Using indirect coded feedback to enhance efl writing skills for the 11th graders at can giuoc high school in long an province

Exploring the experiment with the application of direct written feedback and indirect coded feedback in two classes, collecting students’ attitudes for data analysis, and finding out the

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

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I hereby state that, I, La Thi Hong Phan, being the candidate for the degree

of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited

in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan, or reproduction of thesis

Ho Chi Minh City, December, 2019

La Thi Hong Phan

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could never have been finished without the helpful support of those to whom I would like to express my grateful thanks

First of all, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Dr Dang tan Tin, my thesis supervisor, who oriented my thesis in a right way, corrected my mistakes constructively and encouraged me with comprehensive guidance as well as solemn criticism throughout the time I did my thesis

My special thanks are reserved for my MTESOL classmates, who shared the happiness and difficulties with me in different courses I will hardly forget the memories and funny pictures that we all took together

I am also grateful to the high school managing board, the English teaching staff and all the 11th graders in the academic year of 2018 – 2019 at Can Giuoc high school in Long An province, whose willingness, enthusiasm, and encouragement supported me so much

I would like to express my gratitude to my dearest friend Nguyen Thi Kim Thuy Thanks for her presence, enthusiastic encouragement and honest advice which helps me overcome difficulties on the way of doing thesis

Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents, my relatives and especially my little daughter who always stayed by my side and gave me both material and spiritual support in order that I could stand firm in the face of difficulties and overcome them to see a positively brighter future

ABSTRACT Teaching writing with indirect coded feedback for high school students in order to help them develop their long-term writing skills is the main concern of this thesis Exploring the experiment with the application of direct written feedback and indirect coded feedback in two classes, collecting students’ attitudes for data analysis, and finding out the ways to improve the teaching of writing skills for language teachers are what the thesis aims at

The study is an explanatory and exploratory one with the assistance of quantitative figures The study was conducted on 70 high school students of grade

11 at Can Giuoc high school in Can Giuoc district, Long An province The participants were divided into two groups named the experimental and control group The experimental group was taught with indirect coded feedback whereas the control group was taught with direct written feedback during eighteen weeks During the training course, both groups took the same pre-test, post-test and practice tests of writing and then the experimental group answered the questionnaire regarding their attitudes towards the application of direct coded feedback in their writing class The result reveals that the teachers and students successfully applied indirect coded feedback in their writing class regardless of some difficulties that they encountered during the training process such as the lack

of time for students’ practice and the small scale of participants Additionally, students in experimental group showed positive attitudes towards the effectiveness

of indirect coded feedback on their writing skills

Based on the findings coming from the real factors of both teachers and students, suggestions are made to provide some kind of references to contribute to the improvement of teaching writing skills in Can Giuoc high school in particular and in other high schools in general

Keywords: indirect coded feedback, EFL writing skills, grade 11 students

TÓM TẮT Dạy kĩ năng viết sử dụng phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp bằng kí hiệu cho học sinh phổ thông để giúp học sinh có thể phát triển kĩ năng viết lâu dài là vấn đề chính được quan tâm trong bài nghiên cứu này Nghiên cứu những bài kiểm tra cái mà được áp dụng phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp trong hai lớp thực nghiệm, sưu tầm quan điểm của học sinh về quá trình học và tỉm ra những cách để nâng cao việc dạy

kĩ năng viết cho giáo viên tiếng Anh là những mục tiêu chính của bài nghiên cứu này

Bài nghiên cứu là một quá trình giải thích và tìm hiểu cùng với sự trợ giúp của những số liệu thực tế Bài nghiên cứu vận dụng những bài kiểm tra và bảng câu hỏi với sự tham gia của 70 học sinh trong hai lớp ở trường THPT Cần Giuộc Học sinh được chia thành hai nhóm, nhóm được dạy với phương pháp sửa lỗi trực tiếp

và nhóm đực dạy với phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp bằng kí hiệu Trong suốt 18 tuần của quá trình thực nghiệm, hai nhóm cùng làm bài kiểm tra đầu khóa, kiểm tra cuối khóa và các bài luyện tập để đánh giá sự tiến bộ của hai nhóm Trước khi học sinh làm bài kiểm tra cuối khóa, học sinh trong nhóm thực nghiệm sẽ trả lời bảng câu hỏi để thể hiện thái độ của học sinh với quá trình được dạy với phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp Kết quả thể hiện rằng giáo viên và học sinh đã áp dụng thành công phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp trong bài viết bất kể một số khó khăn họ gặp phải trong quá trình nghiên cứu như sự hạn chế về thời gian cho học sinh luyện tập và số lượng ít học sinh tham gia trong bài nghiên cứu Tuy nhiên, khi được dạy với phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp, học sinh thể hiện được sự tiến bộ trong khả năng viết của họ hơn là những học sinh được dạy với phương pháp truyền thống

Dựa trên sự tìm thấy được rút ra từ những yếu tố thực tế của giáo viên và học sinh, những gợi ý được thực hiện nhằm cung cấp tài liệu tham khảo đóng góp vào

sự nâng cao việc dạy học kĩ năng viết cho giáo viên ở trường THPT Cần Giuộc nói riêng và ở các trường phổ thông nói chung

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS i

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TÓM TẮT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURES xi

ABBREVIATIONS xi

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationales of the study 2

1.2 The purposes of the study 4

1.3 The research questions 5

1.4 Significance of the study 5

1.5 Organization of the thesis 6

1.6 Summary of the chapter 7

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Writing skills 8

2.1.1 Definition of writing skills 8

2.1.2 The importance of writing skills 9

2.1.3 Criteria for enhancing students’ writing skills 9

2.2 Corrective feedback 11

2.2.1 Definition of corrective feedback 11

2.2.2 The importance of corrective feedback 11

2.2.3 Types of corrective feedback 13

2.2.4 Sources of corrective feedback 15

2.3 Indirect coded feedback 17

2.3.1 Definition of indirect coded feedback 18

2.3.2 The importance of indirect coded feedback in writing 18

2.3.3 The effects of indirect coded feedback on writing improvement 19

2.3.4 Learners’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback on their writing assignments 20

2.4 Previous studies 23

2.4.1 Overview 23

2.4.2 Research gap 26

2.5 Summary of the chapter 27

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 28

3.1 Research questions 28

3.2 Research site 28

3.3 Background of the study 29

3.3.1 The school 29

3.3.2 The teaching staff 29

3.3.3 The curriculum and syllabus 30

3.3.4 The tests and the students 30

3.4 Participants 31

3.5 Materials 32

3.6 Training procedure for both control and experimental groups 34

3.6.1 Teaching plan for control group 34

3.6.2 Teaching plan for experimental group 36

3.7 Data collection instruments 37

3.7.1 The tests 37

3.7.2 The questionnaire 39

3.8 Data collection 42

3.9 Data analysis procedure 45

3.9.1 Pre-test and post-test 46

3.9.2 Questionnaire 47

3.10 Validity and reliability 47

3.10.1 Establishing the validity 48

3.10.2 Ascertaining the reliability 48

3.11 Summary of the chapter 49

Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 50

4.1 The results of the tests and the questionnaire 50

4.1.1 The tests’ results 50

4.1.2 Questionnaire’s results 57

4.2 Discussions 68

4.2.1 Findings on the improvement of students’ writing skills 69

4.2.2 Findings on students’ positive reflections on the application of indirect coded feedback 71

4.2.3 My writing lesson plan integrated with indirect coded feedback 73

4.3 Summary of the chapter 78

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 79

5.1 Important conclusions 79

5.2 Limitations of the study 80

5.3 Suggestions 80

5.3.1 Suggestions for administrators at Can Giuoc high school 80

5.3.2 Suggestions for language teachers 81

5.3.3 Suggestions for students 83

5.3.4 Suggestions for further research 83

5.4 Summary of the chapter 84

REFERENCE 85

APPENDIX 92

APPENDIX A: Error correction categories 92

APPENDIX B: Writing topics for both CG and EG 95

APPENDIX C: Lesson plan for teaching CG 97

APPENDIX D: Lesson plan for teaching EG 102

APPENDIX E: Students’ score report for CG 107

Appendix F: Students' score report for EG 108

APPENDIX G: The score report of students in EG on pre-test 109

APPENDIX H: The score report of students in EG on post-test 111

APPENDIX I: The score report of students in EG on practise tests 113

APPENDIX J: The score report of students in CG on pre-test 115

APPENDIX K: The score report of students in CG on post-test 117

APPENDIX L: The score report of students in CG on practise tests 119

APPENDIX M: Students’ questionnaire 121

APPENDIX N: Students’ questionnaire – Vietnamese version 124

APPENDIX O: Writing rubrics for marking students’ paper 128

APPENDIX P: Table of contents for teaching writing 133

APPENDIX Q: Pre-test 134

APPENDIX R: Practise test 1 135

APPENDIX S: Practise test 2 136

APPENDIX T: Practise test 3 137

APPENDIX U: Practise test 4 138

APPENDIX V: Post-test 139

APPENDIX W: Frequency of students’ attitudes towards learning with indirect coded feedback 140

APPENDIX X: The mean score of EG in each criterion in pre-test and post-test 151

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Types of corrective feedback 13

Table 3.1 Writing tasks for students in both groups 33

Table 3.2 Taxonomy of the questionnaire 41

Table 3.3 Data collection procedure 43

Table 4.1 Mean scores of writing pre-test for CG and EG 51

Table 4.2 T-test value of writing pre-test for CG and EG 51

Table 4.3 Mean scores of writing pre-post-test for CG 52

Table 4.4 Correlation and t-test value of writing pre-post-test for CG 53

Table 4.5 Mean scores of writing pre-post-test for EG 54

Table 4.6 Correlation and t-test value of writing pre-post-test for EG 54

Table 4.7 Mean scores of writing post-test for CG and EG 55

Table 4.8 T-test value of writing post-test for CG and EG 56

Table 4.9 Cronback’s coefficient alpha for the questionnaire 58

Table 4.10 Description of participants 59

Table 4.11 Descriptive statistics of the students’ affective attitudes 64

Table 4.12 Descriptive statistics of the students’ behavioral attitudes 64

Table 4.13 Descriptive statistics of the students’ cognitive attitudes 67

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 An example of using indirect coded feedback in student’s writing……18

Figure 2.2 A model of attitude formation……… 21

Figure 3.1 Pre-test and post-test design………40

Figure 4.1 Students’ self-evaluation in writing skills……… …………63

Figure 4.2 Students’ feelings in writing class……….… …64

Figure 4.3 Students’ response after being corrected writing mistakes………… …65

Figure 4.4 Ways to improve students’ writing skills………66

ABBREVIATIONS

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION English language plays an important role in every situations all over the world It is a universal language which is necessary in all aspects of life It is the language of science, information, technology, politics, economics and education (Hamdona, 2007) Therefore, ministries of education worldwide and educational institution try their best to design communicative curricular that enables their students to utilize this language skillfully, especially improve their productive skills like writing and speaking to communicate with the world thanks to their own source

of language

In order to express themselves in English, language learners have to communicate in English frequently and reach their accuracy in writing skills Writing accuracy is a target that language learners need to prepare for their examination as well as for their daily communication However, errors in written work can create negative effects on readers In order to get their writing improvement, language learners have to practice writing gradually and correct their mistakes by draft-writing and proof-reading In this step, students are able to correct writing mistakes by themselves or with the help from their teachers With small mistakes in vocabulary items or grammatical structures, students can self-correct and for more difficult ones, teachers can help them to solve their problems thanks to direct written feedback or indirect coded-feedback

Because of the fact that corrective feedback for mistakes in essay writing is very necessary for students, language teachers need to apply corrective feedback to help students enhance their writing skills There are many ways to provide corrective feedback for students to get the accuracy in their writings and each of them has their own real value; however, the effective pedagogical technique is indirect coded feedback (Sampson, 2012) In the scope of this study, direct written feedback and indirect coded feedback are employed in order to encourage students

to self-correct their writing mistakes In addition to this, both types of corrective

feedback will be compared based on students’ writing development in order to evaluate their effectiveness that they bring to students

1.1 Rationales of the study

Most of the students at Can Giuoc high school have to learn English as a major subjects but through personal communication with them, many claim that they are bored with their learning because of the following reasons Firstly, they think that English is an obligatory subject that they have to learn for the tests instead

of learning to improve their language skills that is really necessary at tertiary education The most important thing for them to do is passing the exams After a school year, they hardly remember what they have learnt during the semesters Secondly, textbooks for high school students including four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) but the contents of the exams mainly focus on the language practice and reading skills so that students learn inflexibly and unequally between language skills and practicing exercise through grammar rules; therefore, they do not find it interesting to learn although English is core subject in national examination Whether students like it or not, they are pushing on the way through the learning English, especially English grammar at high schools Thus, teachers’ job is to help students not only to master new English grammatical items but also not to forget what they have learnt in order to perform well in the exams regardless of their other language skills like listening, speaking or writing skills are improved or not

Additionally, even though students realize the importance of language skills especially writing skills in learning English, they tend to be too lazy to practice and improve this language skill Through my observation after 7 years teaching at Can Giuoc high school, I realize that during the classroom lesson, they just take notes or write down the things that teachers write on the board then they put them away or even give them away instead of keep them in their mind and reproduce the knowledge in writing paragraphs or essays As a result, students ignore and step backwards in learning writing skills because they are mainly focus on learning for

the tests including reading and grammar Students are often too lazy to write when they are given a topic for writing skills if teacher do not force them to do Therefore, it puts the pressure on language teachers because they need to find way

to activate and motivate their students in learning writing skills Students need to be active learners who think and construct the acquired knowledge but they seem to be more passive information receptors in their own learning process

After trying many ways to encourage students to develop writing skills such

as encouraging students to assess their own work, asking them to set themselves in targets, getting them to work in groups or pairs, I applied a teaching strategy that I learned at university when I was a freshman At that time, my English teacher utilized indirect coded feedback in order to get our involvement in learning writing skills With this method, all students in my class performed well and got improvement in writing Thus, I applied this corrective feedback for my students at high school with the hope that they will better in their writing as I myself and my classmates used to do at university Moreover, thanks to some previous studies conducted by other researchers, such as Ferris (2012), Hyland (2000), Sampson (2012), Hendrickson (1978), they all found that indirect coded feedback really brought positive effects to students in improving their writing skills All of them suggested that, teachers should apply indirect coded feedback in their writing class

in order to develop self-correction skills for students Consequently, they were able

to perform well in their written work and improved their writing skills gradually Therefore, the idea of using corrective feedback especially indirect coded feedback come to my mind and I decided to try this type of corrective feedback to help my students find interest in learning writing skills

To evaluate the effectiveness of indirect coded feedback, I carry out this study with a strong desire to estimate whether indirect coded feedback has positive effects on grade 11 students in learning writing skills

1.2 The purposes of the study

The purpose of the study consists of two main parts Firstly, this study intends to investigate the effectiveness of indirect coded feedback to improve grade

11 students writing skills Secondly, students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback is also explored thanks to the questionnaire

The experiment is conducted in order to help high school students improve their writing skills which is considered one of the most integral skills for language learners Writing accuracy not only requires spending time on practicing but it also

is influenced by pedagogical strategy in learning process Therefore, with indirect coded feedback, students are provided a very effective strategy so that they can reach the development in their writing skills With this type of corrective feedback, students have a chance to study with an innovative teaching technique that is usually applied for advanced class at university Besides that, teachers are able to examine the effects of indirect coded feedback on high school students’ perception

In the scope of an experimental study, it investigates the difference in students’ improvement in writing skills between the control group taught with direct written feedback and the experimental group taught with indirect coded feedback Students were trained how to recognize and self-correct their writing mistakes before asking for help from their classmates or language teachers

Moreover, the students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback are also investigated by the questionnaire after students were trained in a writing course with indirect coded feedback It is necessary to understand students’ perceptions towards the new corrective feedback – indirect coded feedback, compared to the traditional way – direct written feedback From that, teachers know how much students have learnt from indirect coded feedback as well as their attitudes towards this teaching technique are positive or negative Consequently, teachers can find out better solutions to help students to improve their writing skills

Generally, the main purpose of the thesis is to assess the effectiveness of a type of corrective feedback – indirect coded feedback – actually conducted at a high

school, particularly in the first semester at Can Giuoc high school This study investigates the application of indirect coded feedback which results the positive effects on high school students in a course of study Moreover, students’ attitudes towards this corrective feedback are highly appreciated in order to evaluate the appropriateness of indirect coded feedback on high school students in learning process

1.3 The research questions

This study is an attempt to identify the effects of indirect coded feedback for high school students It is intended to answer the following research questions:

1 To what extent does indirect coded feedback affect grade 11 students in writing skills?

2 What are grade 11 students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class?

1.4 Significance of the study

Practically, this study is expected to provide teachers with helpful information about the use of indirect coded feedback in terms of developing students’ writing skills By reflecting on how writing skills are improved with the assistance of indirect coded feedback, teachers are able to understand the learning process that engages the students and enables the students to be successful in writing classes Moreover, the study might provide other language teachers at Can Giuoc high school with an effective technique in teaching English writing skills It might also help to erase the doubt about the impacts of indirect coded feedback on students in learning writing skills at high school and appeal other studies on different ways to assist students’ learning

Additionally, high school students will be taught with a new and interesting corrective feedback that enhances their writing skills In fact, students are not used

to applying indirect coded feedback in their writing class because this corrective feedback hasn’t been applied in the language teaching at Can Giuoc high school If

the application of this indirect coded feedback gets expected results, students are able to develop their writing skills Therefore, the application of this indirect coded feedback will benefit them in terms of developing their writing skills

In spite of the fact that the application of indirect coded feedback is not innovative in the teaching context, the implementation this corrective feedback is not widely used at high schools, especially at Can Giuoc high school Therefore, this study will be considered to contribute a reference for language teachers at high school in general and language teachers at Can Giuoc high school in specific From this current study, language teachers know students’ difficulties in their writing skills and their attitudes towards applying indirect coded feedback in their writing class so that they can develop their teaching method As a result, teachers consider how to use appropriate types of materials and design suitable teaching activities in order to enhance students’ writing skills

All in all, this study is very significant for language teachers and students as well as it provides a reference for further studies that involve the application of indirect coded feedback in writing class

1.5 Organization of the thesis

The thesis is designed and presented in five chapters Chapter One, introduction, includes the rationales, the background, the significance, the purposes and the research questions, respectively In Chapter Two, the researcher reviews the relevant literature on giving feedback, kinds of feedback especially indirect coded feedback The literature on feedback will also be examined, including the importance of giving feedback on students’ learning improvement in writing skills and the impacts of indirect coded feedback on learning and developing writing skills In Chapter Three, the methodology used to conduct the study is described in details It presents the experiment, population and data collection After that, Chapter Four analyzes the data collected, in an attempt to provide a discussion in order to give the answers for the research questions Finally, Chapter 5 is considered

as a conclusion to sum up all the information presented in previous chapters and

provide suggestions for teaching writing skills with indirect coded feedback in the site of Can Giuoc high school

1.6 Summary of the chapter

This chapter presents the information of the rationales, the background information, the aims of the study as well as its significance All the information bases on the fact that there is a big problem for language teachers in teaching writing skills for students at high school Besides that, some features of Can Giuoc high school, language teachers, the curriculum and students are analyzed in order to set the ground for the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW With the purpose of making the research comprehensive and convincing, we now spend some time considering a few relevant concepts and ideas of some previous research, beginning with the literature on the term “writing skills”

2.1 Writing skills

This section includes the definition of writing skills, the importance of writing skills and criteria for evaluating writing skills All these parts are particularly clarified in order to set the theoretical background information for the study

2.1.1 Definition of writing skills

According to Ferris & Dana (2003), writing is the most important invention

in human history because it provides a record of information, beliefs, feelings, arguments, opinions, theories, ideas, etc Writing allows us to clarify the ideas and write them down; it enables us not only to communicate in written language, but also to leave a mark to communicate with future generations In order to develop writing skills, it is necessary to learn and practice day after day Additionally, writing is very significant in today’s educational system (Ferris & Dana, 2003) Therefore, developing writing skills for students especially high school students is necessary

According to Janet Emig (1977), writing represents a unique mode of learning because “it originates a verbal construct that is graphically recorded” This means that writing helps students to deepen their knowledge because they have to think about it prior to starting to use the words to generate ideas in their writing process Additionally, writing skills are important tools for students because they are very important with their work, their learning as well as develop their mental intellect In fact, writing helps students express their opinions, their knowledge and expresses who they are If students can express themselves in writing, they will be able to communicate well with readers thanks to their written work

2.1.2 The importance of writing skills

Writing is considered one of the most important skills for second language learners ( Lynch and Hudson, 1991, as cited in Grabe, 1991) and is one of the primary goals of early education (Hume & Snowling, 2011) Writing has attracted much attention from many researchers and experts due to several reasons (Richards

& Renandya, 2002) Firstly, writing provides different purposes such as knowledge, career or educational purposes In fact, the ability in writing a foreign language is quite necessary in most EFL situations It is an essential skill for a competent learner in today’s society (Human Resources and Social Development Canada, 2003) For pedagogical purposes, writing enhances language production It helps writers express their ideas, thoughts and feelings through their written work Secondly, by writing, learners can have a connection with other language skills like speaking, listening and reading To put it simply, writing is an interactive process of communication Finally, writing can promote learning and be an instrument by which learners can use to study other subjects (Far, Nurianfar & Gowhary, 2014) It all contributes to a conclusion that writing is a vital skill not only for mental development but also the learners’ academic achievement

2.1.3 Criteria for enhancing students’ writing skills

There are many ways to improve students’ writing skills which have been listed in other studies; however, according to Ferris (2006), four criteria which are considered the most important ones for students in enhancing their writing skills are task response, coherence and cohesion, lexical vocabulary and grammatical accuracy

First of all, task response in students’ written work is one of the most important criteria that students need to focus on when they start their writing In task response, students need to make an outline for their writing neatly so that all the writing task is completed in an order As Ferris (2006) claims that well-organized piece of writing should have a clearly-defined structure with an introduction, a body and a conclusion Moreover, in each part of their writing,

students need to develop a topic sentence which presents the main idea of the paragraph and some supporting ideas to explain for the topic sentence With the same process, in other pieces of writing, students also have to plan an outline for their writing carefully in order to form an outline with all parts connected logically

Secondly, coherence and cohesion also play an important role in enhancing students’ writing skills Coherence and cohesion involve the connection between each part or each sentence in a paragraph (Ferris, 2006) In order for a piece of writing to be coherent, there must be a logical flow of ideas from one clause, sentence, paragraph, or section to the next ones In order to make their writing coherent, students can use the transitions Transitions are used to clarify variety of links between ideas, such as causative relationships, temporal relationships, or similarities and differences (Ferris, 2006) Transitions can also be used to link a topic to supporting examples or evidences There are some typical transitions that students frequently use in their writing such as therefore, on the other hand, however, furthermore, likewise, etc Additionally, students should eliminate some irrelevant sentences in their writing in order to make their writing connected coherently because of the fact that irrelevant sentences make their writing redundant and lack of unity

Thirdly, lexical resource should be utilized appropriately in order to make students’ writing convey its meaning effectively In order to make their writing more colorful and attractive to readers, lexical resource is an important factor Lexical resource not only express students’ knowledge but it also expresses their ability to use vocabulary items skillfully Therefore, lexical resource should be expanded during students’ learning process They can improve their writing skills thanks to their source of vocabulary that they use in their writing Actually, students are unable to express themselves if they don’t have vocabulary resource

Finally, students need to use the grammatical structures accurately In fact, using correct grammatical structures is one of the most essential elements of writing According to Ferris (2006), applying correct grammatical structures

expresses students’ level in their writing Therefore, they need to learn grammatical structures and often use them correctly in their writing in order to reach the accuracy in grammar Using grammatical structures correctly is considered as an important factor to evaluate students’ improvement in writing skills In order to improve grammatical structures in writing, students need to apply the grammatical structures in writing appropriately for example use correct verbal forms, understand grammatical cases and use appropriate forms and show agreement between grammatical form

Developing writing skills for students is uneasy and needs a lot of time to improve gradually Therefore, with four criteria mentioned above, students have to practise all of them in order to enhance their writing skills

2.2 Corrective feedback

This part presents the definition of corrective feedback, the importance of corrective feedback, types of corrective feedback and sources of corrective feedback All of them provides all specific information in order to clarify the importance of corrective feedback in developing students’ writing skills

2.2.1 Definition of corrective feedback

According to Ferris (2006), corrective feedback is considered to be any written comment or feedback geared toward improving linguistic accuracy It is believed among teachers that if a teacher indicates a written grammatical error on a students’ paper and provided the correct form in one or another way, the students will realize the error and will not repeat it in his/ her future writings Thus, the ability of writing accuracy will be improved

2.2.2 The importance of corrective feedback

There are many researchers exploring the importance of corrective feedback

on students’ writing development These studies reported that corrective feedback provides a potential value in motivating students to revise their draft (Leki, 1991; Saito, 1994; Zhang, 1995) and in improving their writing (Fathman & Whalley,

1990) As a result, corrective feedback is the most popular method that teachers use

to interact and communicate with students in their written work (Fathman & Whalley, 1990)

Corrective feedback motivates students to correct and revise their writing With corrective feedback from teacher, students are able to think critically and self-regulate their own learning (Strake & Kumar, 2010) When their writing is identified with corrective feedback, students will tend to be motivated to correct their writing mistakes It is believed that corrective feedback acts as a compass which provides a sense of direction for students to correct their written work and to tell that their writing goals are achievable

Additionally, corrective feedback can be considered as an important process for the improvement of writing skills for students (Hyland, 1990) This is because corrective feedback contains heavy information load which offers suggestions to facilitate improvement and provides opportunities for interaction between teacher and students (Hyland, 2006) Feedback can be defined as writing extensive comments on students’ texts to provide reader response to students’ efforts and at the same time helping them improve and learn as writers (Hyland, 2003) Teacher provides corrective feedback to help students to read and understand the problem Afterwards, students can use corrective feedback to improve their future writing Thus, written feedback is widely used to teach language writing skills that help students improve their writing gradually Besides that, corrective feedback is used

to assist and support students in producing written work which contains minimum errors and maximum clarity

Because of the importance of corrective feedback in students’ learning process, teachers need to motivate and engage students in their writing with corrective feedback so that they feel that they want to write and improve their writing skills

2.2.3 Types of corrective feedback

According to Ellis (2008), there are many types of corrective feedback and each type has its own value in providing a correction for student’s errors in their writing It means that each type of corrective feedback has an impact on students if they pay all their attention to it In his study, Ellis (2008) presented a typology of corrective feedback for correcting linguistic errors in students’ written work

Table 2.1 Types of corrective feedback Types of corrective

e.g Lalande (1982) and Robb et al (1986)

- Use of error code

The teacher indicates that

an error exists but does not provide the correction

This takes the form of underlining and use of cursors to show omission

in the student’s text

This takes the form of an indication in the margin that an error or errors have taken place in a line of text

Teacher writes codes in the margin (e.g ww = wrong word; art = article)

Various studies have

correction of this kind (e.g Ferris and Roberts (2001), Chandler (2003))

employed this method (e.g Robb et al (1986)) Various studies have examined the effects of using error codes (e.g Lalande (1982), Ferris and Roberts (2001), Chandler (2003))

Teacher numbers errors in

grammatical description for each numbered error at the bottom of the text

compared the effects of direct corrective feedback and direct corrective feedback + metalinguistic corrective feedback

of errors to correct This distinction can be applied

to each of the above options

Electronic feedback The teacher indicates and

error and provides a

concordance file that provides examples of correct usage

e.g Milton (2006)

Reformulation This consists of a native

speaker’s reworking of the students’ entire text to make the language seem

as native-like as possible while keeping the content

of the original intact

e.g Sachs and Polio

effects of direct correction and reformulation on students’ revisions of their text

2.2.4 Sources of corrective feedback

In their learning process to improve writing skills, students need corrective feedback from teachers, peers or students’ self-correction that are really helpful and significant for students in developing their writing skills (Lee, 2008) These all sources of feedbacks have positive influence on students’ long-term writing development In the scope of this section, three main sources of error correction will

be discussed They are teacher feedback, peer feedback, and students’ correction

Firstly, it is widely known that teacher correction is frequently applied by language teachers Zacharias (2007) remarks that teachers are considered more competent in terms of language and knowledge, and more experienced in writing and providing feedback However, Lee (2008) claimed that even though learners think that their teacher’s feedback serves mainly to inform them of their errors, they

do not realize the significance it has for their writing However, learners greatly value teacher correction; therefore, it still remain the importance in writing classes

Secondly, peers’ feedback or in other words, the competent learners scaffold weaker ones and help their progression through the zone of proximal development (Vysgotsky, 1918) It means that the good students will help the weaker ones to improve their writing skills gradually It can; therefore, be a good way to engage learners and encourage them to read their peers’ written compositions, provide comments and point out the mistakes Consequently, this classroom technique

where learners correct each other, rather than the teacher doing this has become greatly popular Numerous practical benefits of peer response for language learners have been suggested by Ferris (2003)

(1) Students gain confidence, perspective, and critical thinking skills from being able to read texts by peers on similar tasks

(2) Students get more feedback on their writing than they could get from the teacher alone

(3) Students get feedback from a more diverse audience bringing multiple perspectives

(4) Students receive feedback from non-expert readers on ways in which their texts are unclear as to ideas and language

(5) Peer review activities build a sense of classroom activity

Many researchers argues that peer correction results in learners’ writing accuracy in written expression and creates a better classroom atmosphere for language learning Similarly, Hansen and Liu (2005, as cited in Lundstrom & Baker, 2008) emphasize that peer correction enhances learners’ perception of the written work and gives them the chance to practice English in a meaningful context while offering a “meaningful interaction with peers, a greater exposure to ideas, and new perspectives on the writing process” Equally important, Hyland (2006) claims that peer feedback is seen as a way of giving more control to learners since it allows them to make active decisions about whether or not to use their peers’ comments as opposed to a passive reliance on teachers’ feedback Additionally, according to Hyland (2006) peer feedback may make learners less reliant on teacher feedback by helping them to internalize an audience and a checklist of evaluative questions to apply to their writing Therefore, peer correction makes learners have responsibility

in their language acquisition, instead of following their teacher’ written corrective feedback Undeniably, peer-correction provides chances for learners to provide constructive feedback, and respond to their peers’ written compositions Above all,

that is the greatest gift teachers can give to their learners It is the opportunity to take charge of their own learning

Thirdly, self-correction technique encourages language learners to correct any mistakes they have made in their written compositions on their own Self-correction not only makes the correction more difficult, but it’s also more significant for the learners because they students have to correct their writing mistakes by themselves Makino (1993) asserts that self-correction is believed to encourage learners’ involvement and responsibility while activating their linguistic competence By this way, the teacher encourages learners to take responsibility for their own writing Because learners have to self-correct their own mistakes, they do not depend on the teachers, which helps them improve their language acquisition Therefore, self-correction encourages independence from the teacher and gives the student more motivation and confidence

With all sources of corrective feedback mentioned above, although teacher correction is still the main feedback activity, peer correction and self-correction can

be applied successfully in classroom in order to enhance learners’ writing practice Therefore, language teachers should utilize sources of feedback in appropriate teaching and learning environment in order to take all advantages of feedback in developing students’ writing skills

2.3 Indirect coded feedback

In this part, all information about indirect coded feedback will be presented They includes definition of indirect coded feedback, the importance of indirect coded feedback in writing, the effects of indirect coded feedback on language acquisition and learners’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback on their assignments All of them are the main parts that create the theoretical background for the study to be developed

2.3.1 Definition of indirect coded feedback

Indirect coded feedback is the indication of error done by a symbol representing a specific kind of error ( T= verb tense, Sp= spelling…) (Lee, 2004) It’s a process of giving feedback by teacher after students finish their writing on a given topic at regular intervals (daily or weekly) Students then self-edit their texts and return them to the teacher for additional feedback, and the process is repeated until the draft is error free and reaches an established level of accuracy Students also keep records of their errors to help them see, study, and correct personal patterns of error and thus move toward autonomy as independent self-editor (Ferris, 2012) For editing a paper with indirect coded feedback on, students are required both to identify the type of error and to self-correct the errors whereas in direct written feedback what students does is only to transcribe the teacher’s corrections into the paper (Ferris, 2003)

For instance, we have the following demonstration of indirect coded feedback

Figure 2.1 An example of using indirect coded feedback in student’s writing 2.3.2 The importance of indirect coded feedback in writing

As Lalande (1982) claims in his study, indirect coded feedback is often preferred to direct written feedback on the grounds that it caters to “guided learning

and problem solving” and encourage students to reflect about linguistic form For these reasons, it is considered more likely to lead to long-term learning (Ferris, 2006) In their studies, they suggested that indirect coded feedback really brought more effects to students in terms of encouraging them correct their writing mistakes Moreover, with indirect coded feedback where the exact of correction is not shown

by teacher, students will have to engage deeper in the correction process Actually, students are motivated because they pay all their attention to the errors when they are identified but not corrected by their teacher Students are able to develop their self-correction skills thanks to the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class Additionally, with indirect coded feedback, students have an improvement in their subsequent piece of writing (Lalande, 1982) This means that students taught with indirect coded feedback made efforts to improve their writing skills They can perform better in their writing gradually These are important factors that prove the significance of indirect coded feedback in students’ writing skills

2.3.3 The effects of indirect coded feedback on writing improvement Many researches had explored the importance of indirect coded feedback in students’ writing improvement Thus, many researchers turned their studies in favor

of indirect coded feedback rather than direct written feedback because indirect coded feedback helps students reduce writing mistakes and develop self-correction skill in order for students improve their writing skills (Sampson, 2012)

According to Emig (1977), an increasing number of studies have been investigating indirect coded feedback are more likely than others to help students improve accuracy in their writing The accuracy in students’ writing is expressed through the decrease of writing mistakes in students’ written work Students not only make less mistakes in grammatical accuracy and lexical resource but it also reduce the mistakes in cohesion and coherent with the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class In his study, Ferris (2001) revealed that over the course of the semester, students who received indirect coded feedback reduced their

error frequency ratios substantially more than those who received direct written feedback This means that indirect coded feedback really brought positive effects to students in terms of improving students’ writing accuracy

Moreover, with the application of indirect coded feedback in writing class, students are able to develop their self-correction skill With self-correction skill, students can correct their writing mistakes instead of asking for help from teachers

or peers According to Ferris (2001), applying indirect coded feedback for error correction will necessarily call for sufficient linguistic knowledge possessed by students to self-correct errors and also get used to self-edit their own text In line with Ferris (2001), Hyland (2000) states that indirect coded feedback enhances self-regulated learning This means that students self-regulated their own learning thanks

to their own source of knowledge Thus, indirect coded feedback is considered as a compass for students to self-correct their writing mistakes and from that they develop their self-correction ability

Generally, indirect coded feedback really brings positive effects to students writing improvement With the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class, students enhance their writing ability Therefore, indirect coded feedback can be applied widely in writing class in order to help students improve their writing skills

2.3.4 Learners’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback on their writing assignments

1 Definition of attitudes

Up to the present, researchers on learners’ attitudes have agreed that attitudes play an important role in learning It is also a vital factor of second language learning Jung (1971) says that attitudes are used to act and react in a certain way when the spirit is ready Moreover, Sakui and Gaies (1999) give a definition of attitudes as central constructs in every discipline in which human behavior and learning are dealt with Additionally, Brown (2001) says that emotional factors such

as feelings, self, relationships in the community affect considerably learners’

language learning Therefore, there are a number of ways to define attitude In the purposes of this present study, the researcher would like to explore students’ attitudes towards specific object, namely indirect coded feedback Thus, the researcher prefers the definition of attitude according to Eagly and Chaiken (1998) with “Attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor”

2 Components of attitudes

ABC model is one of the most cited models of attitude (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998) ABC model suggests that attitude has three elements: affect, behavior and cognition Affect denotes the individual’s feelings about an attitude object Behavior denotes the individual’ intention towards an attitude object Cognition denotes the belief an individual has about an attitude object

a Affective attitude: helps the learners to express strong feelings and emotions such as “likes” or “dislike”, “with” or “against”

b Behavioral attitude: deals with creating the link past behaviors with existing actions or leading to particular behavioral intention

c Cognitive attitude: involves learners’ beliefs and ideas or opinions which reinforce the attitude

The following model presents three attitudinal components:

Figure 2.2: A model of attitude formation (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998)

In this study, the researcher tries to explore students’ attitudes to see their opinions, feelings, and behaviors towards indirect coded feedback Therefore, Eagly and Chaiken’s (1998) components of attitudes will be applied in this research

Affective component

Cognitive component

Behavioral component

Attitude towards objects or entities

3 Learners’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback on their writing assignments

A wide range of research has shown that learners’ attitude plays a key role in learning a second language (Garder, 1985) According to Garder (1985) attitudes in second language learning embrace three main elements: a desire to learn the language, effort expended towards learning the language, and favourable attitudes towards learning the language And, research also revealed that corrective feedback, especially indirect coded feedback can assist and encourage students to develop their writing accuracy Despite some negative impacts, indirect coded feedback results the positive response for students Students will feel more confident and motivated to write after being given with indirect coded feedback from their teacher

Firstly, language learners find that indirect coded feedback is very helpful for them With indirect coded feedback on their written work, they can recognize and self-correct their mistakes; therefore, they gain confidence in their writing It is generally agreed that learners have been taught that mistakes and errors are clear indication that they are not good enough or smart enough Hyland (1998) points out that writing is a personal activity that learners’ motivation and self-confidence are affected by the feedback they receive Hendrickson (1978) believes that correct feedback produced by second language learners improve their foreign language proficiency more than if their errors would remain uncorrected If they can recognize and self-correct their own mistakes, they will feel more confident in their writing As a result, they will reach the accuracy and have inspiration in their learning process

Secondly, indirect coded feedback engages students in their writing lessons

In other words, students are motivated in their writing skills after being corrected their mistakes with indirect coded feedback As Semke (1984) emphasizes indirect coded feedback is considered to be the most appreciated by learners Also, Cardelle and Corno (1981, as cited in Saito, 1994) suggest that indirect coded feedback along

with specific comments on errors may be an effective way to motivate students to improve their writing And, Moffett (1994, as cited in Jacobset al., 1998) highlights the need for teachers to be consultants who encourage and guide learners to use peer and self-directed feedback, stand ready to intervene with the necessary support This means that thanks to teacher’s encouragement and support, students feel motivated

to self-correct their writing mistakes or collaborate with their friends or teachers in order to solve their problems in writing

Generally, students have positive attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class Thanks to indirect coded feedback, language learners really gain confidence and have motivation in their learning in order to improve their writing skills day after day

2.4 Previous studies

2.4.1 Overview

Writing mistakes seem to be unavoidable for second language learners, language teachers; therefore, have to find some strategies in order for them to self-correct their own mistakes One of the effective ways that teachers have employed

to help their students is indirect coded feedback In writing class, language learners are likely to familiarize with direct written feedback It means that teacher correct students’ mistakes with the correct forms written directly above each error on their paper However, according to Lee (2004), this corrective feedback does not bring students many effects in developing their writing accuracy Therefore, in this study, the researcher has applied indirect coded feedback which is considered an effective corrective feedback in encouraging language learners to recognize and correct their writing mistakes

According to Lee (2004), coded feedback is the indication of the errors done

by a symbol representing a specific kind of error ( T = verb tense, Sp = spelling, etc.) (see Appendix for the full list of codes) For more advanced classes, some teacher develop systems of these abbreviations which they regularly write in the margin to indicate different kinds of errors For editing a paper with indirect coded

feedback on, students are required both to identify the types of errors and to correct the errors whereas in direct feedback what students do is only to transcribe the teacher’s corrections into the paper (Ferris, 2003) Sampson (2012) claimed that self-repair is more likely to bring out acquisition than other-repair since it is less likely to result in a negative affective response While self-correction triggered by the code cannot truly be termed self-repair – it is self-completed, but other-initiated – it can still be argued that this is preferable in affective terms to uncoded correction, which is other-initiated and other-completed With this corrective feedback, teachers are able to apply indirect coded feedback in stages that really affect language learners in their writing

self stage 1 – (elementary) underlined the mistakes and write the symbols in the margin

- Stage 2 – underline the whole word/ phrase and write the symbols in the margin

- stage 3 – do not underlined the word or the mistakes; only write the symbols in the margin

- stage 4 – (exam classes) put a dot or X in the margin for each mistake (Sampson, 2012)

There are many researches that have proved indirect coded feedback is more helpful on students’ long-term writing development than direct written feedback Based on cognitive and second language acquisition theories and corrective feedback, Kurzer (2018) has provided readers the foundation and reasons why dynamic written corrective feedback is his integral technique utilized in his study The participants included 325 university students at different levels (intermediate, advanced) The author applied experimental quantitative method in his study with some specific features that were totally different from those of former studies This study investigated the role of dynamic written corrective feedback, a mode of providing specific, targeted, and individualized grammar feedback in developmental English Kurzer’s study has shown that students who experimented dynamic written

corrective feedback were better at self-correction and self-edition for their writing essays in an allotted time setting

In another research, Sampson (2012) showed that coded error feedback has helped students to recognize and correct mistakes in their written works Additionally, students are able to produce correct forms in subsequent pieces of writing The participants were 10 students from three related academic disciplines They were divided into two groups of five at the beginning of the semester and they were taught at the same number of writing periods per week, the same course and the same teacher After four weeks of experiment, the result has shown that two types of feedback brought positive effects to learner’s writing ability; however, indirect coded feedback was more successful

In line with previous studies, Sevgi and Dogan (2007) conducted their study for both groups of Turkish university students The intermediate participants were

37 students (21 in Indirect Coded Feedback Group and 16 in Direct Feedback Group) studying in two EFL writing classes in a Turkish university While one group of students received direct written feedback and the other group received indirect coded feedback The objectives of their study were to clarify the effects of indirect coded feedback and direct feedback on students’ improvement in academic writing essays They suggested that both groups of students developed their language writing skills properly; however, the total number of errors that indirect coded feedback group performed were less than those of the direct feedback

All previous studies have withdrawn a variety of valuable findings As a result of the experiment, the studies showed that indirect coded feedback was better than direct written feedback Kurzer (2018) identified the positive merits of dynamic written corrective feedback in developing students’ self-editing ability, especially dynamic written corrective feedback may be an effective corrective strategy for all types of feedback In the result, Sevgi & Dogan (2007) claimed the indirect coded feedback group committed few errors than the group taught with direct feedback and the students were likely to make fewer mistakes in their writing

In addition to this, Sampson (2012) suggested teachers should combine two types of feedback in order to provide appropriate depth of feedback even though coded feedback was superior

2.4.2 Research gap

Although studies on the effects of indirect coded feedback on students’ writing skills are numerous, very few studies have explored the impacts of indirect coded feedback on high school students’ writing development as well as their attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class Many studies investigated the effects of indirect corrective feedback that seemed to

be overestimated in comparison with the effects of the traditional one – direct written feedback In most of the studies mentioned above, namely the studies by Kurzer (2018), Sampson (2012) and Sevgi and Dogan (2007), the researchers indicated the positive effects that indirect coded feedback brought to students Therefore, the current study tries to bridge the gap from previous studies by exploring the impacts of indirect coded feedback on high school students’ writing development and their attitudes expressed after being taught with indirect coded feedback in their writing class

In terms of participants, according to Lee (2004), there are a large number of factors that impact the result of indirect coded feedback on students’ writing development and one of them is learners’ language proficiency level In most of previous studies, the data was collected from university students with their English level ranged from intermediate to advanced level According to Sampson (2012), the symbols in coded feedback may raise intermediate-level learners’ awareness of appropriate mistakes, but have little effect on elementary learners, whose inter-language is probably not yet ready to acquire such input However, for high school students, they are able to correct their writing mistakes thanks to coded feedback approach According to the regulations from the MOET, high school students have

to reach the level B1 for their language proficiency after graduating from high school With level B1, students are capable of performing their language ability in

all four skills especially their writing that is considered one of the common way to evaluate students’ ability Therefore, this present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the effects of indirect coded feedback on writing development of high school students, especially the 11th graders

Many previous studies attempted to investigate the effects of indirect coded feedback on students in different contexts such as Turkey, Colombia, America, China However, the effects of indirect coded feedback on high school students’ writing skills have not been explored in the context of Vietnam, especially at Can Giuoc high school in Long An province This current study was designed to find out the effects of indirect coded feedback in the local context

All mentioned issues above altogether became the research gap that drove the researcher to conduct the present study that aimed at exploring the impacts of indirect coded feedback on grade 11 students and their attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class It is intended to answer the following research questions

1 To what extent does indirect coded feedback affect grade 11 students in writing skills?

2 What are grade 11 students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class?

2.5 Summary of the chapter

This chapter presents the literature review of the study It is based on the ideas revealed in previous studies conducted by other authors The study was carried out on the ground established by previous studies but with some distinctive features in order to make this study different from the others The information in research gap was stated so as to express the development of this study thanks to the positive features of other studies approved by other previous authors

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY This chapter is considered as methodology of conducting the study, including the research questions, the experiment, the population, data collection instruments designed for the study

3.1 Research questions

As mentioned in Chapter One, the purposes of the study are to find out the effects of indirect coded feedback on student at Can Giuoc high school in improving their writing skills and to find out students’ attitudes towards the application of this teaching strategy in language teaching for high school students This study was guided by the following research questions:

1 To what extent does indirect coded feedback affect grade 11 students in writing skills?

2 What are grade 11 students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback in their writing class?

3.2 Research site

The study was carried out at Can Giuoc high school, located in Can Giuoc district in Long An province In the academic year 2018 – 2019, the school had around one thousand students at three grades, including grade 10, 11 and 12 Most

of students at Can Giuoc high school were at low level in English proficiency due to the current situation of learning English in rural areas Together with other subjects, English was a compulsory subject, following the National English Program of Vietnamese Educational System Because of the importance and significance of English subject, it made up four main periods in the morning and two tutoring periods in the afternoon every week During the semester, students had to deal with different kinds of tests in English and their average score must be over 3.5 at the end of the school year

3.3 Background of the study

3.3.1 The school

The current study took place at a public high school, named Can Giuoc, in Long An province Can Giuoc is a small town located in the rural area, thirty kilometers from Ho Chi Minh city This school was constructed since 1955 and rebuilt since 2007 with 24 classrooms equipped with lights, fans, cameras, magnetic blackboards and protective screens which prevent students from the sunlight through the windows Besides, the school manages the students well by its own rules and regulations and always fosters close collaboration with their parents through regular meetings The physical conditions are good enough for students to learn except for the fact that there are too many students, normally forty-five students in each class In addition, the classroom is arranged with long desks stuck with the benches and put in straight rows This makes the students difficult to move when they work in groups, join games or even go to the blackboard

3.3.2 The teaching staff

The number of English teachers at Can Giuoc high school is eight members, aged from thirty-one to forty-five Most of them have taught at this high school for over seven years Therefore, they have experienced in teaching English They all live in the town and work together with close relationship and in a convenient working environment in which teaching facilities and disciplines are better than those of other schools in the province However, each of them has to teach seventeen periods per week at school and some extra periods organized by the board

of the managers so they have much time and energy to invest on their teaching They seems to be ready to try out new teaching methods

Moreover, English teachers at Can Giuoc high school have to work under pressure of workload The pressures come from the score of students after each examination and competitive working environment As far as I concerned, the students always hope that they get good marks and achieve excellent results in the exams Therefore, the teachers should try their best to find out the ways to lead their