and example from Sheen (2011):

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

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

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

2.1.3 Factors affecting teacher’s choice of feedback

Menti (2006) mentioned some factors that influencing teacher‟s choice ofcorrective feedback in his study He listed the reasons why teachers opt for certain type

of feedback For example, teachers use recast because they want to correct students‟errors directly and immediately Recast will help avoid students‟ embarrassment.Students‟ feelings at the moment of correction decide the teachers‟ choice of recasts

In terms of factor affecting teachers‟ choice of elicitation strategy,

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

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

Gurzynski-Weiss in her study in 2016 investigated 32 instructors to find outthe factors influencing Spanish instructors‟ in-class feedback decisions The studywas conducted with the participation of 32 instructors during natural, university-level Spanish foreign language lessons The results of stimulated recall revealed thatinstructors report that contextual (error types), learners (students‟ ability, priorknowledge), instructors (research background, teaching experience, training insecond language acquisition) influenced their decisions whether to give feedback ornot, what type to provide as well as when Furthermore, feedback provision variesgreatly between instructors This is also proved in Lyster, Saito & Sato (2013).Beside some above internal factors, there may be some external factors like time,lesson goals and so on (Gurzynski-Weiss, 2010)

2.1.4 Arguments on the role of corrective feedback

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

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

be concerned how to correct students as one way may be appropriate for one but notfor another Harmer (1998) also suggests that it is important to praise students fortheir success and to correct them for their failure In this way teacher's positiveattitude can dramatically change student's performance irrespective of their leveland types of errors

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

that many learners make grammatical mistakes despite a long-time exposure to thetarget language Or in other cases, learners do not learn from the feedback (Sadler,2010) and do not know the gap between their first language and target language.Sadler also stated that the reason why learners do not learn from the feedback is thatthey do not understand the feedback appropriately, and they are not equipped tointerpret the statements correctly Having the same point of views, Hattie &Timperley (2007) argued that it should be noted that there is the potential forfeedback to be negative, in which it can discourage students‟ effort andachievement In some cases, bad feedback can be worse than no feedback In thiscase, corrective feedback may have negative impact on learners.

2.2 Review of previous research on the effectiveness of corrective feedback

on speaking skills

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

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

is the subtlest, through observations, they concluded that recasts led to lowest rate ofuptake, which means it was least effective “Uptake” is a term which was mentionedthe first time in their co-work, too This term refers to “a student‟s utterance thatimmediately follows the teacher‟s feedback and that constitute a reaction in someway to the teacher‟s intention to draw attention to some aspect of the student‟sinitial utterance” (p 49) In other words, uptake is the notice of students after givenfeedback from teacher that their utterances need repairing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During the same year, Gitsaki and Althobaiti (2010) conducted anobservational study on the effectiveness of different types of interactional feedback,then identified the types of feedback that lead to learners‟ successful uptake Twonative English teachers and twenty-eight ESL students at two different level ofproficiency, namely beginners and intermediate, were observed in class Someinterviews with teachers were also carried out after the classroom observation Thefindings stated that explicit correction, followed by metalinguistic feedback wasmost frequently used Metalinguistic feedback and repetition were two types offeedback which always led to successful uptake.

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

Moreover, some studies were conducted on the differences in the use offeedback types among different level students Recasts, which are the most popularfeedback strategy among second language teaching environments, may be lesseffective for low-proficiency than for high-proficiency students (Mackey & Philp,1998; Ammar & Spada, 2006) Prompts can be effective in pushing development forboth high- and low-proficiency level, especially high level (Ammar & Spada, 2006).Holding the same point of view, Kaivanpanah et al (2015) conducted a study on 154English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at three different proficiency levels.The results confirmed that elementary learners preferred metalinguistic feedback,whereas advanced learners preferred prompts such as elicitation, which

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

level and the others are at intermediate level The findings revealed that of both intermediate and intermediate levels, recast was the most commonly used feedbackstrategy, however, it was the least effective in terms of students‟ uptake and repair,whereas the most successful feedback, which led to students‟ repair: Meta-linguistic feedback, clarification requests and elicitation were used at a much lowerrate by teachers This study employs class observation as the only data collectionmethod However, if researcher only uses observation, the findings seem to besubjective As a result, interviews with teachers and students or tests should betaken to make findings more objective.

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

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

2.3 Summary

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

or embarrassment it creates for students The next chapter will provide the detaileddescription of the method used to carry out this study

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

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

3.1 Method of the study

This study employs survey research method The population participating inthis study includes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

know how to use these sentences in particular context (Richards et al., 1996) CLTapproach sees language from social and cultural context This approach focusedmeaning over form and error is a natural part of the learning process, constructingsecond language learner‟s system, based on Krashen‟s „natural order hypothesis‟(1982) The errors committed by second language learners are considered as part ofthe process of acquisition; they are regarded as positive rather than being negative tostudents because they show that learning is taking place In consequence, whenstudents are talking, teachers should avoid immediate correction after students makeerrors This contrasts to „Noticing Hypothesis‟ by Schmidt (1990), stating that errorcorrection functions as a main tool for „noticing the gap between the input and theircurrent interlanguage (Schmidt & Frota, 1986) However, Lopez (2012) conduct astudy on the new insights into error correction within CLT It is proved that errorcorrection and CLT do not necessarily fall apart Therefore, this new finding pushedthe researcher to investigate the use of teacher‟s corrective feedback within CLTcontext Besides, because the researcher once studied at this school; therefore, it iseasier for her to get the permission from class teacher for observing the class andtake the recordings of the lessons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

examining to what extent a specific teaching method is effective in a languageclassroom (Waxman et al., 2004) The researchers, therefore, will have moreopportunity to collect large amount of reliable data of particular participants in aparticular setting (Le, 2012) This method proves to be helpful as the researcher canobjectively observes and take notes of what actually happens during class lessons.The study, hence, can produce more in-depth results and more multilayeredunderstandings of samplings (Mackey et al., 2005) The researcher does not employquestionnaire in this study as answers to questionnaire are sometimes inaccuratewhen participants do not take this questionnaire seriously (Mackey et al., 2005) Tostudents at grade 6, class observation is obviously more appropriate and easier toconduct than designing questionnaires.

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

Recording actually helps a lot but it also brings about disadvantages First,quality of recordings depends on surroundings, which is often noisy during speakinglessons Second, some students are reluctant to speak because they feel embarrassedwhen making mistakes If they speak, it takes time to prepare well for the speeches

in order to commit fewer mistakes However, recording is still chosen for itseffectiveness to collect the data While recording the lessons, the researcher takesnotes at the same time As it is difficult to cover all utterances made during thelessons, researcher designed an observation checklist (see Appendix) with

categories, namely student‟s name, his/her errors, type of feedback/ignore error,student‟s response.

In this study, the researcher observed two grade-6 classes, one specializing inEnglish while the other is not Each class was observed in three periods, each ofwhich lasted 45 minutes All six speaking periods (covering Speaking part andCommunication part in the book) took place in the first semester of school year

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

3.2.2 Stimulated recall interviews

The researcher employs stimulated recall interviews with teachers after thelesson to answer the second research question, which scrutinizes the explanations ofteacher‟s feedback choice in a particular situation Stimulated recall method firstappeared in Calderhead (1981) The use of stimulated recall resulted from anincrease in the investigation of teachers‟ thoughts and decision-making Theprocess involves the replay of videotapes or audiotapes of teacher‟s lessons in order

to collect comments upon teacher‟s decisions, thoughts or activities at the time(Calderhead, 1981) Mackey et al (2000) stated that it is a useful tool which helpsdiscover the attitudes and beliefs which do not seem to be evident through mereobservation He added that stimulated recall interviews should be conducted rightafter the event to guarantee the reliability and the validity of the data

After each lesson, the researcher conducted a short interview with the teacher.Before that, she contacted each teacher to arrange when to meet She tried her best toconduct the interview right after each lesson to maintain the reliability of the data Ofthe six interviews, there was one conducted in the evening on the same day of