Luận văn corrective feedback on writing of second year english majored students a case study at da lat university

BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITYPOSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE Ba Ria Vung Tau, March 2021 MASTER'S THESIS REPORT Student's name: NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN Sex: Female Date of birth: June 7th, 1995 Plac

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY

BARIA VƯNGTAƯ

UNIVERSITY

CAP SAINT JACQUES

NGUYỄN PHAN NHẬT NGUYÊN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY

BARIA VƯNGTAƯ

UNIVERSITY

CAP SAINT JACQUES

NGUYỄN PHAN NHẬT NGUYÊN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT

UNIVERSITY

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of TESOL

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF NGUYỄN TẤT THẮNG

BA RIA - VUNG TAU, 2021

The thesis entitled CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR

successfully defended and approved on at Ba Ria Vung Tau University

Academic supervisor: Assoc Prof Nguyen Tat Thang

5 Dr Nguyễn Hoàng Tuấn

On behalf of the Examination

Committee

Chair

(full name, title, signature)

ChairReader 1Reader 2MemberSecretary Member

BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY

POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE

Ba Ria Vung Tau, March 2021

MASTER'S THESIS REPORT

Student's name: NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN Sex: Female

Date of birth: June 7th, 1995 Place of birth: Lam Dong Province

Major: TESOL Student's code: 18110097

I- Thesis title:

CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR

ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY

II- Objectives and contents:

The study aims at investigating the way that teachers at Dalat University treatstudents' errors in their writing and students' attitudes towards corrective feedback inwriting The specific objectives are as follows:

- To find out the strategies that teachers at Dalat University use when givingcorrective feedback in students' writing

- To discover students' attitudes towards written corrective feedback

This study was conducted at Da Lat university In order to find out strategies thatteachers at Dalat University used when giving corrective feedback in students' writing,the researcher collected 60 students' writing pieces for analysis With an aim ofdiscovering

students' attitudes towards written corrective feedback, theresearcher asked 271 students to answer the questionnaire and

12 students to join in the interview

The researcher utilized the mixed-method approach to collect the data In terms of dataanalysis, the author used SPSS software and content analysis to analyze the data

III- Starting date: (as stated in the Decision issued by the University )

IV- Completing date: V- Academic supervisor: ASSOC PROF NGUYEN TAT THANG

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the thesis “CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON WRITING OF SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS: A CASE STUDY AT DA LAT UNIVERSITY” is my work.

No other person's work has been used without acknowledgment in the thesis.This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in anyother tertiary institution

Ba Ria - Vung Tau, March 2021

NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I, Nguyen Phan Nhat Nguyen, being a candidate for the degree of Master ofTeaching English to Speakers of Other Languages accept the requirement of theUniversity relating to the retention and use of Master's Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master's Thesisdeposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, inaccordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan,and reproduction for theses

Ba Ria - Vung Tau, March 2021

NGUYEN PHAN NHAT NGUYEN

Furthermore, my gratefulness is given to my parents for their encouragement andsupports which allow me to complete this research.

My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleagues at DLU who assisted me

to carry out this thesis and to the second-year English-majored students at DLU forgiving me such attention and time This research could be completed thanks to theirhelp

The study searched for the written corrective feedback (WCF) practices of DLUteachers and the attitudes of English-majored students towards WCF In order to findout which corrective feedback types were used by DLU teachers, 60 samples ofstudents' writing were collected for analysis 271 second-year English-majored studentsfrom the Faculty of Foreign Languages participated in the study In order to collect datafrom the students, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were applied Thestudy illustrated that a combination of WCF types was applied by the teachers at DLUincluding direct WCF, indirect WCF and metalinguistic WCF Among the three types ofWCF, indirect WCF was used most frequently Besides, the study found that teachers atDLU applied unfocused written corrective feedback when dealing with students' errors

In terms of the attitudes of DLU students towards WCF, the study is based on Wenden's(1991) framework Three components of attitude involving cognitive, affective,behavior components were investigated To be more specific, the study looked forstudents' thinking about the importance of WCF, students' feeling about WCF andstudents' reactions when receiving WCF With the aim of improving the effectiveness ofWCF in teaching, some implications for teachers and stakeholders were also included inthe study

Key words: error, writing, corrective feedback, written corrective feedback, students'

attitudes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iv

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT vi

ABSTRACT vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

viii LIST OF TABLES xii

LIST OF CHARTS

xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

xiv CHAPTER 1 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the Study 1

1.2 Statement of the Problem 4

1.3 Research Purposes and Objectives of The Study 5

1.4 Research Questions 5

1.5 Scope of the Study 5

1.6 Significance of the Study 6

1.7 Definition of key terms 6

1.8 Organization of The Thesis 7

CHAPTER 2 8

LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Introduction 8

2.2 Errors 8

2.2.1 Definition 8

2.2.2 The Role of Errors 9

2.2.3 Types of Errors 10

2.3 Attitude 10

2.4 Corrective Feedback 12

2.4.1 Whether Errors Should be Corrected 13

2.4.1.1 Negative Perspectives towards Corrective Feedback 13

2.4.1.2 Positive Perspectives towards Corrective Feedback 14

2.4.2 The Best Time to Give Corrective Feedback 15

2.4.3 The Types of Errors that Should be Corrected 16

2.4.4 The Best Way to Give Corrective Feedback 17

2.4.5 The Person Who Should Give Corrective Feedback 19

2.5 Written Corrective Feedback 20

2.5.1 The Role of Written Corrective Feedback 20

2.5.2 Direct and Indirect Written Corrective Feedback 24

2.5.3 Focused and Unfocused Written Corrective Feedback 26

2.5.4 Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback 28

2.6 Related Studies 30

2.6.1 Studies on Written Corrective Feedback Practices 30

2.6.2 Studies on Students' Attitudes towards Written Corrective Feedback 33

CHAPTER 3 39

METHODOLOGY 39

3.1 Research Design 39

3.2 Participants 40

3.2.1 Students 40

3.2.2 Teachers 41

3.3 Research Instruments 41

3.3.1 Students' Writing Pieces 41

3.3.2 Questionnaire 42

3.3.3 Interview 42

3.4 Data Collection 43

3.5 Data Analysis Procedure 44

3.6 Validity and Reliability 45

CHAPTER 4 47

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 47

4.1 The Practices of Teachers' Written Corrective Feedback 47

4.1.1 Indirect Written Corrective Feedback 47

4.1.2 Direct Written Corrective Feedback 49

4.1.3 Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback 51

4.1.4 Focused and Unfocused Written Corrective Feedback 52

4.2 Students' Attitudes towards Written Corrective Feedback 54

4.2.1 Cognitive Beliefs of Students towards Written Corrective Feedback 54

4.2.2 Affective States of Students towards Written Corrective Feedback 58

4.2.2.1 The Person that Students Like to Give Them Corrective Feedback 60

4.2.2.2 The Amount of Feedback that Students Liked to Receive 63

4.2.2.3 The Written Corrective Feedback Techniques that Students Preferred 64

4.2.3 Behavioral Component of Students' Attitudes towards WCF 67

4.3 Summary 74

CHAPTER 5 76

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 76

5.1 Recapitulation 76

5.2 Implications 77

5.2.1 Implications for Teachers 77

5.2.2 Implications for Stakeholders 79

5.3 Limitations 79

5.4 Recommendations for Further Research 80

References 81

APPENDICES 92

APPENDIX 1: THE SPECIFICATION OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE 92

APPENDIX 2: THE SPECIFICATION OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 95

APPENDIX 3: AN EXAMPLE OF A STUDENT'S WRITING 96

APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese version) 97

APPENDIX 5: QUESTIONNAIRE (English version) 100

APPENDIX 6: VIETNAMESE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT 103

APPENDIX 7: ENGLISH INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT 111

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3 1: Reliability of the questionnaire

455 Table 4 1: Students' attitudes towards the necessity of WCF 54

Table 4 2: Students attitudes towards the effect of WCF on their writing skill 54

Table 4 3: The effect of WCF on students' self-learning 56

Table 4 4: Students' attitudes towards the helpfulness of WCF 57

Table 4 5: Students' liking to WCF 58

Table 4 6: Students' preference level on the person giving WCF 61

Table 4 7: Students' preference level on the amount of WCF 63

Table 4 8: Students' preference level on different types of WCF 65

Table 4 9: The frequency of activities that students do when receiving WCF 67

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4 1: Written corrective feedback used by the teachers 47

Chart 4 2: Whether students commit errors again after receiving WCF 55

Chart 4 3: Students' agreement level about the statement “Written corrective feedback helps me notice my weaknesses” 55

Chart 4 4: The effect of WCF on students' learning motivation 59

Chart 4 5: Students' preference level on correcting errors by themselves 62

Chart 4 6: How often do students learn more about their errors 69

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

English as a Foreign LanguageEnglish as a Second LanguageCorrective Feedback

Written Corrective Feedback

Da Lat UniversityStatistical Package for the Social Sciences

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study

According to The Economist, English is the most widely spoken languageworldwide Among English speakers, a significant number of people use it as a secondlanguage

With the integration of Vietnam into the global economy, the Vietnamese arerequired to be able to use English fluently Therefore, teaching and learning Englishhave become the top priority Among major language skills, writing is considered achallenging one for various Vietnamese students Mustafa, Mulya, and Syamsul (2017)say that it is hard to compose good writing not only with language learners but also withnative speakers

Expecting non-native writers to produce a piece of writing without any errors isunrealistic (Valdés, 1992, cited in Ferris, 2011) Errors are inevitable when anindividual learns a foreign language Many researchers have carried out studies to findout the role of errors and how to deal with errors “Errors can be taken as red flags; theyprovide windows onto a system that is, evidence of the state of a learner's knowledge ofthe L2” (Gass & Selinker, 2008:102) By looking at errors, teachers can see “how muchthat learners have learnt”, researchers can see “how language is learned”, and learnerscan use error as “devices by which the learner discovered the rules of the targetlanguage” (Ellis, 2003:48)

According to Krashen (1982), errors should be corrected for two reasons.Firstly, if error correction works, it will have an impact on learners' study competencebecause learners will be informed that their current understanding of a certain rule iswrong

Nevertheless, Krashen (1982) notes that errors should be treated but not all times and

not all rules

Teachers have been putting efforts into finding out an effective way to deal witherrors However, many teachers have to admit that correcting students' written andspoken errors is one of the toughest challenges in language acquisition (Amara, 2015).There are many techniques that teachers can use when giving corrective feedback;however, one of the commonly used is to write down the correct forms in students'incorrect production (Hendrickson, 1980) This technique will cost teachers lots of time;moreover, it disturbs students when receiving “many words crossed out, new wordsadded, and an array of marginal comments” (Hendrickson, 1980:216-217)

When learning a second language, students usually pay too much attention togrammar and vocabulary errors, so they are not dared to use a new language, and theyfind ways to keep away from making any mistakes As for teachers, they focus onproviding feedback on errors while they are teaching Because of these two reasons, itseems that learners' learning achievement and efficiency are lower (Wei Zuo, 2017).Besides, teachers have given corrective feedback without considering the validity of acertain kind of feedback in terms of fostering “the process of L2 acquisition and L2proficiency in general” (Botha, 1987:46) Teachers' corrective feedback aims tofacilitate students to recognize their errors and avoid repeating the same error However,this kind of feedback is not efficient When students are given back the corrected essay,they just focus mainly on red markings and the given mark, if any; after that, the writingwill be put away and forgotten (Botha, 1987)

Besides, a mismatch between students' preferences and teachers' beliefs as well

as their practices has existed over the times As Oladejo (1993) mentions there is adifference between teachers' attitudes, the reality in the classroom, and the expectationsand needs of students; this difference can result in a fail in language learning Teachershave their ways when giving feedback to their students, and there is no specific rule or

requirement for giving feedback Some teachers will provide corrective feedback on all

of the students' errors; some will only mark students' errors and let students correctthemselves; some teachers just give the total score without any explanation or errorcorrection

Many researchers and teachers carried research to look for the best way to givecorrective feedback Results from various research suggest techniques that are believed

to affect students' learning outcomes positively Nevertheless, not much researchincludes students' attitudes as well as the gap between students' preferences andpractices The methods and techniques that are believed to be useful would becomeuseless if students do not want to follow Teachers and educators should notunderestimate students' expectations, for students are those who know best about theirstudies Students' attitudes are a reliable source to count on when teachers want to testwhether the ways that they give students corrective feedback is effective or not andwhether they need to make any adjustment

Although students majoring in English have more time to learn and use Englishthan students majoring in other subjects, they still make quite a few errors in theirwriting A problem here is that some students still make the same errors again afterreceiving corrective feedback from their teachers, and some are not satisfied with theways their teachers give the correction Hence, the need for figuring out students'attitudes towards corrective feedback and the practices of teachers' corrective feedback

on students' writing is apparent

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The aim of giving students corrective feedback on students' writing is to helpthem avoid making the same errors again Most of the teachers acknowledge this fact,and they are trying their best to achieve the goal; however, it is not easy At DalatUniversity (DLU), even students majoring in English still repeat errors that have been

corrected by their teachers This issue proves that students do not keep in mind thecorrective feedback from their teachers Obviously, in this case, corrective feedbackbecomes useless as well as no progress can be made in students' writing skills inspecific and in students' English learning in general

Another problem is that many students at Dalat University do not dare to makesuggestions and discussions with their teachers When students receive their writingback from their teachers, sometimes they do not understand teachers' feedback It may

be because they can't translate corrective codes that their teachers use, or the commentand explanation from teachers might be too short that makes students hard tounderstand There are so many reasons for this issue, but the main reason is thatstudents reluctant to ask and to discuss with their teachers Therefore, students acceptthat their performance is wrong without knowing why they do wrong In some cases,students even feel unsatisfied with teachers' feedback, but they do not dare to say

Due to the lack of discussion between teachers and students, teachers willencounter various challenges in evaluating how they give corrective feedback onstudents' writing Hence, no reflection and adjustment would be made Teachers willcontinue to do in the way they are used to; unfortunately, their effort has little value tostudents' writing and learning

Knowing students' needs and preferences is vital, and it can contribute tosuccessful teaching and learning; nevertheless, teachers at Dalat University are sooccupied They do not have time to ask how students think about the way they treatstudents' writing errors Therefore, by identifying students' attitudes towards correctivefeedback, teachers will be provided useful information about written correctivefeedback Basing on students' perspectives, teachers can reflect on their writing teachingand adjust if necessary

1.3 Research Purposes and Objectives of The Study

The study aims at investigating the way that teachers at Dalat University treatstudents' errors in their writing and students' attitudes towards corrective feedback inwriting The specific objectives are as follows:

- To find out the strategies that teachers at Dalat University use when givingcorrective feedback in students' writing

- To discover students' attitudes towards written corrective feedback

1.4 Research Questions

The research questions of the study are as follows:

1 What strategies do teachers at Dalat University use when giving correctivefeedback on students' errors in their writing?

2 What are students' attitudes towards written corrective feedback?

1.5 Scope of the Study

Due to time limitations, all recommendations cannot be fully used andimplemented in the research The research was carried out at Dalat University Thesubjects were second-year English-majored students

In the first part, the study aims at exploring the strategies that teachers at DalatUniversity apply when correcting students' errors in their writing

The research results in the second part are based on the data collected fromsecond-year English-majored students The goal of the second part is to find out theattitudes of students towards the treatment of writing errors Due to the limited samplesize, the research result is not able to present a greater number of students majoring inEnglish at Dalat University

1.6 Significance of the Study

The study aims at identifying how teachers at Dalat University deal withstudents' writing errors In addition, the study also looks for the attitudes of studentstowards corrective feedback Therefore, the result of the research would possiblycontribute to English writing teaching and learning

Moreover, this study also informs teachers what students think about writtencorrective feedback, what corrective techniques that the students wish their teacher toapply Hence, this study can help both teachers and students to overcome the mismatchbetween teachers' and students' thinking

1.7 Definition of key terms

With the aim of illustrating the issues proposed, there are terms that need to be specifiedfor this report

Errors refer to deviation from a norm of adult native grammar that shows the learners'

ability to use a language (Brown 2000, cited in Fang & Xuemei, 2007)

Attitude refers to what a person thinks or feels about something; it is also an

individual's behavior towards someone or something

Corrective feedback (CF) is defined as “the feedback that learners receive on the

linguistic errors they make in their oral or written production in a second language (L2)”(Ellis and Sheen, 2011:593)

Written corrective feedback refers to error correction on L2 students' writing

(Bitchener, 2008)

1.8 Organization of The Thesis

The organization of the research includes five chapters:

Chapter 1 illustrates the introduction of the study which involves the background to thestudy, statement of the problem, research purposes and objectives of the study, researchquestions, and finally definitions of key terms

Chapter 2 presents the review of the literature including the definition of errors, the role

of errors in language learning, the definition of attitude, the effect of attitude, thedefinitions and issues related to corrective feedback, the definitions of written correctivefeedback, its roles, written corrective feedback types and review of previous studies.Chapter 3 presents the research methodology used in the study including researchdesign, research instruments, data collection, data analysis procedure, validity andreliability

Chapter 4 presents the findings of the study This chapter also involves furtherdiscussion

Chapter 5 presents the conclusion, implications, limitations and recommendations forfurther research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the definition of error, its role in language learning, and thedistinction between error and mistake The following section will mention correctivefeedback, as well as illustrate perspectives towards the effect of corrective feedback.After going through corrective feedback issues in general, this chapter will furtherpresent issues relating to written corrective feedback, including types of writtencorrective feedback This chapter also reviews previous studies on the way Englishteachers gave corrective feedback and students' attitudes towards corrective feedback inwriting The goal of this part is to search for the research gap of previous studies inorder to carry out new research

2.2 Errors

2.2.1 Definition

According to Brown (2000), an error is defined as a deviation from a norm ofadult native grammar that shows the learners' ability to use a language (cited in Fang &Xuemei, 2007) Corder (1975) further states that students usually make uncorrectedspoken and written compositions when learning a second language These compositionsare decided by standards of the second language Typically, people consider errors asproof that learners are not proficient at what they are taught In addition, people usuallytreat errors by explaining again and again until they vanished Errors will not arise ifefficient learning takes place This point of view contributes to the belief that errors aresignals of problems when learners encounter different language factors This problemcan be a consequence of the first language's habitual performances and the exchange ofthem to the new language Errors making is generally considered as a part of language

learning like other human learning Systematically, when learning a language, peoplewill make errors (Dulay, Burt & Krashen, 1982, as cited in Keshavarz, 2012).Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis believes that errors are attributed to the impact of thelearner's first language Nevertheless, native language transfer is not the reason for allerror commitment Various studies reveal that errors result from “learner's developingknowledge of the structure of the target language rather than an attempt to transferpatterns of their first language” (Spada & Lightbrown, 2006:78) Moreover, some errorsmade by second language learners are like errors made by young native learners (Spada

& Lightbrown, 2006:78)

2.2.2 The Role of Errors

People used to have negative beliefs about errors They maintain that errors areoutcomes of non-learning, not wrong learning, and should be eliminated Therefore,people make effort to predict the occurrence of errors One way to predict erroroccurrence is to tell the difference between the native language and the target language.The identified difference could be utilized to predict areas that errors would occur.(Ellis, 1985, cited in Wang, 2008) Hence, the role of error has changed Instead ofbeing considered as something which is detrimental and should be deleted Errors nowplay such an essential role in language learning There are three crucial conclusions thatKeshavarz (2012) makes about the errors that are the basement of error analysis:

Firstly, in the language learning process, making an error is unavoidable

Secondly, errors are vital in a distinctive manner

Thirdly, the learner's first language is not the source for all errors

Errors are important in three distinctive ways Firstly, they are significant to theteacher Errors inform teachers of learner's progress towards their goal, and what he stilllacks Secondly, by looking at the error, researchers understand how a person learns andacquires a language and what strategies or methods are applied when learning the

language Last but not least, as the most important impact, errors are crucial to learnerssince errors are regarded as a tool that learners apply for learning Errors can assistlearners in evaluating their hypothesis about the language rule they are learning (Corder,1982:10-11).

Keshavarz (2012) further adds that errors benefit learners by receiving a reactionfrom the environment and using that reaction to evaluate his/her learning languagehypotheses In second-language learning, people now have more positive views onlearners' errors than before Errors are considered a vital part of language learning ratherthan detrimental things in teaching and learning that should be deleted (Keshavarz,2012)

2.2.3 Types of Errors

Errors can be classified into two main types that are interlingual error andintralingual error Interlingual errors are errors caused by the influence betweenlanguages In contrast, intralingual errors occur within the language It reveals the

“incomplete learning of L2 rules or overgeneralization of them” (Troike, 2006:39)

Burt and Kiparsky (1974) divide error in another way They state that there aretwo kinds of errors that are global errors and local errors Local errors do not have animpact on the general meaning of utterances while global errors affect the wholemeaning of the utterances Local errors are in the forms of nouns, verbs Global errorsare in the form of wrong word order (cited in Touchie, 1986)

2.3 Attitude

According to the Oxford dictionary (2020), attitude is defined as what a personthinks or feels about something; it is also an individual's behavior towards someone orsomething Gardner (1980) regards attitude as “a complex of beliefs” about an object

Attitude can be defined in another way as “the sum total of a man's instincts andfeelings, prejudice or bias, preconceived notions, fears, threats and convictions aboutany specified topic” (Thurstone, 1928, cited in Gardner, 1980: 267).

Wenden (1991) classifies attitude into three components, specifically cognitive,affective, and behavioral The cognitive component relates to one's mind; it isconsidered as beliefs or thoughts about an object The next component, the affectivecomponent shows how a person feels about an object, which relates to emotion Thiscomponent has an impact on a person's likes or dislikes The last component, thebehavioral component consists of a person's behavior in a specific way toward anobject The model of Wenden (1991) was used as the framework for building a researchinstrument in this study

It is evident that attitude has a great effect on learners' language learning AsBrown (2000) mentions in his work, a positive attitude can definitely bring benefits tolanguage learners, while a negative may result in demotivation A person can adoptpositive and negative attitudes toward an object Faqeih (2015) advises teachers to paymore attention to learners' language attitudes, especially to corrective feedback;however, it does not mean that what students like is the best option for their languageachievement Hamouda (2011) supports Faqeih (2015) that understanding students'attitudes is essential because teaching techniques are various, and teachers can motivatestudents to learn by doing what they prefer He adds that the gap between teachers' andstudents' attitudes always exists, and relevant literature proves that the differencesbetween teachers' and students' attitudes may lead to unsatisfactory learning outcomes

In particular, teachers are required to understand students' beliefs and students'preferences when giving them corrective feedback Diab (2006) highlights the need tofill the gap between teachers' and students' attitudes towards corrective feedback In hisstudy, Diab (2006) maintains that feedback for students may become ineffective ifteachers and students hold a discrepancy in belief relating to corrective feedback

techniques In the worst case, students may feel demotivated when producing writing intheir second language Salteh and Sadeghi (2015) state that students are not going to usecorrective feedback in their learning if they do not feel pleased with the types ofcorrective feedback that they are received Therefore, teachers and students need toagree on the terms of which corrective feedback is effective.

2.4 Corrective Feedback

“Corrective feedback (CF) refers to the feedback that learners receive on thelinguistic errors they make in their oral or written production in a second language (L2)”(Ellis and Sheen, 2011:593) In this research, terms like “error correction”, “correctivefeedback”, “error treatment” or “corrective move” are interchangeably used, and theyare regarded as “teachers' responses to incorrect language forms in their learners' speech

or writing” (Pawlak, 2014:6)

Five questions need to be put into consideration when talking about correctivefeedback They are:

-Should learners' errors be corrected?

-When should errors be corrected?

-Which errors should be corrected?

-How should people correct errors?

-Who should be the one to correct errors?

(Hendrickson, 1978)

2.4.1 Whether errors should be corrected

There have been debates for years about this question Two opposite sites exist:one believes in the efficacy of corrective feedback and supports that corrective feedbackshould be carried out in language learning, while the other argues that correctivefeedback is harmful to language learners and should not be carried out

2.4.1.1 Negative Perspectives towards Corrective Feedback

Robb, Ross, and Shortreed (1986) claim that English teachers tend to spend toomuch time on the written language rules in students' works Robb et al (1986) do notshow support for giving feedback to surface errors directly Methods that cost less time

on students' surface error are enough They believe that it would be better if teachersfocus more on vital aspects of writing rather than giving corrective feedbackelaborately Providing elaborate feedback on writing mechanics is unworthy Truscott(2007), supports the finding of Robb et al (1986); he maintains that corrective feedbackhas a detrimental impact on students' writing accuracy, and if it has a positive effect, theeffect is very slight Karima (2013) adds that language teachers usually correct students'errors in order to get rid of their fossilization; however, this action does not alwaysbring positive results When correcting students' errors, teachers tend to pay moreattention to accuracy in steads of fluency and grammar in steads of content Correctivefeedback causes students' distraction and negatively affects their fluency, and makesstudents lose their ideas Truscott (2010) strongly believes that corrective feedback doesnot have any contribution to language learning, though it helps students to revise theirproduction He maintains that even supporters of corrective feedback cannot declare thatcorrective feedback is helpful because there are proofs for its' harmful effects

In short, there is evidence of the negative effects of corrective feedback onlanguage learning Researchers still debate whether teachers should treat students' errors

or not Some are of the side that corrective feedback is time-consuming and not worthy,while others support corrective feedback

2.4.1.2 Positive Perspectives towards Corrective Feedback

Krashen (1982:117) says that according to SLA theory when error treatmentworks, it will tell the learners that “a conscious rule is wrong.” According to SLAtheory, error treatment should be implemented To second language learners who are

adults, error correction is very supportive, “it helps them learn the exact environment inwhich to apply rules and discover the precise semantic range of lexical items” (Krashenand Seliger 1975, cited in Hendrickson, 1978:389) Corrective feedback plays such avital role in language acquisition, so utilizing a practical corrective approach is crucial(Ebrahimi & Hajmalek, 2016) In teaching and learning, it is undeniable that teachers'roles are significant because they are the ones who teach directly and observe thelearning process of students Therefore, analyzing teachers' perspectives is essential.Some English teachers also have optimistic views about corrective feedback Uysal andAydin (2017) find out that the teachers think that error treatment could help to formstudents' good habits such as “self-correction among students, pragmatic andappropriate use of the target language, learners' accuracy and fluency” Students seem tohave similar views about corrective feedback, Faqeih (2015) looks for students' opinionstowards error treatment, and the result illustrates that a majority of students taking part

in the research want their errors to be corrected The study also suggests that thereshould be more types of error correction in interactive activities to meet learners' needs.Alamzi and Fawzi (2016) state that students hold a good view of corrective feedback.According to Alamzi and Fawzi (2016), teachers need to think about the time and theway to correct students' errors Besides, it is essential for teachers to consider students'language competence when correcting errors Each group of students should be givendifferent types of treatment Katayama (2007) emphasizes that practice in speaking andcorrection of grammatical errors may assist in raising students' accuracy and lowererrors commitment

Debates between the two sides, against corrective feedback and supportingcorrective feedback, continue until now Various researches have been conducted to findthe answer, but still, there are limitations Obviously, corrective feedback is animportant part of the learning process, so it is essential to find a way in which correctivefeedback becomes helpful for students' learning It is necessary to carry out more studies

on corrective feedback regarding determining which corrective way is the most suitable.

2.4.2 The Best Time to Give Corrective Feedback

It is a frustrating job for all teachers to find the best way to correct students'errors First of all, teachers need to decide when to correct students' errors One of thequestions for teachers is to delay or correct errors immediately Hendrickson (1978)states that in speaking, it would be better if teachers delay their correction Moreover,according to advanced students' perceptions, the type of errors that they commit willdecide which is the right time to correct errors For example, when students makepronunciation or grammatical errors, corrective feedback should immediately be madebecause if it occurs later, students cannot remember The situation in class is also afactor that needs to be considered A student would feel awkward if his or her error ischosen to be corrected when a whole class knows clearly about that word In short,deciding when is the right time to correct error is sophisticated which makes teachers'feedbacks crucial (Amara, 2015) Correcting immediately or delaying is also an issuementioned in different works Ellis (2013) indicates that coursebooks usually includenotes for teachers which is to ask them to delay corrective feedback until the end ofactivities that aim at fluency This is because corrective feedback would have adebilitation effect on students' communication; it makes students feel anxious and donot dare to try Hence with activities that require accuracy, then immediate correction ispreferred In writing activities, delayed corrective feedback usually occurs except in thecase that students are asked to read out the work, and teachers will correct it orally.Nevertheless, teachers will face a problem relating to time pressure in writinginstruction where multiple drafts are produced There is an opinion that it is essential todelay corrective feedback as it becomes a dorm of assessment that prevents studentsfrom modifying their ideas and the text organization (Ellis and Sheen, 2011) Languageteachers should tolerate some oral and written errors because it reinforces students'confidence in communication “Language learners take many risks in producing

incorrect utterances when communicating; teachers need to consider whether or nottheir corrective techniques instill a feeling of success in students” (Hendrickson,1978:390) Little evidence has been found that illustrates when is the suitable time tocorrect errors For now, teachers are advised to think about which errors should becorrected and which should be left (Hendrickson, 1978).

2.4.3 The Types of Errors that Should be Corrected

Horner (1988) raises a question about whether all mistakes in all areas should becorrected It is required to correct errors that cause communication difficulties.Hendrickson (1978) suggests the types of errors that should be corrected According toHendrickson (1978), there are three types of errors that need to be corrected: The firsttypes are errors that significantly affect the communication; The second type is the errorthat has an impact on listeners and readers; The last type is the error that studentsfrequently make in their speech and writing James (2013) has a different view of thetype of error which should be corrected When giving correction, teachers shouldconsider whether it is an error or a mistake The error that is regarded as students' “slip”should not be corrected because students can correct it Correcting students' mistakeswill not benefit students The only thing that teachers should do is to inform the studentsthat they are wrong Ellis and Sheen (2011) mention that teachers should ignoremistakes

and correct errors In addition, teachers should correct global errors and ignore localerrors Global errors are errors that affect the organization of a sentence, while localerrors impact single elements However, telling apart between “mistake” and “error”,

“global error” and “local error” is quite challenging for teachers who do not have muchtime, and there is no theory that assists teachers to decide on which rule they shouldapply Another approach that is indicated in Ellis and Sheen (2011) is focusing on a type

of error For instance, teachers can choose past tense errors to correct at one time andother errors to correct at another time When teachers discover a linguistic problem, they

can build up a task in which the feature that students have a problem with is used, andwhen an error occurs, teachers will focus on correcting that error only This approach isproved to have good results on students' oral production.

2.4.4 The Best Way to Give Corrective Feedback

The reality of corrective feedback in class is inconsistent This inconsistencyhappens when the teacher keeps correcting the same error of distinctive students in thesame class, choosing some errors to correct and do not care about the others Teachereducators are not sure which strategy is effective because corrective feedback is acomplex process affected by various factors (Ellis & Sheen, 2011) James (2013:249)indicates some principles that need to be followed when correcting students' errors.Firstly, the correction should be effective Effective means that the result of thecorrective feedback is the accuracy improvement Besides, the techniques require “theleast effort to carry out by teachers and to register by students” Secondly, whencorrecting students' errors, teachers need to be sensitive Non-threatening is one of theimportant principles that teachers should consider Self-correction is one of the correctforms which is least threatening to students or any other types of correction thatinitiated Another way to make the corrective feedback less threatening is aiming at thewhole class rather than an individual Correcting an individual's error as an example willnot bring a positive effect on that individual Peer-correction is also an option that isbetter than teacher correction since it can reduce the threat to face Applying computertechnology is also a practical option because it does not bother students when thecorrection is delivered privately The third principle is to link corrective feedback withstudents' preferences Student's preferences should not be ignored, although it does notmean that the type of corrective feedback that students like would be the effective one.The instructional context decides the way that teachers correct errors Students will notconsider teachers' recast as correction in a context that aims at fluency because theyfocus mainly on fluency In contrast, in a context that focuses on accuracy, students

consider teachers' recast as corrective feedback (Ellis, 2013) Broughton, Brumfit,Flavell, Hill, and Pincas (2003) add that teachers will come to the last step that is givingfeedback after establishing the area of error This job requires carefulness from teachers.Students often complain about teachers' correction when they receive back their writtenworks with too much red ink Students confess that being corrected too often byteachers in speaking activities makes them not dare to open their mouths Choosing thebest way to correct students' errors is not an easy job for teachers It is better if teachersput these two factors under consideration, which are the nature of the task and students'sensitivity Moreover, different exercises require different ways of corrective feedback.

In both written and spoken activities, teachers can apply immediate correctiontechniques Error treatment can be conducted when the teacher moves around the class,observes what students are doing at the writing stages of a lesson Teachers couldcollect students' books like the treatment but should avoid producing “a sea of red ink”

in students' works Writing directly correct answers in students' works is a procedurethat is applied quite often; however, teachers can choose to use code letters in themargin This procedure's advantage is to limit the red ink, and this procedure couldpromote students' thinking to find the right answer by themselves Besides, feedbackfrom classmates is also useful Teachers can have students work in pairs or groups sothat students can give each other better versions and corrections Another point thatteachers should think about is that individual correction should only be made on someoccasions when the rest are busy with other works, for the fact that students usually feelbored when they have to listen to another's errors When dealing with pupils' errors,freshness, and variability are also very important Teachers can create freshness bychanging totally the approach that they have done More importantly, when failing to dosomething, pupils are susceptible, so teachers are required to understand and be patientwith their pupils, for making progress always takes lots of time

2.4.5 The Person Who Should Give Corrective Feedback

According to Hendrickson (1978), there is a belief that error treatment is theteachers' job Teachers' role is "to provide data and examples, and where necessary tooffer explanations and descriptions and, more importantly, verification of the learner'shypothesis (i.e., correction)" about the target language (Corder 1973, cited inHendrickson, 1978:395) Teachers should not be the only ones who control correctivefeedback By asking students to correct their friends' errors, they can also givecorrective feedback When integrating this procedure, students tend to mostly payattention to grammatical errors, spelling, and pronunciation Allowing students todiscover a right answer is also an option for teachers Nevertheless, students need to betrained carefully before practicing giving feedback to their peers (Ellis and Sheen,2011) Teachers can do this by providing students with indirect corrective feedback,such as informing students with error areas without writing the correct version or using

a corrective code system However, self-correction also has disadvantages One of them

is that students would like their teachers to correct their errors rather than do itindependently Another problem is that students can only do the correction when theyhave needed linguistic knowledge (Ellis and Sheen, 2011)

The ideas mentioned above, are core issues when talking about correctivefeedback As being illustrated, debates surround five issues that Hendrickson (1978)mentioned Most of the teachers at Dalat University still give students treatment fortheir errors though this is still a controversial issue To make corrective feedback helpfuland result in developing the competence of students, teachers have to take into accountthe effect of the corrective technique that they have been using There is no correctivetechnique that is effective for every student, for each student has different languagecompetence For example, advanced students would prefer their teachers to let themcorrect errors by themselves; however, this way of corrective feedback does not workwith students at low levels since they may not have enough knowledge to handle the

errors Therefore, corrective feedback needs to be fit students' needs Teachers arerequired to think carefully before deciding the way to correct students' errors Correctivefeedback cannot be made based on feelings or subjective views of the teacher Teacherscan not correct students' errors anytime, anywhere they like Students' attitudes need to

be included before teachers make any decision relating to corrective feedback.Corrective feedback is genuinely an art that asks teachers to be sensitive and flexible

2.5 Written Corrective Feedback

Written corrective feedback is defined as error correction on L2 students' writing(Bitchener, 2008) In this part, the research will discuss the role of written correctivefeedback according to previous literature Types of written corrective feedback are alsoincluded in this part

2.5.1 The Role of Written Corrective Feedback

The aim of a writing course cannot be helping and asking students to compose aperfect text with no error This goal is not practical A writing product in a writingcourse is just scaffolding for long-term writing development (Ferris and Bitchener,2012) In the writing learning process, making errors is inevitable for all students fromhigh proficiency level to low proficiency level Error is acceptable in learning, but themain point here is that students are able to identify their errors and avoid committingthem again Obviously, students cannot do this alone without their teachers' assistance,which is when feedback from the teacher is needed

One of the essential parts of ESL writing teachers is to give students feedback.Writers would prefer their works to be read, and the role of readers' feedback is to givewriters a chance to know how readers react to their works and gain knowledge fromtheir reactions The goal of feedback is to facilitate students' writing, and it is considered

to be a crucial part of fostering learning Feedback to students' writing is vital forwriting skill development (Hyland, 2003) As Ferris and Bitchener (2012) mention,

feedback plays a vital role in the learning process, where written corrective feedback is

a reaction to errors that learners have committed Written corrective feedback aims toallow learners to see the location of their errors and inform the students why they makesuch errors and show them how to correct their errors Written corrective feedback is to

“help student writers build awareness, knowledge, and strategic competence so that theycan develop skills to monitor their writing in the future” (Ferris and Bitchener,2012:140)

Although written corrective feedback is important and has a contribution tostudents' language learning, a debate on the effectiveness of written corrective feedbackhas still lasted for years Truscott (2007, 2010) is one that has a strong belief againstwritten corrective feedback Truscott (2007) argues that written corrective feedbackbadly affects students' learning if it can bring a positive effect; that effect is very small

In response to Truscott's findings (2007), various studies have been conducted to test theeffectiveness of written corrective feedback

A study on 50 students at a Japanese school conducted by Ashwell (2000)investigates the effect of written corrective feedback The result shows that the groupsthat are given feedback improved formal accuracy more than the group not receivingany feedback Hence, there is no improved finding in terms of content quality whengiving feedback Ferris and Robert (2001) offer positive evidence of the efficacy ofwritten corrective feedback The study concludes that the “no-feedback” group mademore errors in noun-ending and word choice This group's accuracy score is lower thanthe other groups However, the group with no feedback was more successful in revisingword choice errors Giving comments is also one way of corrective feedback, and it isproved to affect students' writing Ferris (1997) claims that comment on students'writing when making change is a mostly positive change in students' performance; only5% of changes are considered negative The investigation of Chandler (2003)corroborates the finding of Ferris and Robert (2001) After the experiment, the

researcher finds that there is an improvement in the production of students receivingwritten corrective feedback The students commit fewer errors in their writing whilethere is no improvement found in the writing of students not receiving any feedback.Bitchener (2008) propounds that written corrective feedback results in accuracyimprovement in the uses of English articles, “a/an” and “the” Bitchener and Knoch(2009:210) suggest that English teachers should not be hesitant when giving studentscorrective feedback on article issues They assert that “if teachers are able to provideadditional feedback on more occasions, it is possible that the accuracy rate may increaseand that the amount of time required to achieve a high level of mastery may bereduced” Evans, James Hartshorn and Strong-Krause (2011) emphasize the effect ofwritten corrective feedback on students' writing accuracy Written corrective feedbackpositively affects students' accuracy and has a negligible impact on fluency andcomplexity They indicate that instead of paying attention to whether the teacher shouldtreat students' errors or not, it is better to spend time looking for strategies that will work

in a specific context Van Beuningen, De Jong, and Kui Ken (2011) have a similarconclusion when testing the effect of written corrective feedback They add that whatthey found is the opposite of the hypothesis of Truscott (2007) The group of studentsreceiving corrective feedback produces more accurate text than the group not receivingcorrective feedback Other studies gain the same results about the efficacy of writtencorrective feedback (Marzban & Arabahmadi, 2013; Kang & Han, 2015; Farjadnasab &Khodashenas, 2017) When correcting students' errors, teachers will have informationabout the problem that students are dealing with Before giving feedback, teachers aresuggested to inform students about the aim of corrective feedback and the type of errorthat they will focus on (Marzban & Arabahmadi, 2013) Although the efficacy ofwritten corrective feedback is proved, it still depends on other factors such as learners'proficiency, the setting, and the genre of the writing task (Kang & Han, 2015)

Despite the fact that the findings from considerable studies contradict Truscott

(2007, 2010), some studies support the findings of Truscott (2007, 2010) Kepner(1991) argues that written corrective feedback cannot give students assistance ineliminating surface-level errors; it also does not help students in producing higher-levelwriting Fazio (2001) shows a negative result concerning the effect of correctivefeedback in French writing No improvement in grammatical spelling accuracy wasfound as a result of receiving corrective feedback and comments Semke (1984) arguesthat progress was made by students' practice, not by corrective feedback Writtencorrective feedback does not improve writing accuracy, writing fluency, and languageproficiency Besides, selfcorrection negatively affects students' attitudes.

Though there are debates about the effect of written corrective feedback, Ibelieve that written corrective feedback plays a vital role in students' language learning.Writing is not an easy skill to master, and writers easily make errors when composing apiece of writing When students make errors, they have to realize that the rule they areapplying is wrong After that, students need to know how to correct their errors andavoid committing the same errors again It would be wonderful if students can treat theirerrors by themselves, but it is quite challenging, especially for students who are at lowproficiency levels In my opinion, written corrective feedback needs to be carried out;however, teachers need to carefully consider various factors such as students'proficiency level, the type of errors students make, or students' preferences beforegiving their students corrective feedback The more careful they are, the better resultsthat they may gain The corrective effort may not work in some cases, but it would beunreasonable to conclude that written corrective feedback is not helpful The point here

is that the teachers did not properly treat their students' errors

2.5.2 Direct and Indirect Written Corrective Feedback

Direct written corrective feedback is a type of feedback in which teachers givelearners the correct forms for their errors In contrast, indirect written corrective

feedback provides learners with information that errors exist but does not give learnersthe correct forms Underlining, using a cursor to inform learners' errors, or indicating inthe margin that there is an error are examples of indirect written corrective feedback(Ellis, 2009) When giving students indirect written corrective feedback, teachers' job is

to inform students that there are errors, and it is students' jobs to find the correct formsfor their errors The efficacy of direct and indirect written corrective feedback is still aquestion Some researchers find that correcting students' errors directly is ineffective,and students have no gain when resolving their mistakes (Hendrickson, 1978) Eslami(2014) makes an experiment to see whether there is any difference between direct andindirect written corrective feedback efficiency Eslami (2014) illustrates that indirectcorrective technique affects writing accuracy The group receiving indirect correctivefeedback had better performance in delayed post-test, which shows that indirectcorrective feedback is more effective than direct corrective feedback Ghandi andMaghsoudi (2014) did a similar study, but the target is spelling errors Ghandi andMaghsoudi (2014) conclude that the performance of the group given indirect writtencorrective feedback is better Though there are various studies (Abedi, Latifi &Moinzadeh, 2010; Rahmawati, 2017) that support the findings of Ghandi andMaghsoudi (2014) and Eslami (2014), Hosseiny (2014) failed to prove the difference inthe effect of direct and indirect written corrective feedback He states that there is nosignificant distinction in the development of grammar knowledge between the groupreceiving direct correction and the group receiving indirect correction Different resultsare also seen in many studies Kisnanto (2016) presents evidence that supports directcorrective feedback The researcher believes that writing accuracy is improved whenstudents are provided corrective feedback, as well as, maintains that students treatedwith direct corrective feedback had significant enhancement in writing accuracy Theefficiency of direct corrective feedback over indirect corrective feedback is found inother related studies (Almasi & Tabrizi, 2016; Mirzaii & Aliabadi, 2013; Shirazi &

Shekarabi, 2014).

When deciding the procedure that is going to use, teachers have to put intoaccount other factors and the connection of each element to each other For instance,direct written corrective feedback would bring more benefits to students with lowerproficiency levels, while indirect written corrective feedback is more beneficial tostudents with high proficiency levels Bitchener and Ferris (2012) indicate that althoughdirect corrective feedback is thought to be the favorite of many students, this fact doesnot always occur since some language learners are fascinated to correct errors bythemselves before teachers give a solution for their problem Similarly, some learnerswith lower proficiency levels would like to receive indirect corrective feedback.Bitchener and Ferris (2012:134) also give a list of factors that affect students'preferences such as “language learning experience”, “confidence”, “nature of thewriting task” The researchers also suggest that teachers should consider students'expectations when deciding to give which written corrective feedback If studentsbelieve in the approach that their teachers use after negotiation, they may be morewilling to join in the feedback process, which results in “more effective users of thefeedback they receive”

Both direct and indirect corrective feedback have their strengths and weaknesses Itseems that direct corrective feedback is more favored by Vietnamese students, for manystudents are used to depending enormously on teachers They usually listen to theirteachers unconditionally and rarely have any questions Another reason that may lead tostudents' dependence is that they are lack confidence Students usually think that whattheir teachers do is always right, but they are unsure that what they do would lead to thesame result, so they are not confident to try to do something in their own way Whenmaking errors in writing, students usually wait for their teachers to give them the correctforms for their errors Sometimes, this issue leads to a detrimental effect that is laziness.Therefore, teachers need to consider using these two techniques wisely so that