Exploring high school students attitudes toward different types of feedback in their writing performances case study from a mountainous area

However, because teacher feedback contributed significantly to students’ emotional states, it affected their motivation and attitudes towards writing in both positive side and negative s

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

-

DINH VAN THIEN

EXPLORING MOUNTAINOUS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THEIR TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK TO THEIR WRITING

PERFORMANCES

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Thanh Hoa, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

-

DINH VAN THIEN

EXPLORING MOUNTAINOUS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THEIR TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK TO THEIR WRITING

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I, Dinh Van Thien, herein declare that the thesis is my own work and that it has not

been submitted for any other purposes before

Works of others that are used in the thesis are properly cited and acknowledged

Dinh Van Thien

Secondly, I would also like to express my gratitude to Ms Tran Yen, my chair lecturer for her kind support with invaluable sources to complete the research

Thirdly, I gratefully acknowledge all lecturers and staff of the Department of Foreign Languages, Vinh University who supply me with the good conditions to conduct this thesis and finish this TESOL M.A course

In addition, my special thanks also go to the students in my school for their willingness to complete the survey questionnaire and participate in my direct interviews Without their help, this project could not been a success

Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my family, my colleagues, my friends for their help and encouragements throughout the process of this research

ABSTRACT

Teacher feedback has long been regarded as an important part in education generally, and in language teaching in particular Within this umbrella, feedback in writing has been of much interest in the past few decades, much of which focused

on the role of feedback on student learning Little research, however, has been focused on what language students think, believe and perceive about the feedback given to them in writing

This study aims at exploring mountainous high school students' attitudes towards their teachers’ feedback to their writing performances Questionnaires including close and open-ended items and interviews were employed to collect data from 98 students in Bac Son High School to provide information concerned to their preferred learning styles and their emotion and to provide further insights regarding the topic, and also to triangulate with the survey data The results revealed that most

of the participants highly appreciated teacher feedback that is really useful for their writing process However, because teacher feedback contributed significantly to students’ emotional states, it affected their motivation and attitudes towards writing

in both positive side and negative side This two-side issue was greatly based on students’ preferences for teacher feedback Based on the findings, a number of suggestions are proposed for different stake-holders in teaching and learning writing

Key words: teacher feedback, students’ preferences for teacher feedback, students

in Bac Son High School

1.4 Significance of the study 2

2.1.1 Definitions of attitudes 4 2.1.2 Importance of attitudes 6

2.2.1 Definitions of teacher feedback 8 2.2.2 Formative and summative feedback 9 2.2.3 Delivering feedback 12 2.2.4 Two - side issue of attitude towards teacher feedback 14 2.2.4.1 Negative attitudes towards teacher feedback 14 2.2.4.2 Positive attitudes towards teacher feedback 16

CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 27 4.1 Results and Discussion 27 4.1.1 Students’ experiences and attitudes toward teacher feedback 27 4.1.2 Students’ evaluation of correction techniques in feedback 39

5.2 Pedagogical Implications 50 5.3 Limitations of the study 51 5.4 Suggestions for further research 54

APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 62

6 SI.: Student who was interviewed

7 ESL: English as a secondary language

8 L2: Second language

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: General information of the participants 22

Table 4.1: Students’ feelings towards teacher feedback 27

Table 4.2: Students’ preference on different types of errors in their feedback

28

Table 4.3: Students’ preference on direct feedback and indirect feedback 30

Table 4.4: Students’ perceptions toward feedback forms 32

Table 4.5: Students’ preference on oral feedback and written feedback 33

Table 4.6: The students’ perceptions toward feedback content 35

Table 4.7: Students’ views on the different pens in teacher feedback 36

Table 4.8: The students’ desire toward the immediacy of feedback 37 Table 4.9: Frequencies of students’ comprehension towards teacher feedback

39

Table 4.10: Frequencies of students’ responses to amount of corrective feedback

41

Table 4.11: Students’ evaluation of various correction techniques 44

Table 4.12: Students’ opinions about teacher’s feedback 46

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Being the most popular language in the world, English is widely used in many countries all over the world in many fields such as economy, science and technology It is a useful means that helps human beings promote mutual understanding and connect each other around the world In Vietnam, with the global economic integration as well as the innovation of economy and society, English has become more and more concerned by people of all ages, especially the younger generations Being aware of the importance of English, our government has issued numerous policies and decisions to promote learning and teaching English in order

to gain the capacity to use it fluently As a result, English become a compulsory subject in the school curriculum and an indispensable requirement in the current employment

Although English is important, numerous students say they do not like studying English and of course they cannot learn it well In fact, there are many factors affecting to the process of language learning such as personality factors, family factors, school factors and social factor Among these factors, surprisingly, students’ attitude toward teacher feedback is an interesting topic that attracts a large number of researchers because of its remarkable influence onto language learning process Students’ attitude towards their learning is regarded as an essential element which builds upon their motivation whereas according to Coffin et al (2003), ‘the provision of feedback on students’ writing is a central pedagogic practice’ (Coffin

et al 2003: 102) However, the issue of students’ attitude toward teacher feedback, like everything in the world, has a two – side problem that it can improve language learning when teacher feedback is favored by most students and vice versa In spite

of the fact that teachers spent much time and effort on giving feedback, students’ writing could not improve and students keep their same mistakes A great deal of teachers supposed that if the students attended teacher feedback thoroughly, their

writing would be excellent On the other hand, in students’ thinking, teacher feedback does not really help them to improve their writing because it hardly meets their desire to revise their writing performances

To find solutions for this mismatch, there have been many researches conducted to simultaneously study students’ attitude toward teacher feedback and teachers’ preference on giving feedback Despite gaining positive results in improving language learning in many places, these studies were not successfully implemented in rural schools such as Bac Son High School in which conditions of English learning and language competence are so limited as compared to those in urban areas

Because of the reasons above and difficulties in giving effective feedback that my colleagues and I have encountered, I have decided to do this research entitled: “Exploring mountainous high school students' attitudes towards their teachers’ feedback to their writing performances.”

1.2 Purpose of the study

The thesis is carried out to

- Explore attitudes of students in mountainous high school towards teacher feedback

1.3 Scope of the study

As being stated above, the study focused on exploring students' attitudes towards teacher feedback in their writing Due to the time limitation of the research, there were only around 98 students who were from Bac Son High School, a disadvantaged school in a mountainous area in Thanh Hoa attended in the study

1.4 Significance of the study

By answering all below research questions, it is hoped that the findings of the study can help students to understand more regarding the impact of their attitudes towards teacher feedback in their writing Understanding of students’ attitudes towards teacher feedback can also assist the teachers, school administrator

to seek and apply suitable types of feedback to improve students’ learning outcomes Finally, the data analysis in this study may serve as a reference for further research in the area of teacher feedback

1.5 Methodology

Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in order to answer the research questions Data were collected by means of survey questionnaires and interviews Survey questionnaires were utilised to explore the attitudes of students towards teacher feedback in their writing Interviews were conducted to obtain further insights regarding the topic, and also to compare with the survey data

CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this literature review chapter is to provide a theoretical framework of this study This chapter including three sections starts with attempts

to capture the background comprehension of attitudes and its importance towards language learning, then presents basic theories and principles of feedback towards language learning process and finally, reviews previous studies related to students' attitudes towards teacher feedback in their performances

2.1 Attitude

2.1.1 Definitions of attitudes

Attitude is a central issue in the field of psychology In his great work “The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the Twenty-First Century”, Perloff (2010) stated that in psychology, an attitude is a psychological construct and it is a mental and emotional entity that inheres in, or characterizes a person Also, many researchers have studied this aspect of attitude not only in the field of psychology but also in the field of education, and especially in the field of language learning over the past decades They produced different ways of definitions in different meanings from different contexts and perspectives Among them, Gardner (1985) stated that attitude is an evaluative reaction to some reference

or attitude object, inferred on the basis of the individual’s beliefs or opinions about the reference “Attitude is thus linked to a person’s values and beliefs and promotes

or discourages the choices made in all aspects of activity, whether academic or informal”

In addition, Montano and Kasprzyk (2008, p 71) based on the theory of planned behavior defined that:

Attitude is determined by the individual’s beliefs about outcomes or attributes of performing the behavior (behavioral beliefs), weighted by

evaluations of those outcomes or attributes Thus, a person who holds strong beliefs that positively valued outcomes will result from performing the behavior will have a positive attitude toward the behavior Conversely,

a person who holds strong beliefs that negatively valued outcomes will result from the behavior will have a negative attitude

According to Kara (2009) attitude is a concept that includes three components: behavioral component, cognitive component and affective component The cognitive component contains the beliefs, thoughts or viewpoints about the object of the attitude The affective component is known as the individual’s feelings and emotions towards an object, whether he/she likes or dislikes The behavioral component involves the tendency to adopt particular learning behaviors These three attitude aspects are based on the three theoretical approaches of behaviorism, cognitivism and humanism respectively Each of these dimensions has distinctive features to give language attitude products

Nevertheless, the definitions of attitude are sometime broad and encompassed more than three components mentioned above For example, Allport (1935) demonstrated that an attitude is considered as "a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related" (p 810) In the same vein, Krech and Crutchfield (1948) determined that "An attitude can be defined as an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual, and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of the individual's world" (p 152) These points above are similar in giving the definitions of attitude that emphasized the enduring nature of attitudes and their close relationship to individuals' behavior

Moreover, Brown (2000), in his study “Principles of Language Learning and Teaching” illustrated that: “Attitudes, like all aspects of the development of cognition and affect in human beings, develop early in childhood and are the result

of parents’ and peers’ attitudes, contact with people who are different in any

number of ways, and interacting affective factors in the human experience” (p.168) This means that in Brown’s point of view, various stimulants can affect attitude of a person, either positive attitude or negative one.

On the other hand, according to Gardner and Lambert (1972), there are two main kinds of attitudes called instrumental attitude and integrative attitude to language learning Instrumental attitudes are related to the desire to gain social-status recognition or benefits while integrative attitudes are concerned to the desire

to be integrated into another language community In other words, instrumental attitudes are when the learner is learning the language for personal interest, and integrative attitudes are when the learner is learning a language with the desire to be integrated into a specific community speaking that language

2.1.2 Importance of attitudes

There has been a substantial body of research investigating how language is learned Perhaps, one of the most influential factors of language learning process is attitude that has recently been received much attention from both first and second language researchers Most of them have drawn to a conclusion that a student’s attitude is an integral part of learning and that it should, therefore, become an essential component of second language learning pedagogy (Gardner & MacIntyre,

or failure in L2 learning Similarly, Ellis (1995) also asserted that: “Learners’ attitudes have an impact on the level of L2 proficiency achieved by individual learners and are themselves influenced by this success” (p.198)

The importance of students’ attitudes toward language learning is evident but researching on students’ attitudes toward language learning is significant issue because of several reasons Firstly, in the framework, attitudes are viewed to have influence on behavior Particularly, the study by Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 investigating attitudes’ influence on behavior found that a person’s attitude toward

an object affects the person’s intentions to perform behaviors relating to that object However, the relation between attitude and behavior is based on specific conditions Likewise, Fishbein & Ajzen (1975), denoted that when one person thinks he has more resources and fewer obstacles, he is more likely to behave according to his intentions

Secondly, many researches have proved that there is an existence of a relationship between attitudes and achievement Weinburgh (1998) revealed that there is support for the proposition that attitudes affect achievement, rather than achievement affects attitudes The reason is that attitudes affect one’s behaviors, inner mood and of course learning Evidently, there is an interaction between language learning and the environmental components in which students involved

Because attitudes are constructed on the base of experiences in the past, as defined by Allport (1935), it could be argued that attitudes towards foreign languages, language learning situations and people who speak other languages is constructed Naturally, if students receive a positive experience with other languages in their elementary school education, they will develop positive attitudes towards those languages, towards school, and towards their classmates in the context

According to some researchers and also Starks and Paltridge (1996), in their research of attitudes, affirm that learning a language is closely related to the attitudes towards languages Again, Karahan (2007) revealed that “positive language attitudes let learners have positive orientation towards learning English” (p 84) As these points covered above, it can be asserted that attitudes play a very crucial role in language learning since they can influence students’ success or failure in their learning However, Gardner (1980) indicated that different social

contexts may affect the outcomes of studies related to attitudes towards language learning In his opinion, the effects of attitudes might be much stronger in a context where there is much more of an opportunity to contact between learners and target language speakers than in a foreign language context where learners are not in a close contact with the target cultures and beliefs

Attitude has a remarkable influence on the process of learning a particular language, but this affect might be either positive or negative Some learners may have negative attitude whilst the others may have positive attitude towards the second language In the same vein, Brown (2000) affirmed that second language learners benefit from positive attitude while negative attitudes lead to reduction of motivation, input and finally accomplishment of proficiency Attitude as a social psychological variable plays an important role in learning a second language learning Many studies showed that students can be highly motivated by interesting activities Likewise, Chamber (1999), Gardner and Lambert (1972) and Holmes (1992) asserted that positive attitudes towards language learning enhance an integrative motivation and proficiency

In conclusion, attitude, being negative and positive, is proved to have a strong impact on students’ success in language learning Moreover, learners who have a positive attitude towards the target language and its people can learn the target language better than those who do not have such positive attitude (Chamber, 1999; Gardner, 1985)

2.2 Feedback

2.2.1 Definitions of teacher feedback

Providing feedback to learners on their performances is one of the important aspects of teaching and learning a language Feedback is teachers’ evaluation of the response (Cook, 2000) Ovando (1994:19) defined it as “the return to the input of a part of output system, or process” Weinstein (1989) affirmed that students learned how “smart” they could be mainly from teacher’s feedback in the form of marks, comments, and the degree and type of praise and criticism More obviously,

feedback is conceptualized from three standpoints: the teacher, the student, and the learning process (Bloom, 1976) For instance, feedback can “reveal errors in learning shortly after they occur a self-correcting system so that errors made at one time can be corrected before they are compounded with later errors” (Bloom, 1976:8) Likewise, Carlson (1979) stated that feedback in general is the amount of authoritative information that students get to strengthen or adjust responses to learning and guide them more proficiently in attaining the objectives of the course Schutz and Weinstein (1990) delineated feedback as a process of “collecting information about students' performance, their familiarity with the type of assessment method, and their background knowledge” (p.1)

In a more general view, feedback is seen as “an important part of the teaching and learning process” (Schutz and Weinstein, 1990: 2) As indicated earlier

on in the introduction, a number of authors on assessment and learning assert that feedback can have a positive effect on students’ learning (for example, Salder, 1998; Black and William, 1998; Maclellen, 2001) Thus, feedback has been recognized as

an instrument to improve teaching and learning More recently, it has been perceived as a central component of enhancing students’ performance and motivation as well as revising the applied teaching strategies (Yorke, 2003; Gibbs and Simpson, 2004; and Irons, 2008) For instance, Irons (2008) argued that feedback can have “a very positive motivating effect on students” (p.37), and teachers should be aware of ensuring that positive statements are helpful If students are provided with positive comments to promote them to engage in further study, they may become good learners and good achievers as well

2.2.2 Formative and summative feedback

Generally, formative feedback is defined as feedback that is delivered to encourage students to enhance their performance in the future and summative feedback is delineated as feedback that summarizes the final judgement of the quality of the students’ work According to Randall and Mirador (2003), summative feedback is characterised by single comments about the quality of the students’

work, whereas formative feedback is “used to provide a comment which is developmental in nature, in other words, expected to provide the student with feedback on how progress can be made on the work or any aspect of the work evaluated” (p.523) Additionally, Irons (2008), stated that formative feedback is regarded as “any information, process, or activity which affords or accelerates student learning based on comments relating to either formative assessment or summative assessment” (p.7) The main aim of formative feedback is to “increase student knowledge, skills, and understanding in some content areas or general skills” (Shute, 2008:156) On the contrary, summative feedback is mainly expressed

as numeral data and is combined mostly with evaluative judgement In the opinion

of Butler (1988) students do not pay much attention to teacher comments when they are discouraged by numerous marks for assessments Furthermore, if summative feedback strongly focuses on marking and grading, it may produce a harmful effect

of a test on a student’s self-esteem, especially on whom are at low ability On the other hand, Ovando (1992) thought that in order to determine the distinction between formative and summative feedback, we need to state the following characteristics of formative feedback:

1 Relevant: addresses student- and teacher-specific learning and teaching

performance, respectively, in addition to achievements, needs and interests;

2 Immediate: provided as soon as information about student and teacher

performance is available;

3 Factual: based on actual student achievement (performance on a test,

assignment or project) and teacher’s instructional performance and assessment;

4 Helpful: provides suggestions for improvement of teaching and

learning;

5 Confidential: given directly to student or teacher without an

intermediary;

6 Respectful: respects students’ and teachers’ integrity and needs;

7 Tailored: designed to meet individual students’ or teachers’ specific

needs and circumstances;

8 Encouraging: motivates student and teacher to continue and to increase

teaching and learning efforts (p.3)

Nevertheless, there is no agreement in the judgment or opinion among researchers on the definition of formative feedback Gibbs (2005) considered the term “feedforward” as formative assessment while “feedback” should be regarded

as summative assessment Iron (2008) agreed to Gibbs’s distinction between feedback and feedforward but additionally in his point of view it should be entitled under formative assessment activities and formative feedback, in other words, it is

“feedback” when it aims to facilitate students to learn from previous formative activities and “feedforward” when it focuses on assisting students to improve their learning in the future It is important to notice that summative feedback does not take a significant role in summative assessment even though feedback following this assessment is suitable and helpful to students’ progress Evidently, when a student gets a bad mark in the final examination, this means that feedback does not offer much facilitation for his future study Thus, summative aims and feedback of any evaluation system should be isolated Similarly, Crooks (1988) stated, “where evaluation counts significantly toward a student’s final grade, the student tends to pay less attention to the feedback and thus learn from it” (p.457) Moreover, summative assessment in itself may cause problems in timing and perceived value

of feedback even though this feedback is thoroughly helpful The reason is that such assessment commonly happens only once at the end of the module so students have

no other chances to overcome or compensate for what they have not conquered in that exam

In order to find the elements that should make up every effective feedback system, Black and William (1998) identified four factors The first factor is data on the actual level of some measurable attributes, the second one is data on the reference level of those attributes, the third one is a mechanism for comparing the two levels and generating information about the gap between the two levels, and the last one is “a mechanism by which information can be used to alter the gap” (p.48)

Furthermore, this definition of feedback consists of accurately the similar key elements that contain formative assessment Therefore, as was shown previously, the benefit of formative assessment in the literature review provides strong evidence for formative feedback Feedback utilised in educational situations

is ordinary regarded as crucial to the improvement of students’ knowledge and skill acquisition Pelligrino et al (2001) demonstrated that “learning is a process of continuously modifying knowledge and skills and that feedback is essential to guide test challenge or redirect the learner’s thinking” (p.234) The role of feedback, especially formative feedback, in the learning process is to announce students where and how their learning and performance can be enhanced Hence, feedback is considered to be an important aspect not only in teachers’ assessment but also in students’ learning Bangert-Drowns et al (1991) surprisingly found that one third of their findings were negative, this means that feedback may have negative effects on students’ learning and it can even lessen their success as well Nevertheless, the authors affirm that the negative effects to the category of feedback provided Additionally, other studies state the usefulness of formative feedback as positively effective, while feedback that merely focus on the issue that the student has responded incorrectly or correctly does not effectively improve their learning Moreover, such feedback may not motivate students to learn as well as decease their achievements in the future

2.2.3 Delivering feedback

In order to address the feedback, the teacher should realize the rational principles that ensure its usefulness to the student and the learning process The

feedback quality is quantified in many ways such as immediacy, appropriateness, consistency, and the type and amount of information provided Nicol and Macfarlane Dick (2004) quoted that good quality feedback is “information that helps students trouble-shoot their own performance and take action to close the gap between intent and effect” (p.11) There has been a number of studies on the effectiveness of feedback implemented by researchers such as Crooks, 1988; Black and William, 1998; Maclellen, 2001; and Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2004 These researches have a similar statement in indicating that feedback is most effective when it emphasizes the task rather than students, and gets rid of extensive praise since it may negatively impact student performance Additionally, Crooks (1988) stated that in order to be more effective, feedback should stress “students’ attention

on their progress in mastering the educational task” (p.468) Also, Hall and Burke (2003) confirmed that feedback is “better to focus on causes of success and failure than to praise performance on the bases of the final product or completed task” (p.10) In the same vein, Mc Dowell (1995) proved that the lack of feedback to

learners can decrease motivation and lead to “ineffective learning” (p.419)

In any teaching discipline, unless feedback on a student's work is immediate,

it can stimulate negative learning influences and discourage their acquisition skill

In addition, feedback can be viewed as a powerful motivator as well as an intrinsic motivation in students since it promotes them to learn to “close the gap on their understanding” (Irons, 2008:63) That means students understand what they have obtained and what they have to do to improve in the future In terms of the content

of the feedback, it is suggested that feedback should show students why and how corrections can be made, and that comments need to be written into the questions

rather than directions

On the other hand, in terms of feedback purposes, formative or summative, mentioned earlier, the effectiveness of formative feedback is considered a superior

to summative Here, the two ways of delivering feedback, written and oral, will be highlighted According to Smith and Gorard, 2005, written feedback is normally intended to give suggestions for correcting mistakes in their work without deep

negotiation of meaning between teacher and student Importantly, it has a significant advantage for students to cover it many times whereas they may forget what was said in oral feedback (Irons, 2008) On the contrary, it can be confirmed that written feedback is very similar to summative feedback as its main emphasis is normally on scores as well as some justifications of students’ failure Oral feedback,

on the other hand, provides students with more thorough explanations and personalised supports, thus it can engaging students in the learning process It seems

to be more constructive than written feedback in terms of additional information that could be presented through the conversation of a teacher toward a student or a teacher toward the whole class In a study of accommodating students according to their learning styles, one of the core issues in higher education is, Sarasin (1999) implies that students are classified as auditory or visual learners and to

“successfully address the learning needs of their auditory learners, instructors should emphasize the oral mode as much as possible” (p 49) In addition, Jordan (2004) demonstrates that oral feedback will be the ideal for auditory students whereas written feedback is more suitable to visual students Therefore, students should be delivered both oral and written feedback as it may support a broader variety of students’ learning styles Also, feedback should be based on educational standards that guarantee its effectiveness on students’ behaviour These standards need to be unified, steady, and unchangeable It also has to be specific and well-matched with current circumstances and interact with some variables such as class size, number of students, time being given for each class, and student-ability level The latter variable was mentioned earlier by Crooks (1988), who asserted that low achievers may require more praise as well as immediate feedback than high achievers Irons (2008) set some pragmatic issues that should be taken into account

in designing formative feedback:

a) The workload involved in providing feedback,

b) The level and type of constructive support that can be provided

c) The opportunity to provide timely and quality feedback that will enhance student learning (p.69)

2.2.4 Two - side issue of attitude towards teacher feedback

2.2.4.1 Negative attitudes towards teacher feedback

According to previous studies, teacher feedback is unintelligible to students because there seems to be a mismatch between teachers and students’ perception in the use of feedback They affirm that teachers misunderstand students’ contents and leave some feedback unrelated to students’ performances More specifically, in his research, Zamel’s (1985) demonstrated that students scarcely read teacher’s comments and corrections because teachers misunderstand students’ contents and give debated feedback to guide students with the subjective instructions Also, Zacharias’s (2007) denoted that teacher feedback is divergent from students’ original ideas while writing Students would be confused about how to revise because the teacher gives an irrelevant idea which is totally different from students’ mental gist of their performances Likewise, students have difficulties in reading teacher’s feedback because they can not read teacher’s feedback with unreadable wording which is unclear for understanding In Sommers’s (1982) study, it is proposed that some teachers’ feedbacks are too vague to provide the truly precise suggestions and responses in regard to what students’ contents, so that students can not enhance their writing skills Additionally, Sommers reveal that some words or sentences revised by students are even worse than the original sentences because of teacher’s obscure written instructions Similarly, according to Zacharias’s (2007) study, it is also indicated that students have difficulties in reading teacher’s feedback which is intricate to the correction, so that students are not willing to accept the teacher’s feedback What is more, in Zamel’s (1985) research, students attribute that the teacher’s feedback is vague so as to mislead them to the wrong direction; meanwhile, students would doubt why they have to read the teacher’s feedback Because of this doubt, students omit and even keep away from the teacher’s feedback (Sommers, 1982; Zamel, 1985) Furthermore, Zacharias’s (2007) conducted a questionnaire survey with 100 students and 30 teachers were invited to respond the questionnaire; and 21 students and 10 teachers further participated in

the interview The results showed several major findings explaining why students have difficulties in reading teachers’ feedback The first difficulty is general feedback If the teacher just writes down feedback such as “many mistakes on grammar” or “add more information” and “develop the idea”, the feedback is not helpful because it is very broad and abstract In the same vein, Ziv’s (1982) confirmed that students tend to receive the teacher’s feedback which is explicit and provides more suggestions or some tips about how to correct the error The second difficulty is that students do not understand how to correct and where to start revising the error The last difficulty is the use of complex language while giving feedback Zacharias demonstrates that students would know and understand teacher’s feedback immediately, if it is comprehensible with simple words Overall, although students can read teacher’s feedback, they are still confused by teacher’s feedback with complex language as well as vague expressions

2.2.4.2 Positive attitudes towards teacher feedback

Although teacher feedback causes a variety of difficulties to students in their language learning, they consider it as a useful instrument for them to improve their writing skills because it facilitates students to correct their errors According to Wu’s study (2003) in which both qualitative and quantitative methods were used, it reveals that teacher’s feedback is useful and acceptable for students because of high quality and accuracy of teachers’ feedback 94 students participating in the study were investigated their attitudes toward teacher feedback by two types of instruments, including students’ questionnaires and two sets of individual semi-structured interview The major finding from the survey is that nearly 60% of the students considered being able to correct the errors and read teacher’s comments when their performances were returned In the same vein, findings from Cohen and Cavalcanti’s research (1990) indicate that students are eager to accept teachers’ feedback because it is helpful for them to revise the errors

In addition, students assert that they can increase their writing fluency due to they learn more vocabularies from teachers’ feedback This can be illustrated by

Chan’s survey (2004), the result from students’ perceptions shows that teachers’ feedback on students’ writing improves their writing fluency In his study, Chan aims to investigate the effect of dialogue journal writing on EFL junior high school students’ writing fluency Students’ dialogue journal writing was utilized in the experimental group to investigate students’ attitudes towards the effects of teachers’ feedback on their writing The research result reveals that teachers’ feedback on journal writing advances their writing ability, especially in writing fluency The majority of students comment with their positive attitude toward the teacher’s feedback on dialogue journal writing

Likewise, in Wang’s study (2004), it also indicates that teachers’ feedback improves students’ writing fluency He conducted an activity with 41 participants in one class from Neili Senior High School taking part in the dialogue journal writing activity for 14 weeks The result shows that teachers’ feedback improves students’ writing because students can write more fluently and they do not feel anxious while writing journals Overall, it is hypothesized that teachers’ feedback can facilitate students to correct mistakes, but students can not understand optimally what the teachers try to express because teachers usually write the professional feedback with complex language

2.2.5 Benefits of feedback

According to many previous studies of the researchers such as Ferris, 1997;

Wu, 2003 and Zamel, 1985, teacher’s feedback is considered to be ineffective because students often ignore it and many of them even do not care about it Nevertheless, many other researchers such as Chan, 2003; Chaudron, 1984; Wang, 2004; and Zacharias, 2007 indicated that teacher’s feedback is advantageous for students because it helps students know what and where they should correct Indeed, in his opinion, Lee, 2007 defines teacher’s feedback as a useful device of pedagogy to improve the teaching and learning of writing skills Additionally, Chaudron, 1984 and Wu, 2003 agreed with Lee about this point of view because they confirm that the teacher professional opinions or questions in students’ writing

can help students acquire writing skills or correct errors effectively In the same vein, Patthey-Chavez, Matsumura, and Valdés (2004) asserted that teacher feedback, particularly a written feedback, plays an important role on students’ writing since they take for granted that writing is a process approach which focuses

on an issue that is known as a cycle of revisions Naturally, as results, more and more teachers pay attention to the effect of teacher feedback in students’ writing performances Particularly, from the surveys of students’ perceptions, teachers would be capable to learn more about teacher’s feedback whether enhances students’ writing ability or not

2.3 Previous studies

Many studies have been conducted to explore the nature of students’ attitudes towards learning foreign language in general and teacher feedback in particular at all grade levels, in all types of schools in many countries with different methodologies

For example, in 2007, F Karahan implemented the study entitled “Language attitudes of Turkish students towards the English language and its use in Turkish context” This study explores the relationship between language attitudes towards the English language and its use in Turkey The participants are 190 students of a private primary school in Adana, Turkey, where English is intensively taught There were two parts in the questionnaire The first part required personal information such as gender, the age when they started to learn English, the place where they started to learn English The second part asked them about their attitudes towards the English language and their attitudes towards the use of English in Turkish context According to the author: “The recognition of the importance of English as a foreign language in Turkish society may not, interestingly, lead students to have active steps in learning process.” As results, they neither have positive attitudes towards the English language nor feel the need of the English language in their daily life This means that they delay learning the English language until adulthood when they become to be forced to learn English because of professional

requirement Besides, although the students have mildly positive attitudes towards the English language, they are not tolerant towards Turkish people when they communicate among themselves in English Because psychological and social attitude of students towards learning English in Turkey is not positive, the role of the teacher can be said to be an important factor to establish the learning environment to encourage Turkish students to practice speaking English each other

In their study named “Effectiveness of feedback: the students’ perspective”

in 2008, Ann Poulos and Mary Jane Mahony emphasized students’ perceptions of feedback and the contribution feedback to students’ learning and teaching This reported qualitative study broadened our understanding of these perceptions and especially to provide insight into the meaning of “effective” when concerned to feedback The participants of the study were undergraduate students of varying levels and from a range of Schools completing degrees in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney The subject-based analysis showed three main aspects: perceptions of feedback, impact of feedback and credibility of feedback The analysis demonstrated that the effectiveness of the feedback not only improves learning and teaching but also supports the transition between school and university

Additionally, in their study of “The Power of Feedback”, John Hattie and Helen Timperley (2007) asserted that feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and accomplishment, but this affect can be either positive or negative Although extensive research has been carried out on feedback, no single study exists which adequately covers feedback’s power about learning and teaching This article provides a conceptual analysis of feedback and reviews the evidence concerned to its impact on learning and achievement This evidence shows that although feedback is one of the considerable influences, the type of feedback and the way it is given can be distinctively effective The model proposed in this study identifies three feedback questions: “Where am I going?”, “How am I going?” and

“Where to next?” The answers to these questions intensify learning when there is a contrast between what is understood and what is aimed to be understood Lastly, the

analysis of this study is conducted to suggest ways in which feedback can be used

to enhance its effectiveness in classrooms

Apart from these researches above, I Lee (2008) investigated the reactions of students in two HongKong secondary classrooms to their teachers’ feedback He focused particularly on the factors that might have affected their reactions and found that students who were irrespective of proficiency level wanted more written comments from teachers whilst the students with lower proficiency were not much interested in error feedback than those of higher proficiency, though both groups favored more explicit error feedback from teachers Students did not comprehend all of the teacher feedback, which perhaps because of its illegibility, apart from other plausible factors that were not examined in the study The results referred a suggestion that the teachers’ feedback, which was primarily teacher-centred, made students passive and dependent on teachers The conclusion of the paper is that it is important for teachers to be aware of the significance to their feedback practices on students’ expectations and attitudes, which should be responded to teachers to help them improve reflective and effective feedback practices This study also asserted that students’ reactions and attitudes to teacher feedback were a complex issue, involved not only with student characteristics like proficiency level, but also with teacher factors, such as teachers’ beliefs and practices and their interactions with students, as well as the instructional context in which feedback is delivered The author hopes that the future research could examine the relationships between student reactions and their learning and performance in writing, and how teachers can change their feedback according to the needs of the student to maximize the feedback benefits

In conclusion, the knowledge and contributions from the studies mentioned above are significant to the process of teaching and learning a foreign language More importantly, the core from these researches is the high appreciation to the role

of students’ attitudes and teacher feedback towards English learning While attitude, being negative and positive, is believed to have a strong impact on students’ success

in language learning, teacher’s feedback is regarded as “a useful pedagogical device

to enhance the teaching and learning of writing” (Lee, 2007, p 180)

Although extensive research has been carried out on the role of students’ attitudes and teacher feedback towards English learning, no single study exists which adequately covers this topic in a mountainous area in which a majority of research participants are ethnic students Implying many distinctively particular issues, this interesting theme inspired me to conduct a research in Bac Son High School situated in a mountainous district in Thanh Hoa province

CHAPTER THREE METHODOLODY 3.1 Research questions

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims and objectives, the study was designed to seek answers to the following research questions:

3.1.1 What attitudes do the high school students in the study have towards their teachers’ writing feedback?

3.1.2 To what extent do the types of feedback favoured by the students help them improve their writing performances?

The data collected in this study provided the general information about the participants in this study From their personal profile, macroscopic information can

be obtained in terms of their grade, gender, ethnic communities, years of learning English fields and English proficiency

The total participants were 98 students from two eleventh grades and one twelfth grade in Bac Son High School which is situated in Ngoc Lac, a mountainous district

in Thanh Hoa The majority of these students come from disadvantageous families with the under medium level of living standard and learning conditions as well Consequently, these students’ motivation of studying is remarkable limited due to the burden of subsistence and of course, their English proficency is almost either at the beginning level or at A1 level although they have been learning English for more than four years, since they were sixth grade students

There are two main groups of students in Bac Son School, Kinh group and Muong group The number of Muong students is overwhelming to the amount of Kinh students More specifically, in this study, the number of Kinh students is around 8.2 percent and the rest belongs to Muong students (91.8 percent) who own typically distinctive features of culture and language Because of the fact that Bac Son school is situated in a mountainous area where a vast majority of the inhabitants are Muong ethnics, it is noticeable that these Muong students affect Kinh students so profoundly that a stranger from other place cannot realise differences between them in terms of language and culture Overall, it can be affirmed that in order to explore something concerned with students in Bac Son School, Muong students are the main participants

Through many generations, Muong’s culture remains rustic simplicity but unique, and Muong people are always healthy as well as enthusiastic When it comes to historical origin, Muong people have persisted in the living style of the so-called collectivism in which everybody has to obey the principles of community in their residence and of course individualism is not highly appropriate Historically, Muong people usually do not worry and take care much about their own future lives Unsurprisingly, they do not seem to show their high attempts on their work

because they appear to satisfy with their present lives Subsequently, the daily difficulties they have frustrate the children’s schooling that it is rarely believed to bring success in either study or vocational fields Naturally, when children grow up

to the late period of teen ages, a large number of them terminate their schooling and many females even get married to stable their lives soon Hence, the number of children studying in high schools is limited, especially to the males who are considered as main employees in their families

Suffering from these believes, conceptions and poor living conditions, Muong high school students in general and students in Bac Son school in particular, have distinctive differences compared to the other students in other areas Firstly, their background knowledge is so limited that most of them encounter difficulties in conducting their basic curriculum’s tasks and even in writing a complete sentence in Vietnamese Next, the profound influence of Muong language, regarded as their first language, on their communication and learning makes a mismatch between them and Kinh people including their teachers This issue particularly affects the language learning process of the learners Additionally, Muong students have low motivation in their studying Most of them learn at school with their empty minds because they neither understand the lectures at school nor revise nor prepare their lessons at home Their best and noticeable feature is that they are good listeners Not only their parents but also they themselves notice their unsatisfying results of learning that leads them towards hopelessness in schooling Last but not least, Muong students seem to be introvert in learning environment This trait of personality that leads their shortage of confidence in the public affects deeply toward their learning They do not want any conflicts or arguments with many other people around them because they know the fact that their speaking skills are commonly limited Also, they are afraid of being criticized even it is a sincerely suggested criticism

Consequently, teaching and learning a foreign language, such as English in this area is much more difficult than it is usual because the learners’ disadvantages and their distinctive features

3.3 Data collection and instruments

The principal data set for this study were from two different instruments: survey questionnaires and interviews

3.3.1 Questionnaire survey

A questionnaire designed focusing on students’ attitudes toward different types of feedback in their writing performances was administered to 98 students, including 62 females and 36 males from two different mixed grades: eleventh grade and twelfth grade

All questions were written in Vietnamese to guarantee students’ accurate understanding and their full confidence in their responses shown in Appendix A

The questionnaire was divided into two parts: Part 1 is students’ personal information which such as students’ ages, genders, ethnic communities (Kinh group

or Muong group) and years of learning English Part 2 focuses on the following categories: the students’ attitudes toward teacher feedback and students’ preference

on teacher feedback

The questionnaires were composed of demographic information, multiple response items, closed items, such as yes / no, and Likert-type items which were classified as “strongly disagree, disagree, no idea, agree, strongly agree” or “very often, often, often, sometimes, rarely, never” Students were asked to give appropriate responses on the instrument that best described their feelings towards the statement at the moment For example, the answer of a question like “Teacher should mark all the errors?” could be marked anywhere between one (completely disagree) and five (completely agree) or another example, in the question: “How frequently are you given feedback in writing?” with five forms of answers as “a very often, b often, c sometimes, d rarely, e never” The Likert scale was used in order to provide a quantifiable percentage by which all participants’ answers could

be compared The candidates were instructed to complete the questionnaire individually We administered the questionnaires in each person in order to avoid a

cross fertilization effect which may occur in the process of collecting and analysing the data Details are shown in Appendix A

3.3.2 Follow- up interviews

Apart from questionnaires, the data was also obtained through interviews Twenty students were randomly chosen from who agreed to do an interview and filled their names in their questionnaire to further participate in the interviews through purposive sampling The purpose of the interviews was to explore in more detail students’ responses to the questionnaire In order to make the interviewees comfortable and easily understandable, the language used in all the interviews is Vietnamese The 20 interviews took place over a month Each interview lasted approximately 5 minutes and was conducted at the break time between two periods

of their lessons at school During each interview, the researcher took notes for the main transcription All the interviews were audio-taped for precision and easier transcription with the participants’ permissions

The students were interviewed in-depth about their preferences regarding learning styles, their attitudes towards teacher feedback, as well as suggestions for the improvement of teacher feedback The interviews were designed and consisted

of 6 questions which were utilized to allow individuals to reveal greater depth to their responses An example of an interview schedule is included in Appendix B

3.4 Data analysis

The data from the questionnaire, which were divided into three different categories, were analyzed statistically in order to answer the questions mentioned above in the first part of this chapter The results were presented in the form of percentage, frequencies by using data in tables to illustrate Regarding interviews, data were analyzed qualitatively As such, the interviews were transcribed, and analyzed by looking for themes and categories, according to the grounded theory principles (Charmaz, 2006) The results were presented in the form of significant themes and categories verbalized by the participants Quotes from their answers were also used to illustrate more for the study

CHAPTER FOUR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter deals with analysis and interpretation of major findings of the study collected through questionnaires and interviews Tables are used to illustrate findings

4.1 Results and Discussion

4.1.1 Students’ experiences and attitudes toward teacher feedback

Table 4.1: Students’ feelings towards teacher feedback

Question 1: How do you feel towards

teacher feedback?

Number of responses

do in their writing

However, the data reveals the students’ feelings toward teacher feedback that

16 had the neutral idea while a majority of them (equivalent to 72.4%) do not