An inestigation into the effects of immediate feedback versus delayed feedback on efl students speaking performance

MINITRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY LE THI NHAT LE AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTS OF IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK VERSUS DELAYED FEEDBACK ON EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

LE THI NHAT LE

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTS OF IMMEDIATEFEEDBACK VERSUS DELAYED FEEDBACKON EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING

PERFORMANCE

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2017

MINITRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

LE THI NHAT LE

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTS OF IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK VERSUS DELAYED FEEDBACK ON EFL STUDENTS’ SPEAKING

PERFORMANCE

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 60140111

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Supervisor: Dr Tran Thi Ngoc Yen

Nghe An, 2017

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been published elsewhere

Author

Le ThiNhat Le

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ABSTRACT

Feedback techniques have been considered as one of the major factors deciding the success of speaking performance Research in this area has concentrated on the effects of immediate feedback and delayed feedback on students’ speed improvement, but not on comparing the effects of the two techniques on students’ fluency and accuracy This study aims to examine the effects of the immediate feedback versus delayed feedback technique on EFL high school student’s speaking competence In the experiment, a 6-week-speaking course was delivered to two groups One group was taught with immediate feedback and the other was taught with delayed feedback A pre-test and a post-test of speaking were administered and the participants’ fluency and accuracy were measured After having the six speaking sessions, the participantswho were taught with the technique, were supposed to speak with or without the teacher’s interruption and suggestions Their speaking competence was assessed and their achievements were recorded A comparison between the average total score of six sessions for both groups and the comparison between the average scores of the last session and the average scores of the first session were made The average of the second half sessions and the average scores of the first half sessions by both groups were also compared It was found that both immediate feedback technique and delayed feedback helped improve accuracy However, the immediate feedback had greater positive effects on accuracy than the delayed feedback The results of the research also showed that the immediate feedback hindered the participants’ fluency while the delayed feedback enhanced it

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the encouragement and support of many individuals

in assisting me to accomplish this study

First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my beloved supervisor Dr Tran Thi Ngoc Yen for her valuable time, suggestions, guidance, and assistance in this study Without her help, the thesis would not have been completed

I would also like to thank the students of the classes I taught in order to collect information for my research Without their help, this study could not have been successful

Finally, my thanks go to my colleagues, friends and especially my beloved family I feel greatly indebted to them for their essential help and encouragement

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Method of the study 3

1.6 Thesis design 3

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

2.1 Speaking skill 5

2.1.1 Definition of the speaking skill 5

2.1.2 Elements of speaking skill 6

2.1.3 Speaking competence vs speaking performance 8

2.2 Assessing speaking ability 9

2.2.1 Indicators of speaking ability 9

2.2.2 Fluency vs accuracy in speaking assessment 10

2.2.3 Rubrics for assessing EFL speaking ability 11

2.3 Teaching Speaking 13

2.3.1 Teaching L1 speaking skill 14

2.3.2 Teaching speaking to EFL learners 14

2.3.2.1 General outline of a speaking lesson 16

2.3.2.2 Common techniques and methods 17

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2.4 Feedback in teaching 20

2.4.1 Overview of feedback in teaching 20

2.4.2 Definition of feedback in language teaching 21

2.4.3 Roles of feedback in language teaching 22

2.4.4 Types of feedback in language teaching 22

2.4.4.1 Immediate feedback 22

2.4.4.2 Delayed feedback 23

2.5 Feedback in EFL speaking class 23

2.5.1 Immediate feedback in teaching speaking 23

2.5.2 Delayed feedback in teaching speaking 24

2.5.3 Immediate feedback vs delayed feedback in teaching speaking 25

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 26

3.1 Research questions 26

3.2 Participants 26

3.3 Materials 27

3.3.1 The general English test 27

3.3.2 Pre-test and Post-test 28

3.3.3 Textbook 29

3.3.4 Lesson plans 30

3.4 Procedure 31

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33

4.1 Results 33

4.1.1 General English results 33

4.1.2 Pre-test results 34

4.1.2.1 Fluency 34

4.1.2.2 Accuracy 36

4.1.3 Post-test results 38

4.1.3.1 Fluency 38

4.1.3.2 Accuracy 40

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4.1.4 The increases the two groups made 42

4.1.4.1 Fluency 42

4.1.4.2 Accuracy 46

4.1.5 The two group’s speaking performance during the treatment 49

4.1.5.1 Fluency 49

4.1.5.2 Accuracy 51

4.2 Discussion 55

4.2.1 Fluency 55

4.2.2 Accuracy 58

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 61

5.1 Conclusion 61

5.2 Limitations 63

5.3 Further research 63

REFERENCES 65

APPENDIX A 70

APPENDIX B 75

APPENDIX C 80

APPENDIX D 85

APPENDIX E 86

APPENDIX F 87

APPENDIX G 88

APPENDIX H 99

APPENDIX I 108

APPENDIX J 110

APPENDIX K 112

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Speaking Assessment Rubric 12

Table 2.2 General outline of a speaking lesson 16

Table 3.1 The speaking topics of sixteen units in Tieng Anh 11 30

Table 3.2 Time proportion for the speaking lessons 32

Table 4.1 The average total scores and standard deviations of general English test in the two experimental groups 33

Table 4.2 Means and standard deviations of the two experimental group’s results on fluency on the pre-test 35

Table 4.3 Means and standard deviations of the two experimental group’s results on accuracy on the pre-test 36

Table 4.4 Means and standard deviations of types of errors on the pre-test 38

Table 4.5 Means and standard deviations of the two experimental groups’ results on fluency on the post-test 38

Table 4.6 Means and standard deviations of the two experimental groups’ results on accuracy on the post-test 40

Table 4.7 Means and standard deviations of types of errors on the post-test 42

Table 4.8 Means and standard deviations of the increase two groups made on fluency 42

Table 4.9 The increase difference between the post-test scores and the pre-test scores on fluency by all participants (p) in both groups 44

Table 4.10 Summary of pre-test and post-test speeds and speed increases for both groups 44

Table 4.11 Means and standard deviations of the increase two groups made on accuracy 46

Table 4.12 The increase difference between the post-test scores and the pre-test scores on accuracy by all participants (p) in both groups 47

Table 4.13 Summary of accuracy increases for both groups 48

Table 4.14 Numbers of participants with a decrease and participants with no decrease in accuracy 48

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Table 4.15 Means and standard deviations of the two groups’ speaking fluency

during the treatment 49

Table 4.16 Mean scores in the 6 sessions by all participants (P) 49

Table 4.17 The increase difference between the last session scores and the first session scores by all participants (p) in both groups 50

Table 4.18 Means and standard deviations of the two groups’ speaking accuracy during the treatment 51

Table 4.19 Mean scores in the 6 sessions by all participants (P) 52

Table 4.20 Mean scores of all participants for both groups 52

Table 4.21Comparison of the two groups’ results on types of errors 53

Table 4.22 The increase difference between the last session scores and the first session scores by all participants (P) in both groups 54

Table 4.23 Summary of the increase levels of all participants for both groups 54

Table 4.24 Results by the participant who made improvement 55

Table 4.25 Means and standard deviations of the first three tests and the last three tests of the participant A7 56

Table 4.26 Results by the participants who made no improvement in either the last minus 1st score 57

Table 4.27 Means and standard deviations of the two participants B5 and B6 on the first three tests and the last three tests 58

Table 4.28 Means and standard deviations of the two participants A4 and B13 on the first three tests and the last three tests 59

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 Bar chart of the general English test scores for both groups 33

Figure 4.2 Pie chart of the general English test scores for both groups 34

Figure 4.3 Bar chart of the pre-test results on fluency for both groups 35

Figure 4.4 Pie chart of pre-test results on fluency for both groups 36

Figure 4.5 Bar chart of pre-test results on accuracy for both groups 37

Figure 4.6 Pie chart of pre-test results on accuracy for both groups 37

Figure 4.7 Bar chart of post-test results on fluency for both groups 39

Figure 4.8 Pie chart of post-test results on fluency for both groups Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 4.9 Bar chart of pre-test results on accuracy for both groups 41

Figure 4.10 Pie chart of post-test results on accuracy for both groups 41

Figure 4.11 Bar chart of pre-test results and post-test results on fluency for both groups 43

Figure 4.12 Bar chart of pre-test results and post-test results on accuracy for both groups 46

Figure 4.13 Progress chart of participant A7/increase 56

Figure 4.14 Progress chart of participants B5 and B6/decrease 57

Figure 4.15 Progress chart of participants A4 and B13/ increase 59

of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) because people who know a language are usually referred to as speakers of that language The major goal of all English language teaching should be to give learners the ability to use English effectively, fluently and accurately in communication (Davies & Pearse, 1998) However, not all language learners after many years studying English can communicate fluently and accurately because they lack necessary knowledge

In attempts to help teachers train their students speak better, numerous researchers such as Lightbown and Spada (1999), Swain (1985), Long (1996) focused on the ways of giving feedback on students’ speaking performance Swain (1985) also suggested that treatment of errors helps students learn better, whether the feedback is explicit or implicit Recasts as a way to provide learners with feedback have also drawn considerable attention Long (1996) believed feedback can facilitate learning a second language The findings of a host of other researchers are also in line with what Long says Some though have focused on the different modes of corrective feedback and wished to find out which of the different methods

of giving feedback employed by the teacher is/are more fruitful

In fact, English teaching and learning has been paid much attention to, which

is shown by remarkable changes in curriculum as well as teaching methods i.e the introduction of speaking skill in the new textbook to Lower Secondary, Upper Secondary schools and the adoption of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

which “emphasizes communicative competence” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986, p.35)

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As the matter of fact, speaking skill, “the most important aspect of learning a

second language” (Nunan, 1989, p.14), is still a challenge for Vietnamese learners

Although teachers, in CLT approach, no longer play a dominant role in class, their guidance and support have always been of beneficial help to students Especially, teachers’ feedback provision in response to students’ mistakes as well as good

performance is of significant importance Considered, “an integral part of the

lesson” (Swain, 1985, p.4), teacher’s feedback is always in bad need, like

Thornbury (2000, p 267) wrote “to teach is to provide feedback” Teachers’

feedback falls into written and oral type and it can be delivered with or without delay Notably, oral feedback is the most common occurrence in classroom and often employed in speaking lessons Hence, studying on immediate and delayed oral feedback is very practical In addition, providing the correct answer as feedback after students’ response further improve students’ speaking performance (Butler, Karpicke, & Roediger, 2007; Butler, Karpicke, & Roediger, 2008; Butler

&Roediger, 2008) The correct answer to a question may be presented immediately after the question is answered or after a subsequent delay

Even though teachers’ feedback has been the subject of numerous studies, most of them tackled the matter of immediate feedback only or delayed feedback only Work on contrasting immediate feedback versus delayed feedback in speaking

lessons is quite small in number This indicates a need to examine the effects of

immediate feedback versus delayed feedback on EFL students’ speaking performance The study is expected to make a contribution to teaching and

learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam

1.2 Aims of the study

This study aims at finding out the effectiveness of the two ways of giving feedback to students’ mistakes in speaking lessons: immediate feedback and delayed feedback The findings of the research are expected to enrich the literature

in feedback in language teaching and EFL teachers to prove their teaching quality

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1.3 Research questions

The study seeks to answer the following research questions:

1) How does immediate feedback, compared to delayed feedback, affect EFL high school students’ speaking fluency?

2) How does immediate feedback, compared to delayed feedback, affect EFL high school students’ speaking accuracy?

1.4 Scope of the study

The study only focused on using immediate and delayed feedback to improve

Binh province This study was set to investigate the effects of these two ways of giving feedback on helping students to develop their speaking skill Fluency and accuracy are the two aspects examined in this study

1.5 Method of the study

The main method employed in this study is experimental All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion were based on the data analysis The combination of different instruments used in this research helped to gain reliable data

1.6 Thesis design

The thesis consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1 presents the rationale and the overview of the thesis

Chapter 2 is the literature review, speaking skill, assessing speaking ability, teaching speaking and feedback in teaching are discussed

Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the study In this chapter, the participants, materials and procedure are described in detail

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This chapter reviews the literature related to feedback

2.1 Speaking skill

2.1.1 Definition of the speaking skill

It cannot be denied that speaking is the vital skill and the key to communication and seems much harder than other skills English is spoken all over the world as an international language for people’s interaction purpose Without speaking, communication will become as silent as a grave

Different people use the term “speaking” in different ways According to the

Oxford Dictionary of Current English (2009, p 414), speaking is “the action of

conveying information or expressing one’s thoughts and feelings in spoken language” According to Burn and Joyce (1997), speaking is an interactive process

of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, including the participants themselves, their collective experience, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking Swain (1985) defined speaking as to utter words or articulate sounds, as human beings to express thought by words, as the organs may be so obstructed that a man may not be able to speak Chaney

(1998, p.13), however, considered speaking a process: “speaking is the process of

building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal or non-verbal symbols in a variety of contexts” Sharing the same viewpoint, Florez (1999, p 1) added that

speaking is an “interactive” process, which consists of three main stages

“producing, receiving and processing information.” In language teaching and learning, speaking is considered a skill to practice and master In this light, Nunan

(2003, p 48) put it that “speaking is the productive oral skill It consists of

producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning.” Also considering

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speaking as a skill, both Bygate (1987) and Hilferty (2000) reached the same conclusion about the distinction between knowledge and skill in speaking lessons Bygate (1987, p 3) considered speaking as crucial in the teaching of speaking Indeed, to be a good learner of speaking, studying knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, etc is not enough but the skill to use this knowledge to communicate successfully is indispensable Hilferty (2000)stated that speaking is also understood is the productive skill in the oral mode It, like the oral skills, is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words

In conclusion, there are different concepts of speaking, i.e speaking as an action, a process and a skill In this study, the term “speaking” will be used to refer

to a skill related to language teaching and learning process

2.1.2 Elements of speaking skill

Fluency and accuracy are two important aspects of speaking performance The term “fluency” is widely used in language pedagogy and “fluent” is regularly appeared in language testing and assessment It seems that the meaning of fluency is easily understood, however fluency is a construct with various definition and applied to reading, listening and writing as well as speaking In oral production, its relationship to specific aspects of speech production (pronunciation, intonation and hesitation) is dependent upon the definition of fluency that one chooses to work with Fillmore (1979, p 93) defined four abilities that might be subsumed under the term of fluency, the first of which is the ability to talk at length with few pauses The three other abilities include the ability to produce the sentences coherently and semantically, the ability to have appropriate expressions in a wide range of context, and finally is the ability to be creative and imaginative in language use Nation (1989) also provided three aspects of fluency: the speed and flow of language production, the degree of control of language items i.e pausing, rhythm, pronunciation and stress, and the way of content interrupting So far, the definition

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of fluency is developed into two main categories One is called the narrow approach (Lemon, 2000), which refers to the speaking speed and smoothness of the language delivery

The second aspect of speaking performance is accuracy Accuracy is one of the most important criteria to measure one’s linguistic ability and to shelter language users from communication breakdowns According to Richards (1992, p

31), accuracy concerns “the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences.”

In other words, accuracy in language means grammatical accuracy only Nevertheless, in Thornbury (2000), the terms “accuracy” seems to cover more than that Specifically, speaking English accurately means doing without or with few errors on not only grammar but vocabulary and pronunciation, as well He also set the clear scale for assessment of accuracy In the grammar field, students use correct words order, tenses, tense agreement, etc Students do not leave out articles, prepositions, or difficult tenses Besides, vocabulary is also concerned Students have a range of vocabulary that corresponds to the syllabus year list and uses words you have taught Pronunciation is one of the most important parts in a speech, most people can understand students’ speaking easily if they have good pronunciation

Along similar lines, Dedmon (1967, p 23) defined accuracy as “the ability to use

correct forms in which utterances do not contain errors affecting phonological, syntactic, semantic and discourse features of the language” Many scholars like

Hemmens (2011) and Cotter (2013) have come up with the recommendation that accuracy should be introduced first in the beginners levels and fluency comes along

as the learner progress The reason being is that, as learners do not have much vocabulary and knowledge of the language in the beginning, they are not really able

to engage in a lengthy conversation and thus, they should be first taught a few basics and how to get them right and accuracy For example, they will be taught how to greet and reply greetings, how to ask for directions and also the present and past tenses Repetition is needed in the early stage as it will help learners to remember and be familiar with the language Once students get hold of the basic,

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they will be wanting for more, they speak faster than before and this is when fluency is at its early development Students will need more speaking practice so activities like public speaking, role play and group interaction should be encouraged Speakers who are in the advanced level will have perfect fluency and this is when the focus is shifted again to accuracy

2.1.3 Speaking competence vs speaking performance

Chastain (1988) showed that language competence is a term which includes the linguistics or grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistics competence and what might be called as textual competence Language competence refers to the knowledge of a language, cognitive aspect in learning a language, and

of course the ability to use that language to produce meaningful production and language performance In this light, Brown (2004, p 15) believes that competence

is used to describe the learner´s capacity to produce a language

Language performance can be realized by the meaningfulness of the students’ classroom activities, assignment and task as the implementation and application of language competence they have as a result of learning the language grammatical rule, structure and vocabulary

If the reality tells that English competence becomes the main goal of English teaching and learning with lack of special attention of English performance This term is specified for speaking skills, it would approximate the language theory refers to the structural view (Richards, 2001, p 17) that language is a system of structurally related element of coding of meaning The target language learning is seen to be the mastery of element of this system which is generally defined in terms

of phonological units, grammatical units, grammatical operations and lexical items Chomsky’s competence theory/ linguistics theory deals primarily with abstract grammatical knowledge/ability the speaker poses that enable them to produce the grammatically correct sentences in language (Richards,2001, p 70) Chomsky’s

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theory of transformational grammar proposed that fundamental theories of language derived from innate aspect of the mind and the students learn underlie

“competence” These theories that underline the English teaching as a foreign

language focusing on the structure and grammar as the essential competence which students should master first

2.2 Assessing speaking ability

2.2.1 Indicators of speaking ability

Brown (2004, p 141-142) indicated that there are five fundamental indicators of speaking ability: imitation, oral language production, conservation response, transactional language and oral production development

Imitation accepted as one of the indicators of speaking ability Imitation, in general, is the ability to imitate a word or phrase or possibly a sentence (imitative) exactly the same way as it has been done before

Oral language production can be considered as an indicator of speaking ability Producing short stretches of oral language design demonstrates the competence in a narrow band of grammatical, phrasal, lexical, or phonological relationship, for example, prosodic elements-intonation, stress, rhythm, juncture, intensive ability (intensive)

Conservation response is the response of a very short conversation, standard greetings and small talk, simple requests and comments, and the like (responsive) Transactional language is defined astaking the two forms of either transactional language which has the purpose of exchanging specific information, or interpersonal exchanges which have the purpose of maintaining social relationships (interactive)

Oral production development includes speeches, oral presentations, and story-telling, during which the opportunity for oral interaction from listener is either highly limited or ruled out together (extensive)

Language is of an acceptable level Learners express themselves in

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utterances that are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of language accuracy

2.2.2 Fluency vs accuracy in speaking assessment

According to Ellis (2009), testing speaking ability has become one of the most important issues in language assessment since the role of speaking ability has become more central in language teaching and learning There are three characteristics that distinguish performance assessments from other types of tests They are focused mainly on content However, testing speaking is difficult and cannot be assessed as easily as other language skills It takes considerable time, effort and training (Hughes, 2003)

Obviously, accuracy is one of the most important criteria to measure one’s linguistic ability and to shelter language users from communication breakdowns

To evaluate the accuracy in speaking performance, students are supposed to use correct grammar such as word order, tenses, tense agreement, etc Especially, they do not leave out articles, prepositions or difficult tenses

To assess vocabulary, students have a range of vocabulary that corresponds

to the syllabus year list and uses words you have taught

Moreover, students are required correct pronunciation so that most people can understand what they speak

Thornbury (2000) pointed out two criteria for assessing accuracy: number of

self-corrections, correct use of English (use of grammar, use of vocabulary)

Fluency is also used as a criterion to measure one’s speaking competence Speaking fluently means being able to communicate one’s ideas without having to stop and think too much about what one is saying Richards (1992, p.141) defined that fluency as “the features which gave speech the qualities of being natural and normal.”

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Miller (1964) and Fulcher (1996) stated that speaking fluency can be used in

a range of senses One of the narrowest definitions includes a few features, such as pausing, hesitations and speech rate, whereas in a broad sense the reference is made

to speaking proficiency Edge(1998) noticed speaking fluency often includes references to flow or smoothness, rate of speech, lack of unnecessary pausing, absence of distressing hesitation, length of utterances, and connectedness These characterizations are complex, however, because they are not simply descriptions of

a speaker’s speech but also of a listener’s perception of it These studies indicate that when speakers become more fluent their speech rate increases and the speech flow contains fewer pauses and hesitations (Lennon, 1990) They also pause at semantically sensible places, which listeners perceive as the speakers’ planning the content of what they are saying rather than grouping for words More fluent speakers tend to speak more and their phrases are longer Luoma (2004) stated fluency is related to the way that speakers use words, and in particular ‘small words’ To focus

on the more lexical aspects of fluency, Thornbury (2000) also listed four criteria for assessing fluency: number of words per minute, number of syllables per minute, number of pauses of one/two second(s) or longer, number of repetitions

2.2.3 Rubrics for assessing EFL speaking ability

With the aim of knowing the improvement of students’ speaking skills has been made by the students after being treated by some problem sticks, their speaking ability will be measured by speaking measurement adapted from Arthur Hughes (2003) collaborating with FSI There are five components with a rating range from 1-6 with different weighting point from the lowest to the highest

The speaking measurement contains of some component elaborated from students’ skill including their pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension

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Table 2.1 Speaking Assessment Rubric

(Adapted from Communicative Language Teaching - Wood, L W (2007))

Pronunciation

interfere with understanding

Grammar

preventing communication

occasional irritation and misunderstanding

weakness that the cause misunderstanding

Vocabulary

transportation, family, etc.)

discussion of some common professional and social topics

vocabulary permits discussion of any non-technical subject with some circumlocutions

Fluency

and grouping for words

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2.3 Teaching Speaking

According to Nunan (1991), teaching may be defined as “showing or helping

someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand” Teaching is

also defined as one of the means by which education is achieved and education is a common purpose of teaching Teaching is the process of carrying out those activities that experience has shown to be effective in getting students to learn

Teaching and learning have a close relationship We cannot define teaching apart from learning Teaching is guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learners to learn, setting the conditions for learning Your understanding of how the learners learn will determine your philosophy of education, your teaching style, your approach, methods and classroom techniques If you look at learning as a process of operant conditioning, through a carefully paced program of reinforcement, you will teach accordingly If you view second language learning as

a deductive rather than an inductive process, you will probably choose to present copious rules and paradigms to your students rather than let them “discover” those rules inductively

Many language learners consider speaking ability the measure of knowing a language As for them, fluency is ability to converse with others much more than the ability to read or write They regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire and they assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments on spoken communication Therefore, if learners do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunities to speak in the language classroom, they may soon get de-motivated and lose interest in learning On the contrary, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in lass can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place to

be

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2.3.1 Teaching L1 speaking skill

There is a large body of research on how people learn their first and subsequent languages in childhood For instance, Lightbown and Spada (2006) show that children acquire their first language in remarkably consistent stages Cognitive development plays an important role, e.g children only start to use adverbs of time such as ‘tomorrow’ when they have developed an understanding of time Another major factor which contributes to language development is repeated exposure to words and phrases in context As young people expand their knowledge

of the world, they learn to understand and use the language that goes with particular contexts By the time they reach adulthood, most people have acquired their first language to a very high standard They have a well-established command of the language, and production and understanding will be automatic If they have weaknesses, the underlying cause is often a lack of exposure to situations where more formal language is required This can result in an inability to handle the full range and register of the language, such as using formal language during a job interview or writing a letter

2.3.2 Teaching speaking to EFL learners

It is quite undeniable that English with the most speakers through the world

as a foreign language plays a significant role in the world According to Richards

(2001, p 6),"For many people the most important function of any language is

communication with other people when traveling, studying or working in a foreign country Therefore, the trend of learning English is increasing and the opportunities for the actual use of the language are becoming more frequent" The most important

objective of language learning is to provide students with the opportunities to activate their already learned knowledge and use the newly learned materials in their real life situations In the past, skills were taught individually and almost always the focus was on improving one skill at a time viewing learning as mastery

of a single skill, such as reading or sub-skills, such as vocabulary items Language

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learning and content are not interwoven (Mohan, 1986) Isolated language skills are taught either because discreet skills are believed to be learned more easily or because it is difficult to cover different skills simultaneously Then, the prevailing

belief was that language should be kept whole and "if language isn't kept whole, it

isn't language anymore" (Rig, 1991, p 522, cited in Richards & Rodgers, 2001, p

109)

Theorizers and practitioners began to understand the real nature of communication in which a mixture of language skills and sub skills are used at a given time to run a natural communication Communication in nature involves the integration of the four language skills and learners in an integrated-skill instruction are exposed to authentic language and activities that are meaningful and interesting (Shen, 2003) Integration of listening and speaking in real situation is a common event experienced daily by everyone Belasco (1967) describes the relationship between listening and speaking, as actualized in real communication, as an intertwined mutual relation in a way that achieving proficiency in listening would result in speaking proficiency As Chastain (1988) proposes reading as the facilitation of communicative fluency that is going to include mental processes like those of the other language skills Hilferty (2000) also stresses the influence of reading on speaking as a kind of reciprocal relationship and believes that speaking and reading both need the same kind of abilities in order to process those kind of materials that are phonologically difficult One of the goals of speaking activities integrated either with listening or reading in language classrooms, is the development of fluency Pawley and Syder (1983, p 191) regard native-like fluency

as “the native speakers' ability to produce fluent stretches of discourse” Lennon (2000, p 26), focusing on the importance of fluency, points out that “a working

definition of fluency might be the rapid, smooth, accurate, lucid, and efficient translation of thought or communicative intention into language under the temporal

constraints of on-line processing”

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2.3.2.1 General outline of a speaking lesson

Kayi (2006) stated that in a speaking lesson, warm-ups are essential for all aspects of ESL learning They should be corporate into every lesson Warm-up activities are light switches in the students’ mind, which makes the other stages more effective

Pre-speaking is the stage in which the teacher presents new materials to the students in an exciting and informative way and lay the foundation for the rest of the lesson

While-speaking is the stage in which the teacher lets the students begin to practice the new materials in a guided way The activities can be designed in pairs

or in small groups

Post-speaking is where confidence plays a big role in the ability to communicate

Table 2.2 General outline of a speaking lesson

(Adapted from Teaching Speaking: Activities to Promote Speaking in a Second

Language-Kayi, H (2006))

Activity 2 Activity 3

15 minutes

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2.3.2.2 Common techniques and methods

There are many techniques and methods in teaching speaking There are thirteen techniques of teaching speaking according to (Kayi, 2006) Based on some experts’ statement, in his article in internet, he tells the techniques as follows:

First, discussion is one kind of activity that can stimulate students’ response

in speaking After the content-based lesson teacher can set a discussion activity by making some groups and holding question and answering related to the last lesson they have learned By using this activity routinely, students will use their speaking

in a more active way

Second, role play is another kind of activity in which students pretend as if they are in the real condition of society in various social contexts and have a variety

of roles In role-play, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they

are and what they think or feel Thus, the teacher can tell the student "You are

David, you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…” (Harmer, 2007)

Third, simulation is almost like role play but there is a different between role play and simulation In simulation students ask to pretend as a character and make it

as in the real condition For examples students act as a guitarist, then he must bring property like a real guitarist

Fourth, in information gap activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs One student will have the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their information Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a problem or collecting information Also, each partner plays an important role because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information the others need

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Fifth, brain-storming is functioned to stimulate students’ knowledge about the lesson that will be learned in the meeting In brain-storming teacher asks some questions related to the lessons or material they will have Through brain storming students are helped in understanding the material in an easier way Brain-storming also helps the students to practice their speaking in front of other people and improve confidence A point that the 63

teacher must remember is do not ever criticized students’ idea or opinion so the students can explore their mind freely

Sixth, using story telling in teaching speaking will help the students be creative Students can briefly explain the story that has been read or make their own story to tell to their friends in front of the class Story telling forces students to be creative in the delivery in order to make the story interesting

Seventh, interview is almost like simulation but in interview, students are only focused on making question and answer about a topic as they are a journalist who will interview a resource person or a guest Topic given is better given by the teacher so the student will know what kind of question they have to make or what the path they should follow The interview questions have to be made by the students using their own mind and way of thinking This kind of activity also helps students to practice their sentence production In order to boost students speaking confidence teacher can ask them to perform the interview in front of the class

Eighth, in story completion activity, teacher will narrate a story to the class Teacher stops narrating the story after some sentences have been delivered In the next step in story completion activity each student asked to continue the story and add the sentence told by the teacher using their own idea They may add some new character, plot, setting, and so on

Ninth, reporting is used in most speaking lessons Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and, in class, they report to their

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friends what they find as the most interesting news Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling their friends in their daily lives before class

Tenth, playing cards is a game in which students should form groups of four Each suit will represent a topic For instance: diamonds represent earning money, hearts represent love and relationships, spades represent an unforgettable memory, and card represent best teacher Each student in a group will choose a card Then, each student will write 4-5 questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group

Eleventh, picture narrating is an activity which is based on several sequential pictures Teacher will have some sequential picture to show to the class Students ask to tell and explain the event or story happen in the picture shown

Next, in picture describing activities, students are asked to form some groups Each group will have a picture given by the teacher The next step, students are asked to explain and describe the picture they have After they have discussed the picture, one of the group members will tell to the class about the picture Everything related to the picture will be told This kind of activity is very good to promote students’ creativity because this type of activity demands a high imagination and creativity Beside that students also can improve their public speaking skill

Finally, for finding the different activity, students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different pictures, for example, a picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls playing tennis Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the pictures

Besides choosing a relevant technique, applying suitable methods is really important Teaching foreign language in general and teaching the speaking skill in particular has experienced three main methods, i.e grammar-translation, audio-

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lingual and communicative language teaching (CLT) Whereas the two former methods show a big number of drawbacks resulting in learners’ failure to make achievement in speaking skill, CLT emphasizes “learning to communicate through interaction in the target language.” (Nunan, 1991, p 56) and considerably enhances students’ communicative skill In the CLT classrooms, students are supposed work

in pairs or groups which requires negotiation and co-operation to do not only accuracy-based tasks but also fluency-based ones Besides, they are provided with authentic activities and meaningful tasks, students feel free with real-life communication As a result, they are active in producing their own output and learning new language through doing with mistakes Teachers’ feedback, in this case, appears to be more important than ever

2.4 Feedback in teaching

2.4.1 Overview of feedback in teaching

Hattie and Kimberley (2007, p 3) asserted in their review that “feedback is

one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement.”Friermuth (1998,

p 7) supported that teachers’ feedback helps “improve learners’ accuracy and language acquisition” The indispensable role of teachers’ feedback can be shown in the fact that teachers’ feedback reflects to students what and how they perform, showing them their strong points to strengthen as well as the weak points to improve Noticeably, when teachers leave mistakes untreated, the defective language might serve as an input model and acquired by other students in the class

In short, students, when doing without teachers’ feedback, run a high risk of losing their ways Added to this, Moss (2002) proposed that teachers’ feedback can speed

up the process of language learning by providing information about rules and the limits of language use, which would otherwise takes students a long time to deduce

on their own

In brief, teachers’ feedback is considered “a prime requirement for progress

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in learning”, as proposed in Tunstall and Gips (1996, p 9); therefore; “giving feedback is one of the key roles that teacher plays in classroom.” (Al Fahdi, 2006) Moreover, not every teacher is successful in doing this job; therefore, the matter of what types and contents of feedback to deliver is undoubtedly a matter of concern

2.4.2 Definition of feedback in language teaching

In the context of teaching and learning languages, there are a big number of feedback definitions Littlewood (1981) and Lewis (2002) both equaled feedback with telling learners about their progress and showing them their errors in order to guide them to areas for improvement Different in words but similar in nature, Ur (1996, p 242) proposed that “feedback is information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance.” It is clearly seen that these two definitions treated this terms under a broad point of view since they just indicated that learners are the ones

to receive feedback

Obviously, the point which all the aforementioned definitions have in common is the purpose of providing feedback, i.e for learner’s improvement Accordingly, there are two matters loomed Firstly, question of quality feedback comes into considerable concern The second thing is the distinction between

feedback and criticism as Robert (2003, p 12) proposed in his study: “Feedback

should only ever be used as a basis for improvement It should not be mistaken for negative criticism” Supporting the idea of Robert (2003), Bound (2000, p 7)

pointed out significant difference between feedback and criticism “A good

feedback is given without personal judgment or opinion, given based on the facts, always neutral and objective, constructive and focus on the future”, whereas,

“criticism is personal, fault finding, very subjective, usually destructive, involve emotion, and past oriented” In another way, as opposed to feedback which is

aimed to give sincere input to someone in order for him or her to improve himself

or herself, criticism is given for the negative purpose and in an improper way

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In conclusion, feedback provision can be among peers or between teachers and students; however, feedback concerned in this study is viewed in the notion of teaching-learning act between teachers and students

2.4.3 Roles of feedback in language teaching

Harmer (2007) stated that feedback is an essential part of effective learning

It helps students understand the course studied and give them a clear guidance on how to improve their learning Added to this Keane (2008) proposed that when students are better informed about their learning progress, they can zone on in areas that needed more attention, further highlighting their strengths and weaknesses With clearer direction, students gain more confidence heading towards their goals

Effective feedback helps students to maximize their potential during learning process, raise their awareness of strength and areas of improvement Feedback motivates learners’ knowledge, skills and behaviors It provides learners with additional information to support their weaknesses and motivate them during the learning process

2.4.4 Types of feedback in language teaching

2.4.4.1 Immediate feedback

Immediate feedback refers to teachers’ comments delivered on the spot when

a good point or a mistake is made by students Rodgers (2001) proposes that this feedback type is employed by teachers when the aim of the stage of the lesson is to promote accuracy, particularly during the drilling of the target language and during guided practice Richards (2001), who was concerned about spontaneous correction asserted that it can help learners to be aware of the mistake straight away The advantages of using immediate feedback are that it enables teachers to give support

or encouragement when students are confused about their making mistakes, when students need to be motivated and also the opportunity for immediate feedback to

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make sure the message was understood Although immediate feedback has some advantages, it also has a weakness in that it may cause miscommunication Sometimes what the students hear is not what is meant The simplest words, for example, have a different connotation for the students Richards (2001) puts emphasis on the fact that sometimes immediate feedback type discourages learning from speaking as they may feel that every word in their speech is being judged

2.4.4.2 Delayed feedback

Immediate feedback is not recommended in the fluency stage of a speaking lesson In this case, delayed feedback should take place As spontaneous feedback can backfire sometimes, it is suggested that techniques of delivering should be employed Ur (2006) recommends that spontaneous feedback should be

“unobtrusive” to avoid the interruption of students’ “flow” Another point as stated

by Rodgers (2001) who may distinguish on-the-spot from delayed feedback is that whereas the former one tends to be used for individuals’ performance, the latter is for group work Although delayed feedback has the advantage that is it does not backfire the students, this kind of feedback also has the weakness Teachers give delayed feedback after the students’ performance it may mean that the feedback is too late to be received by the students And in the speaking activity sometimes students forget the mistakes that they have made

2.5 Feedback in EFL speaking class

2.5.1 Immediate feedback in teaching speaking

In term of mistakes on form, Beare (2003) proposed that there are a number

of types of mistakes that students tend to make frequently, namely grammatical mistakes, vocabulary and pronunciation mistakes Accordingly, the contents of teachers’ immediate oral feedback should put focus on these things Specifically, with grammatical mistakes, teachers are supposed to pay attention to mistakes of verb tenses, preposition uses, etc With vocabulary mistakes, teachers feedback

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should cover students’ incorrect collocations, idiomatic phrase usage, etc whereas students’ errors in basic pronunciation, word stressing in sentences, rhythm and pitch, etc should be put focus on teachers’ feedback on pronunciation

As for mistakes on meaning, Edge, in his book “Mistakes and Correction” (1998) investigated two situations that this mistake type occurs Firstly, it occurs when a speaker uses a correct linguistic form that does not mean what he wants to mean Secondly, it is when the speaker uses a correct but socially unacceptable linguistic form– the problem here concerns the politeness

In the researcher’s point of view, mistakes on meaning concerns students’ ideas, idea organizations and logic of ideas As for students’ mistakes on ideas, teachers’ correction emphasizes on students’ ideas which cannot be understood by the other despite their correct linguistic form With mistakes on idea organizations, teachers should pay attention to the way students organize their strings of ideas to make sure that such idea organizations make it easy for the hearer to follow or catch the main points Lastly, teachers’ correction focuses on the logic of students’ ideas if their strings of ideas are not coherent enough

2.5.2 Delayed feedback in teaching speaking

Holtzman (1960), Dedmon (1967) and Reid (1971) recommended that criticism should be offered after each speech and that one or more students may contribute criticism It should be noted that such feedback may have an effect on succeeding speakers In a control laboratory study, Miller (1964, p 115) manipulated positive and negative feedback given to a confederate during his speech The student who serves as the subject in the study observed the first speech and the feedback given to the speaker prior to delivering his own speech The second speaker utterance rate and non- fluency were not significantly affected by differences in responses to his speech and to that of his predecessors Speakers accorded the same response as their predecessors had fewer non-fluencies and a

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higher utterance rate than did those accorded responses either more or less favorable than those extended to their predecessors

2.5.3 Immediate feedback vs delayed feedback in teaching speaking

Hattie and Timperley (2007) noted numerous studies have been much research on types of feedback, particularly contrasting immediate and delayed feedback Most of this research has been accomplished without recognition of the various feedback levels For instance, immediate error correction during task acquisition can result in faster rates of acquisition, whereas immediate error correction during fluency building can detract from the learning of automaticity

It is impossible to reach any general conclusion regarding the relative efficacy of immediate and delayed feedback The claim that immediate feedback inevitably disrupts fluency work is probably not justified, as Ellis, Basturkmen and Loewen (2001) have shown However, Ellis (2009) stated that there is general agreement that in accuracy-oriented activities correction should be provided immediately Giving immediate feedback to students’ responses, correcting and clearing up inconsistencies in student logic, and asking for explanations to answer increases students’ performance

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CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

The previous chapter has provided a necessary theoretical background for the study This chapter presents research questions and then describes the participants, the materials and the procedure of the study

3.1 Research questions

The study aimed to seek the answers to the following questions:

- How does immediate feedback, compared to delayed feedback, affect EFL high school students’ speaking fluency?

- How does immediate feedback, compared to delayed feedback, affect EFL high school students’ speaking accuracy?

3.2 Participants

The research participants were eighty members of two classes of students in grade 11 at Quang Ninh high school Both classes consist of forty students However, the researcher chose only fifteen students in each of class to be able to observe the best during the experiment Their English level was low and of mixed Most of them have been learning English for at least six years The participants were following an English program that consisted of reading, speaking, listening, writing and grammar lessons However, they hardly had chance to communicate in English They often felt shy and afraid of making mistakes because of their lack of social knowledge as well as their poor English knowledge Moreover, at school students were not motivated to interact with each other They only focused on the grammar section Moreover, all of the test or examinations were only in written form Therefore, most students supposed speaking was not necessary at all

Before taking part in the experiment, they all had passed the general English test This test found no statistically significant difference between two groups

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In class 11A2, one experimental group concluding 15 participants was formed (hereafter named group 1) In class 11A3, one experimental group concluding 15 participants was formed (hereafter named group 2) While teaching the first experimental group, the teacher used the immediate feedback technique and while teaching second experimental group 2, the teacher used the delayed feedback technique They were at the same level of English There was one speaking session

in every five sessions of each unit in the textbook The participants had three English lessons every week

3.3 Materials

The topics of speaking course were taken from six speaking lessons from the

syllabus of Tieng Anh 11 Each lesson covers one topic The topics related to

celebrations, post office, nature, energy, sorts and hobbies

The general English test was taken from Key English Test (KET) Book by Collins (2014).The pre-test was taken from IELTS Practice Test (2015) There were ten familiar topics for the participants to present The post-test was also taken from the same book with the same difficult level as those in the pre-test The speaking

topics were about family, friendship, daily life, entertainment, hobbies, sports, jobs,

music, books and films

3.3.1 The general English test

Before the experiment was carried out, eighty students from two classes 11A2 and 11A3 had to take one 45-minute test to choose thirty students with the same level of English to take part in the experiment There were five parts in the test examining general English knowledge: part 1: Matching, part 2: Multiple choice, part 3: Multiple choice, part 4: Multiple-choice cloze, part 5: Gap-filling In part 1, there were eight signs, notices, or other very short texts (A-E) and five sentences Students had to match each sentence to the right sign or notice There were five questions, one mark for each correct answer In part 2, each sentence has a missing

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word and students had to choose the best word (A, B or C) to complete the sentences There were five questions, one mark for each correct answer In part 3, the five questions were things said in a conversation Students had to choose what the other person said next (A, B or C) In part 4, there was a short text with ten numbered spaces Each space means there was a missing word and you had to choose the best answer (A, B or C) Students got one mark for each correct answer

In part 5, there was a letter with ten missing words Students had to complete the letter with suitable words Students got 1 mark for each correct answer There were five questions, one mark for each correct answer The students were allowed to do the test in forty five minutes The test was used to make sure that the participants had reached the desired speaking level for the speaking course

This test found no statistically significant difference between two groups These scores of general English test of two groups were illustrated in detail in the results section

The students’ scores in a writing test of general English at level key English test which aimed at selecting the participants for the experiment 15 participants from class 11A2 (A1-A15) and 15 participants from class 11A3 (B1-B15) met the requirement to take part in the experiment They were at the same level of English

3.3.2 Pre-test and Post-test

To find out the effectiveness of the technique immediate feedback and delayed feedback in teaching speaking skill for the EFL students, the researcher based on calculating the number of words per minute in term of fluency and number

of errors per 100 words in term of accuracy

In the pre-test, the participants were asked to pick up a topic given by the teacher and present their ideas in 2 minutes The teacher’s duty was to listen and evaluate the students’ talks in term of fluency and accuracy However, the teacher made sure that the students did not know they were being tested The participants’

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talks must also be recorded for later analysis The number of words per minute spoken was counted to determine students’ fluency ability and the number of errors made was noticed to evaluate students’ accuracy The errors were classified into different types, for instance, word choice errors, pronunciation errors and stress errors for later analysis

In the post-test, the researcher asked the participants to represent their topics and let them talk in 2 minutes The researcher concentrated on the speed they talked and the all types of errors they had The topics in the post-test were at the same level with those in the pre-test The participants’ results were scored according to the criteria given in the pre-test

3.3.3 Textbook

In the area of integration and globalization, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training realized the important role of developing English use Language teaching and learning has witnessed a marked positive change Remarkably, since 2006- 2007, there has the change of the curriculum for high school students Instead of only reading and grammar sections the textbook

“TiengAnh 10”, “TiengAnh 11” and “TiengAnh 12” cover four English skills In each unit reading skill comes first, and then speaking, listening, writing Language focus on which includes pronunciation and grammar is the last part Each period is

in 45 minutes and focusing on one topic Here are topics for speaking in the textbook “TiengAnh 11”