The effects of teachers' use of direct and indirect feedback on learners' writing english argumentative essays

Concerning the challenges mentioned regarding second language writing pedagogy and the weight of relevant theories and studies on the positive relationship between [r]

The present study attempts to investigate the effects of teachers’ use of direct and indirect feedback on learners’ writing English argumentative essays in a context of the Mekong Delta To achieve the aim of the study, 60 English high school teachers who participated in a 12-week- training course on English improvement Direct/ Indirect feedbacks were used so as to affect the quality of writing argumentative essays Feedback delivery centered on content, organization, grammar and spelling The result showed that the learners benefited more from feedback on content and organization than feedback on grammar and spelling The questionnaires result also showed that the learners had better attitudes on teacher’s feedback which focus on organization and content rather than feedback on grammar and spelling Furthermore, the learners from the interviews presented their positive attitudes towards teacher’s feedback, either direct feedback or indirect feedback The interviewees agreed that their writing argumentative essays’ abilities had significantly improved in the content and the organization after joining in the training course

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LIST OF TABLES

3.1 Research questions and research instruments………27

3.2 Questionnaire on participants’ attitude……… 30

3.3 Writing sessions of the textbook ……… 31

4.1 Descriptive statistics of the pretest and post-test ……… 34

4.2 Participants’ writing performance before and after the study………….35

4.3 Participants’ attitude on direct and indirect feedbacks………… … 37

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1 Aristotle structure of argument ……….… ……… 12

2.2 Toulmin model of argument …… ……… …… 12

2.3 Case structure of argument ……….……….… 13

2.4 Standard organization for an argumentative essay……… 17

2.5 Theoretical framework of the study………24

3.1 A framework for assessing essay as VSTEP………… ……… 28

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

LIST OF FIGURES v

TABLES OF CONTENT vi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the research 3

1.3 Significance of the research 3

1.4 Organization of the research 3

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Attitude 5

2.2 Argumentation 7

2.2.1 The notion of argument 7

2.2.2 Types of argument 8

2.2.3 Characteristics of arguments 9

2.2.4 Structure of argument 11

2.2.5 Organizing the argumentative essay 14

2.2.6 Evaluating the argumentative essays 18

2.3 Direct feedback and indirect feedback 19

2.4 Related studies 20

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 26

3.1 Research questions and hypotheses 26

3.1.1 Research questions 26

3.1.2 Research hypotheses 26

3.2 Research design 27

3.3 Participants 27

3.4 Research instruments 27

3.4.1 Writing tests 28

3.4.2 Questionnaire 30

3.4.3 Interview 31

3.5 Materials 32

3.5.1 Description of teaching materials 32

3.6 Research procedure 33

3.7 Data analysis 33

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS 35

4.1 Participants’ writing performance before and after the study 35

4.2 The participants’ attitudes on direct and indirect feedback 37

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 41

5.1 Discussions 41

5.1.1Summary of the results 41

5.1.2 Discussions of the results 41

5.2 Conclusions 45

5.3 Pedagogical implications 45

5.4 Limitation and directions for further research 46

5.4.1 Limitation 46

5.4.2 Directions for further research 46

REFERENCES 47

APPENDIXES

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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This chapter consists of four sections and provides an overall introduction to the study The first section presents the rationale of the study The purposes of the study are stated in the second section The third section discusses the significance of the study The chapter ends with an overview of each chapter of the study

1.1 RATIONALE

English is an international language and its significance has been showed through increasing number of English learners in Vietnam There are many reasons for people to learn English such as communication, higher education or job promotion Since English is one of the most popular international languages, it attracts much attention from young people these days, especially in their career orientation

Among the four language skills, writing has traditionally taken a big place in most English language curriculum although it is sometimes felt that a command of the spoken language and of reading is more important (White, 1987) White claims that today writing remains the commonest way of examining student performance in English, especially for academic purposes White also notices writing is a skill which can be acquired through formal instruction Writing is the natural outlet for learners’ reflections on their speaking, listening and reading experiences in their second language (Leki, 1991) Therefore, writing academic essays is considered as the most significant skill that learners have to acquire in order to get required scores in standardized tests Due to the complexities of learning to write in second language, the effective writing methods were raised among second language writing researchers

According to Hobelman and Wiriyachitra (1990), the traditional approach to teaching writing is deficient in two important respects First, learners’ writing abilities will be observed to make sure that they know how to write by the teacher Second, the teacher focuses on form (i.e., syntax, grammar, mechanics and organization) rather than on content and considers the content as a vehicle to reflect on the correct

expressions of grammatical and organizational patterns taught and word choice Leki (1991) argues that the focus on these types of writing exercises is primarily on language structure and learners get good marks if they write texts with as few surface errors as possible Hence, with the emphasis on the sentence-based level of traditional approach is a big limitation in light of teaching writing at a discourse level, McCarthy (2001)

An innovative approach has been introduced into second language writing pedagogy to help the learners overcome the above gaps Hobelman and Wiriyachitra (1990) states that the modern approach to the teaching of writing involves a combination of the communicative approach and the process approach which take into consideration the audience of text and purpose for writing

The search for effective methods in teaching academic writing has raised a great deal of concern However, few studies have been conducted on the effects of written feedback, either direct or indirect on academic writing, especially on argumentative essays As a result, this study focused on the effects of teachers’ use of feedback on argumentative essays English teachers participated in the study which was a one group pre-post-test experimental design They got involved in taking the pre- and post-test writing argumentative essays and in responding to a questionnaire Six of them were invited to answer the interviews It was hypothesized that the use of direct and indirect feedback would have positive impacts on the participants’ argumentative writing performance, i.e on audience awareness and purpose, content, ideas organization, and language features The researcher also wishes to know how participants’ attitudes are towards the teachers’ use of the types of feedback

In general, the current research looked into the effects of the teacher’s direct and indirect feedback on the learners’ argumentative essay writing and learners’ attitude towards the feedback in argumentative essay writing The study hopes to be able to improve insights into enhancing the quality of teaching argumentative essays in

a Vietnamese context

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1.2 AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

Concerning the challenges mentioned regarding second language writing pedagogy and the weight of relevant theories and studies on the positive relationship between the teachers’ use of direct and indirect feedback and learners writing performance on argumentative essay, the present study aims to investigate:

- The effects of teachers’ direct and indirect feedback on the learners' argumentative essays in terms of content, spellings and grammar;

- The learners’ attitudes towards the teacher’s use of direct and indirect feedback in teaching writing English argumentative essays

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

By conducting this study, the current study hopes that the teachers’ use of direct and indirect feedback could bring about positive effects on learners’ ability in writing argumentative essays Learners hold positive attitudes towards teachers’ use of direct and indirect feedback

The present study also hopes to contribute empirical evidence in a Vietnamese context about using direct and indirect feedback in teaching argumentative essays

1.4 ORGANIZATION OF THE RESEARCH

This study is comprised of five chapters: Introduction, Literature Review, Research Methodology, Results, and Discussions and Conclusions The structure of each chapter is described as follows

Chapter 1 provides a background of the study The chapter firstly addresses the rationale of the study Then follow presentation and discussion of the aims and significance of the study Finally, the organization of the study is presented

Chapter 2 reviews the literature relevant to direct and indirect feedback that teacher has used in teaching writing argumentative essays The chapter is divided into four main sections The first section presents various definitions of attitude Section two reviews the concepts, types, characteristics, structure of an argumentative essay, the rubrics for evaluating the argumentative essay The third part defines the differences between direct and indirect feedback The fourth section reviews related studies in the field under investigation This chapter ends up with a summary of literature and justification for the current study

Chapter 3 presents contents related to the methods employed in conducting this research The chapter firstly addresses the research questions and hypotheses The chapter then describes in detail the research design, variables, participants, research instruments, and intervention materials The chapter concludes with the summary of the procedures and the way data were analyzed in the research

Chapter 4 is concerned with the research findings and their interpretation in relation to the specific research questions raised in the study The chapter firstly deals with a detailed description and analysis on the quantitative results of the two tests in the study: pretest and post-test The chapter finally presents the participants’ attitudes towards the teachers’ use of direct and indirect feedback in learning argumentative writing in English

Chapter 5 summarizes and discusses the significant findings of the study, and a sequential outline of the study’s limitations, pedagogical implications and suggested avenues for related future research

This chapter has addressed the rationale, the aims, the significance, and the organization of the study The next chapter, Chapter 2, will review relevant literature and provide a theoretical framework for the present study

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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the literature relevant to direct and indirect feedback that teacher has used in teaching writing argumentative essays The chapter is divided into four main sections The first section presents various definitions of attitude Section two reviews the concepts, types, characteristics, structure of an argumentative essay; the rubrics for evaluating the argumentative essay The third part defines the differences between direct and indirect feedback The fourth section reviews related studies in the field under investigation This chapter ends up with a summary of literature and justification for the current study

2.1 ATTITUDE

In this study, “attitude” is defined as one’s inclinations and feelings, prejudice

or bias, pre-conceived notions, ideas, fears, threats, and convictions about any specified topic Eagly and Chaiken (1971) state that the cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that constitutes an individual’s belief about the object An effective response expresses an individual’s degree of preference of an entity Joy, love and happiness are three main factors that can be affected directly to one’s attitude Cacioppo (1994) considers attitude as the way to evaluate the perception of some person, object, or issue in general It is endured in a particular period of time or after any activity Aiken(1997) treats attitude as a response whether positively or negatively to a specific object, situation, institution, or person

Attitudes are a complex combination of personality, beliefs, values, behaviors, and motivation, Pickens (2005) Attitudes have three components:

- A cognitive component, consisting of thoughts and beliefs about the

attitudinal object;

- An emotional component, made up of feelings toward the attitudinal object;

- A behavioral component composed of predispositions concerning action toward the object

Bootzin,Bower and Zajonc (1987) state that a person’s attitude is affected byher

or his expectation, motivation, and previous experience Aiken (1997) mentions three characteristics of attitudes which consist of three components

- Cognitive (knowledge or intellective);

- Affective (emotional and motivational);

- Performance (behavioral and action)

Knowledge, emotion and behavior have represented as the three aspects of attitude based on three characteristics above These aspects will be used as the indicators to measure the attitude And according to Wood & Boyd (2007)attitudes are relatively stable evaluations of persons, objects, situations, orissues, along a continuum ranging from being positive to negative

Fredrickson (2013) states that joy is emerges when one’s current circumstances present unexpected good fortune When people receive good news or a pleasant surprise, they feel joy Love is appears to be the positive emotion people feel most frequently, arises when any other of the positive emotions is felt in the context of a safe, interpersonal connection or relationship Smaeeli (2013) states that happiness can

be defined in terms of the average level of satisfaction over a specific period, the frequency and degree of positive affect manifestations Mouly (1968) states that attitudes arise as byproducts of one’s day-to-day experiences or performance

In this study, attitude is viewed as reaction that learners have towards teacher’s direct and indirect feedbacks on writing English argumentative essays