Nghiên cứu thực trạng việc phản hồi chữa lỗi của giáo viên trên bài viết của học sinh lớp 11 trường THPT Ngô Gia Tự, Bắc Ninh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
________ ________

THESIS SUMMARY
Title: TEACHERS’ CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON THE 11th FORM STUDENTS’
WRITING AT NGO GIA TU HIGH SCHOOL, BAC NINH
(Nghiên cứu thực trạng việc phản hồi chữa lỗi của giáo viên
trên bài viết của học sinh lớp 11 tr-ờng THPT Ngô Gia Tự, Bắc
Ninh)

MA. Minor Thesis
Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 601410
By

: Trn Th Hng

Supervisor : Nguyễn Thuỵ Ph-ơng Lan, MA

Hanoi, 2011


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ABSTRACT
Although teachers’ response to student writing plays an important role in teaching writing, it
is usually neglected by teachers especially at high school level. In an effort to investigate the
reality of teachers’ corrective feedback on the 11th form student writing and students’
opinions on what they receive, the research was carried out with participation of 90 grade 11

students and 10 teachers at Ngo Gia Tu high school in Bac Ninh.This is a survey research
with three main instruments. The first one is the survey questionnaire for teachers and
students which was employed to collect information about how teachers gave feedback on the
student writing and students’ opinions on what they received. The other two were the direct
interview with two teachers and the document analysis of the teacher corrective feedback on
students’ writing papers in practice. This helped the researcher to get further information to
justify the results of the survey questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed that there
existed a lot of problems concerning teachers’ responding methods, their feedback focus, their
frequent types and forms as well as their help for students’ process of teachers’ feedback. The
results also showed the mismatch between what the teachers often give and what the students
would like to get. Furthermore, the study recommends several important directions with the
hope to be able to improve the teacher’s feedback, to help the students process the feedback
more effectively and thus to create a good cooperative working environment for teachers and
students to teach and to learn writing more successfully.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION.............................................................................................................I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................ II
ABSTRACT ..............................................................................................................III
TABLE OF CONTENTS..............................................................................................IV
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS…………………………………………………..VI
PART ONE : INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………1
I. Rationale………………………………………………………………………………...1
II. Aims of the study………………………………………………………………………2
III. Research questions…………………………………………………………………….2
IV. Method of the study…………………………………………………………………...2
V. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………………...3

VI. Significance of the study ........................................................................................... 3
VII. Design of the study .................................................................................................. 3

PART TWO : DEVELOPMENT………………………………………………………4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................... 4
1.1. Theoretical backgrounds to the teaching writing ....................................................... 4
1.1.1. Definitions of writing ............................................................................................. 4
1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing .............................................................................. 5
1.1.2.1. The text-based approach .................................................................. 5
1.1.2.2. The genre-based approach ............................................................... 6
1.1.2.3. The process approach....................................................................... 6
1.2. Theoretical backgrounds to teachers’ feedback ......................................................... 7
1.2.1. Definitions of feedback .......................................................................................... 7
1.2.2. The benefits of teachers’ feedback to writing ......................................................... 8
1.2.3. Approaches to feedback giving .............................................................................. 9
1.2.3.1. Single-draft approach....................................................................... 9


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1.2.3.2. The multiple-draft approach ........................................................... 10
1.2.4. Types of teacher feedback .................................................................................... 10
1.2.4.1. Formative feedback versus summative feedback...............................10
1.2.4.2. Negative feedback versus positive feedback………………………..11
1.2.5. Focus of teacher feedback .................................................................................... 11
1.2.6. Forms of teacher’s written feedback ..................................................................... 12
1.2.7. Issues in the teachers' written feedback ................................................................ 13
1.2.7.1. Traditional “marking” ................................................................... 13
1.2.7.2. Appropriating students’ texts .......................................................... 13
1.2.7.3. Overlooking the students’ varying levels of writing ability .............. 14

1.2.8. Principles of teachers’ written feedback ............................................................... 14

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY .............................................................................16
2.1. The context of the study…………………………………………………………….16
2.2.The textbook ........................................................................................................... 16
2.3.Participants ............................................................................................................. 17
2.4. The instruments for data collection ......................................................................... 18
2.5.Data collection procedures ....................................................................................... 19
2.6. Data analysis .......................................................................................................... 20
2.6.1. Data analysis of questionnaire for teachers and direct interview……..20
2.6.2. Document analysis of the teachers feedback……………………….....27
2.6.3. Data analysis of questionnaire for students…………………………...28

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................35
3.1 Findings. ................................................................................................................. 35
3.2. Discussion……………………………………………………………………….......36

PART THREE: CONCLUSION ................................................................................39
I. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 39
II. Recommendations .................................................................................................... 39
III. Suggestion for further study ..................................................................................... 41

REFERENCES ..........................................................................................................42


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APPENDICES

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table 2.1. Teachers’ purposes of giving feedback....................................................................21
Chart 2.1. Times of teacher feedback on each assignment.......................................................22
Table 2.2. Frequency of teacher feedback types……………………………………...............22
Table 2.3. Focus of teacher feedback…………………………………………………………23
Table 2.4. Forms of teacher feedback………………………………………………...............24
Chart 2.2. Teachers’ treatment with too many errors in the student writing…………………25
Chart 2.3. The importance of teacher feedback………………………………………………29
Chart 2.4. Students’ expectation for frequency of teacher feedback on each assignment……29
Chart 2.5. Students’ reading of teacher feedback…………………………………………….30
Table 2.5. Students’ expectation for teacher feedback types…………………………………30
Table 2.6. Students’ expectation for the focus of teacher feedback…………………………..31
Table 2.7. Usefulness of teacher feedback forms as perceived by students………………….32
Table 2.8. Students’ expectation for teachers’ treatment with too many errors on writing…..33


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PART ONE : INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale
Language educators have long used the concepts of four basic language skills: listening, speaking,
reading and writing. Among such four skills, writing is considered as a productive skill in the
written mode. Writing helps students learn. It helps reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms
and vocabulary that students have taught. They also have a chance to be adventurous with the
language, to go beyond what they have just learnt. When writing, they necessarily become very
involved in the new language, the effort to express ideas.
With all the importance mentioned above, developing second language (L2) writing proficiency is
now central to the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL). However, how to improve
students’ writing seems to be very difficult. In many cases, students would need intervention from
their teachers in terms of not only writing instructions but also their comments on the strengths
and weeknesses, which will make students know how to go about improving themselves and

become effective writers. As Kroll (2003, p. 115) notes, “second language writers often benefit
most and make the most progress when teachers contribute to this goal through a variety of
intervention strategies available in classroom settings”. Thus, teachers’ feedback can be
considered as a pedagogical tool for the students’ writing improvement. Good feedback gives
students stimulation for revision and motivation to maintain their interest in writing.
The use of teacher feedback in writing classrooms has been generally supported as a potentially
valuable aid for its social cognitive, affective and methodological benefits (Merlin, (1986),
Radecki and Swales (1988), Hedge (2000), Ferris and Roberts (2001)). They all believe that
teacher feedback is very important and has a great influence on the success of teaching and
learning writing. However, such information is not always clear out. Many studies on this area so
far have shown that there has been a lack of consensus over how teachers should respond to the
students’ writing.
Although teachers’ feedback plays such an essential part in teaching writing, most teachers
especially high school ones do not pay much attention to this issue. At Ngo Gia Tu high school,
there have been few attempts to investigate feedback in general and teachers’ corrective feedback
in particular to explore which aspects of writing theory work in practice and which aspects
teachers may need to adapt or modify in order to better serve their learners’ needs.
The above reasons have urged the author, a teacher of English at Ngo Gia Tu high school, to
carry out a study on teachers’ corrective feedback in an attempt to get truthful information on


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how teachers at this school give corrective feedback on students’ writing; their problems in
responding to students’ writing as well as students’ attitudes towards this feedback. It is hoped
that the study will help to make recommendations for improving current teachers’ feedback,
helping students to process the feedback they receive more effectively and thus to improve their
writing skills.

II. Aims of the study
The study is aimed at :

- Investigating teachers’ corrective feedback given to 11th form students’ writings: their
responding method, the feedback focus, feedback types and forms, as well as their problems in
responding to the students' writing.
- Investigating students’ attitudes towards their teachers’ feedback and their opinions of the
feedback they receive.
- Proposing some recommendations for teachers to improve their feedback giving practice in
order to help students write more effectively.

III. Research Questions
In order to achieve the above- mentioned purposes, the following research questions were
formulated and needed to be answered :
1. How do the teachers give feedback on the students’ writings ?
2. What are the students’ opinions on the feedback they receive ?

IV. Method of the study
The study was carried out using survey research method. Survey questionnaires for teachers and
students were main instruments for data collection. Besides, the interview with the teachers and
document analysis of the teacher feedback on students’ writing papers were also used to gather
further information so that the research result would be more reliable. Data gathered was
normally largely qualitative, but it might also be quantitative.

V. Scope of the study
Feedback in writing is a broad topic including peer feedback, self- editing, teachers’ corrective
feedback…However, within the limitation of research time and the length of a minor thesis, the
study just focuses on teachers’ corrective feedback on 11 th form students’ writings. The subjects
chosen for this study are 11th form students because they have been taught writing skills for one


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year at high school level and they are quite familiar with their teachers’ comment. This will make

the study more feasible. Its results will be more applicable into the real classroom.

VI. Significance of the study
The present study was carried out with the hope that it would provide a general view of how
teachers have actually give feedback to students’ writing and what are the students' attitudes
towards the feedback they receive. By collecting both teachers’ and students’ ideas about
feedback giving practice, some suggestions for improving teachers' feedback may be stated so
that students can utilize it more successfully in their revision.

VII. Design of the study
This study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion. The
introduction part briefly presents the rationale of the study, the aims, research questions, methods,
scope, the significance and the design of the study. The development part consists of three
chapters. Chapter one provides essential literature review relevant to the study including teaching
writing in general and teacher feedback in particular. Chapter two deals with the methodology
underlying the research, which presents the context of the study, the textbook, the background
information about the subjects of the study, the instruments and procedure for data collection as
well as the detailed analysis of data collected. Chapter three is devoted to presenting the findings
of the study and the discussion about it. The thesis ends with the conclusion part which gives a
summary of the main issues that have been discussed, some recommendations and suggestions for
further research as well.

PART TWO : DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the review of concepts
that are the most relevant to the thesis’ topic. It begins with some theoretical backgrounds to the
teaching writing, which includes definitions of writing and approaches to teaching writing. Next
come some theoretical backgrounds to teachers’ feedback, which consists of definitions of
feedback, purposes of giving feedback, approaches to giving feedback, forms, types and focus.

1.1. Theoretical backgrounds to the teaching writing
1.1.1. Definitions of writing


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What writing is and how it is developed has been a subject of discussion and debate for centuries,
which shows a lack of consensus as to what it is and reflects the complexity of the writing
process. Traditionally, researchers focused mainly on form and the final product, while current
research in composition emphasizes the composing process and strategies that are utilized by
writers to attain the final product. In this part, the researcher quoted some definitions of writing of
different authors (Byrne (1991, p.01); (Lannon, 1989, p. 9); (Flower & Hayes, 1981); (Renandya
& Richard, 2002, p.1); (Silva, 1990, p.15)) …
1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing
The teaching of writing which is a vast and complex subject has long been a central element in
all-educational systems. Also a number of conflicting views of the best ways to teach writing
have been presented. Raimes (1992) identifies three principle ways of approaching the task;
namely; the text-based approach, the genre based-approach and the process approach.

1.2. Theoretical backgrounds to teachers’ feedback
1.2.1. Definitions of feedback
Up to the present, responding to the student writing, including giving feedback is one of the most
controversial topics in second language instruction and theory. There have been few attempts to
define the term “feedback” in teaching writing, researchers seem to have reached a consensus of
the nature and function of feedback. Feedback as viewed by Furnborough and Truman (2009)
entails the existence of gaps between what has been learned and the target competence of the
learners, and the efforts undertaken to bridge these gaps. Similarly, Keh (1989, p. 294) suggests
that feedback is “input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information for
revision". Additionally, Renandya and Richards (2002) state that: “for students who write only
one draft, which is then graded by the teacher, feedback on what is wrong in the composition
comes too late". This means that feedback should be provided in the “process of writing” rather

than in the “single act of producing a text”.
1.2.2. The benefits of teachers’ feedback to writing
Lewis (2002) sums up the five benefits of giving feedback. First, Feedback provides information
for teachers and students. Second, feedback provides students with advice about learning. Third,
feedback provides students with meaningful and individual language input. Fourth, feedback is a
form of motivation. Finally, feedback can lead students towards autonomy. One long-term
purpose of feedback is to lead students to the point where they can find their own mistakes. In


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many cases, teachers indicate the place and type of error without correcting or underlining. They
require students to find and correct the mistake themselves.
1.2.3. Approaches to feedback giving
1.2.3.1.The single-draft approach: This approach is popularly used in traditional classes where
teacher's written feedback seems straightforward.
1.2.3.2. The multiple-draft approach: The multiple-draft approach is applied in “process writing"
classes where students may write several drafts which are read and commented on or edited by
the teacher. Then students are required to re-write, using the feedback offered by teacher.
1.2.4. Types of teacher feedback
Teachers' feedback can be conducted in many ways: dialog journals, written comments on
students' draft or student-teacher conferences... However, the author of this study addresses some
types of teacher's written feedback and how these types influence the student revision.
1.2.4.1. Formative feedback versus summative feedback
1.2.4.2. Negative feedback versus positive feedback
1.2.5. Focus of teacher feedback
More evidence of progress and higher quality of the writing as a whole has been observed in
groups of students who receive feedback on content only or combination of both content and
grammar (Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998). This finding suggests that feedback needs to focus more
on content than on form, or a combination of both.
1.2.6. Forms of teacher feedback

According to Ferris (1997), teacher feedback generally operates within four basic syntactic forms:
question, statement, imperative, and exclamation, which present different pragmatic aims such as
giving or asking for further information, making request for revision, giving positive feedback.
It is true that the composition teachers can use these forms to provide feedback to their students.
However, they should be aware of the potential problems that each form presents. In addition,
Hendrickson (1976) suggests language teachers use various direct and indirect techniques when
providing feedback to students’ writing.
1.2.7. Issues in the teachers' written feedback
1.2.7.1. Traditional “marking”
1.2.7.2. Appropriating students’ texts


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1.2.7.3. Overlooking the students’ varying levels of writing ability
1.2.8. Principles of teachers’ written feedback
Ferris (2003) provides a list of considerations concerning teacher feedback which focuses on
communication and process; the most important of which are the following. First, Feedback
should include all the aspects that relate to writing, such as content, structure and grammar.
Second, Feedback should be comprehensible and non-appropriative. Third, Feedback has to take
into consideration contextual variable, especially in the case of L2 learners.
In summary, the chapter has so far touched upon issues relating to the topic of the study. It has
discussed issues concerning writing in general and teacher feedback in particular - approaches to
teaching writing, the purposes, the focus, the types and the forms of feedback as well as some
problems in teachers’ written response. On the basis, the chapter has recommended principles of
teacher’ written feedback following some well-known scholars. The following chapters will
display the methodology and the findings under the light of the above-discussed theoretical
background to the teaching writing and theoretical background to feedback.

CHAPTER II : METHODOLOGY
This chapter is designed to give a brief description of research methods used during the process of

doing the thesis. It presents the information about the context of the study, the textbook, the
respondents, instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis as well.

2.1. The context of the study
The study was conducted at Ngo Gia Tu high school, Tu Son town, Bac Ninh province, which has
been recognized as a standard national school. This year, the school has 1340 students, with an
average of 45 students per class. There are nine teachers of English and seventy others teaching
different subjects. Most of them are young and have B.A degree. Most of the school students
come from the surrounding communes. Most of their parents devote to making their learning
condition best. With respect to English subject, each class receives three periods a week. The
teaching equipment includes the textbooks, some cassette players for listening and an audiovisual room. The students are taught merely the content prescribed in nationally authorized
textbooks. They are poor at English. Of the four skills, writing is considered one of the most
boring and difficult to master. The writers have to pay attention to skills of planning and
organizing as well as skills of spelling, punctuation, word choice and so on. The difficulty
becomes even more serious because the students’ language proficiency is weak.


8
This study is conducted with the hope to help both teachers and students aware of the importance
of giving feedback and effective ways to give feedback on student writing .

2.2. The textbook
The textbooks used to teach English at Ngo Gia Tu high schools are English Basic 10, 11 and 12.
They were developed based on the new national curriculum. The books are said to follow
“learner-centered approach and communicative approach with task-based teaching” (English 10,
Teacher’s Manual: 12). Each book includes 16 units and six review units called Test yourself.
Each unit covers a topic and is sub-divided into five sections: Reading, Speaking, Listening,
Writing and Language Focus. Each part is supposed to be taught in 45 minutes.
As one of the three textbooks, “Tieng Anh 11” textbook consists of sixteen units, each of which is
sub-divided into five sections. The writing lesson which is the fourth in each unit introduced after

reading, speaking and listening is designed in the light of theme-based and task-based approaches.
Each section consists of some tasks and activities with the aim of helping students improve their
writing skills of different topics such as writing personal letters, invitation letters or describing
information in a table. The writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities that
guide students through the writing process such as model analysis, language work, and guided
writing. After that, students are required to produce texts of 120-130 words on familiar topics
based on models or prompts for personal or basic communicative purposes. All these activities
are carried out in a period of 45 minutes.

2.3. Participants
The subjects of the study are the two groups of grade 11 with the total of 90 students and 8
teachers who are currently teaching English at the school. These students were selected as a
subset of the population by means of cluster random sampling. Of the 90 students, 41 are male
and 49 are female. Most of these students have learnt English for eight or nine years. Their ages
range from 16 to 17. 61% of these students assumed that their English writing performance was
fair and 20% of them said that they were poor at writing. Accordingly, the majority of the study
subjects are not good at writing. The eight teachers participating in the study are teaching English
in the school. All of them are female teachers. Their ages range from 30 to 35 years old. One has
taught English for 6 years; the rest have more than ten years teaching experience.

2.4. Instruments for Data Collection
In this study, three main instruments were used. They were document analysis, questionnaire and
follow-up interviews. Data gathered was largely qualitative, but it might also be quantitative.


9
2.4.1. Questionnaire for Students
This survey questionnaire was divided into two parts. Part one was designed to get the sttudents’
personal information which includes their gender, their learning experience (the number of years
they have been studying English) and their English writing performance (according their

assessment). Part two elicits information concerning the students’ opinions about teachers’
feedback, factors affecting their comprehension of feedback, and their recommendations to
improve it. There are eleven questions, of which, likert scale was used for question 1, 3, 6 and
question 11 was the only open-ended one.
2.4.2. Questionnaire for Teachers
This also consists of two main parts. Part one is about teachers’ personal information such as their
gender, their ages and their teaching experience. Part two examines the teachers’ purposes of
providing feedback, their preferred methods, the various types and forms of feedback they use as
well as any strategies used to help the student process their comments effectively and their own
problems in constructing and providing feedback. The teacher questionnaire comprises 11
questions. Question 3, 4, 5 were designed in the form of likert scale arranged from (1) frequently,
(2) sometimes, (3) never. The last one is open-ended.
2.4.3. Follow-up Interview
A follow-up interview with two teachers was carried out after the teachers had finished answering
the questionnaire. It was implemented in Vietnamese in the form of conversation between the
researcher and two teachers who are teaching English to the students chosen as respondents for
this study. The interview was semi-structured with a list of open-ended questions. The questions
in the interview were based on those in the questionnaire.
2.4.4. Document analyses of teachers' written feedback
Writing samples with the two teachers’ written feedback were randomly collected and analyzed.
The teacher feedback provided by the two teachers include three writing tasks of unit 12, 14 and
15 of 11th form textbook. These were carried out to describe current practice of feedback giving
involving responding method, the feedback focus, feedback types and forms, as well as their
problems in responding to the students’ writing. Hopefully, this information will be used to
confirm the results from other sources so that the result of this study will be more reliable.

2.5. Data Collection Procedures
The whole process was divided into 3 steps: First, the questionnaires were handed out for both
teachers and students. Second, the interviews with two teachers were conducted. Last, teachers’

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written commentary on the students’ writing compositions were examined and analyzed. The
students’writing regarding teachers’ written feedback of the two classes were collected by the
researcher from the second semester of the school year. The students were all willing to lend their
writings after the researcher ensured them that their name would not be identified in the
discussion of the data. The copies of these writings contained handwritten commentary provided
by the two teachers. However, the researcher chose randomly some papers to analyze because
these papers were used as the sample of writings collected from the large number of documented
students’ writings.

CHAPTER III : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter is designed to present the findings and to discuss the findings of the study. It
comprises two main sections. Section 1 is the findings of the study. The other is discussion.

3.1. Findings
This part presents the answers to two research questions mentioned at the beginning of the thesis.

3.1.1. Research question 1: How do the teachers give feedback on the student writing?
After analysing the data collected from the survey questionnaire for teachers and the observation
of the teacher feedback on the writing, the researcher concludes that there are some major
problems with the teachers’ responding method in terms of frequency of the teacher feedback on
each writing, the feedback types and forms and the focus of feedback as well as their responding
strategies. They are as follows:
- The teachers’ main purpose of giving feedback to the student writing is helping students
promote their writing and pointing out students’ strength and weakness.
- All of the teachers stick to one- short commenting, mixing responding with evaluating in the
form of a grade at the same time.
- For the teacher feedback types, the majority of the teachers frequently use negative and
formative or detailed feedback. They sometimes utilize positive and summative comments.

- Feedback in imperatives, questions and underlining errors and indicating types of errors appears
to be used most often. The others such as exclamations, statements… are sometimes used.
- Feedback on grammatical, lexical, mechanical errors are more frequently seen on the students’
drafts than on content, organization.
- The results show that if there are too many errors in the writing, most of the teachers will correct
all the major errors, ignoring the minor ones.


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- For the responding strategies, most teachers take students’ level of writing ability into account.
They usually use simple words and structures when giving feedback. However, they never
explain the feedback strategies to the students and they never ask students to tell what they
thought about feedback they received.

3.1.2. Research question 2: What are the students’ opinions of the teacher feedback they
receive?
The author has drawn some findings from the results of the survey questionnaire for students:
- Most of the students realize that the teacher feedback plays an important role in learning writing.
They expect to receive the teacher feedback more than one an assignment.
- For the teacher feedback types, most of the students want to receive specific feedback. The other
small number would like to receive positive, summative or negative feedback.
- In terms of the teacher feedback forms. Feedback in statements, imperatives, exclamations and
underlining errors and indicating the types of errors are considered to be useful and very useful.
The students have low opinion on feedback in the form of questions or only marking errors.
- The results also reveal that most students wish their teachers to give feedback on both form and
content. However, they put more emphasis on form.
- Nearly half of the learners would like their teachers to correct all kinds of errors even if there are
too many errors in their writing. The other half want their teachers to treat the repeated errors.
- It is dismal to find out that more than half of the students find it difficult to understand the
teacher feedback for it is too general and their teachers use new vocabulary and structures.

3.2. Discussion
The findings of the study implicate that the teachers’ ways of giving feedback to the student
writing at Ngo Gia Tu high school are not effective. Most teachers confirm that their feedback to
students’ writing is to help students improve the quality of their papers, which is relevant to the
most important function of teacher feedback as Penaflorida (2002), Lewis (2002) have stated.
However, what teachers have done is ineffective.
Firstly, the frequency of giving and receiving feedback indicates that the teaching writing
approach, which all the teachers are applying, is product-based approach. Accordingly, the
teacher feedback method they are using is the single draft approach. Therefore, students lack
practice as they are not encouraged to write multiple drafts of a work. One possible result is that
students put their corrected assignments/papers in a folder and never look at it again.


12
Secondly, the findings of the study show that the teachers usually use some certain feedback
types such as negative and specific feedback. The teachers use specific feedback more frequently
than summative one, which makes teachers themselves focus on discrete items or parts of writing
but neglect the overview of the student writing. What’s more, they use more criticism than praise
on the students’ papers. This leads to the students feeling that their teachers are errors hunters, not
helpful readers whose comments would encourage them to write more and further develop their
ideas in the next writing.
Thirdly, feedback on grammatical errors, vocabulary and word choice are frequently responded to
the students’ drafts. These findings show that the teachers focus more on form than on content,
which partly meets the students’ expectation in terms of the focus of feedback. However, both the
teachers and learners seem not to realize that the students’ second drafts might be perfect in
grammar but lack in substance.
Moreover, feedback in imperatives, underlining errors and indicating the error types appear to be
used the most often. These are also the teacher feedback forms that students prefer to receive in
their writing. Other feedback forms such as questions, exclamations are rarely used. The teachers

should realize that each form of feedback has its own benefit and shortcoming (Hendrickson
(1976) and Allwright (1975)). The teachers’ feedback from the observation of students’ drafts has
shown that their correction is not consistent and systematic. That is, they use different techniques
or forms of feedback to correct a certain type of error. One more thing is that sometimes, the
errors are underlined with red ink and no suggestion for correction which makes students not
know how to correct the mistakes. Obviously, it is necessary for teachers and students to be well
informed of the usefulness of each technique as well as the criteria of composition evaluation in
order to make the giving and taking feedback in writing more effectively.
Additionally, the findings state that most teachers take students’ level of writing ability into
account. They often use simple words and structures when giving feedback. In contrast, students
say that their teacher feedback is not easy to understand because of new vocabulary and
structures. So, what is the reason? Most informants admit that they are poor at English and also
bad at writing skills. They are not knowledgeable enough to understand and process their teacher
feedback.
Last but not least, all the teachers in this study are new to the ideas of getting response from their
students as to the effects of the feedback on the students’ revision. One of the main reasons is that
they do not have enough time to do so. The teachers, therefore, have missed a good chance to get
to know more about the students’ feelings and opinions on the feedback they receive. In fact,


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different students will address and utilize the teachers’ feedback in different way as they are
differed in terms of low-ability or high-ability writers. The later one will handle the teachers’
feedback more successfully than the former. In other words, the low-ability writers will have
difficulty solving the problem of their own papers if the teachers give unclear or general
comment.
In conclusion, there is a misfit between what the teachers provided in their feedback on the
student writing and what the students would like to get at Ngo Gia Tu high school. Students had a
tendency to ignore the feedback given by the teachers or they express negative attitudes towards
feedback, objecting to the focus, techniques, forms and types used by the teachers. Consequently,

the teacher’s feedback is monotonous and not helpful to improve the quality of the students’
learning and performance.
PART THREE : CONCLUSION
I. Conclusion
This study has been done with the aim of investigating the teachers’ corrective feedback on the
student writing. The literature review has made with the hope to demonstrate the scope of the
study theoretically in terms of teaching writing and feedback giving. The findings from the data
analysis show that the teacher feedback on the 11th form student writing at Ngo Gia Tu high
school is problematic. There is misfit between what the teachers often give and what the students
would like to get. Although both teachers and students are aware of the great importance of
feedback on the writing, they do not pay due attention to it. What feedback the teachers often give
is irrelevant to theoretical principles given by the linguists stated in the literature review.
Therefore, the teacher feedback does not fulfil its aims, to help students improve the quality of
their writing.
This study also implies that writing is an important but difficult skill for the students to acquire.
However, rewriting is equally important and difficult because it is an act of improving and
promoting students’ writing ability. Therefore, it is essential for the researcher to propose some
suggestions with a hope to help the teachers and students to change the current practice, making
the teachers’ commentary essentially one of the most valuable pedagogical tool for the student’s
writing improvement.
II. Recommendations
In order to make the teachers’ written feedback more effective and to help students improve their
writing ability, some suggested solutions are indicated as follows:


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The administrators should reduce the class size to about 20 students or less for one group when
learning English and double the time for each writing period. With this reasonable class size plus
appropriate number of papers to weekly respond to, the teachers will be able to devote their time
and energy to giving appropriate and detailed feedback for the students’ benefit.

In the role of writing teachers, they should take into account the following advice.
-

They should follow the multiple drafts approach to give feedback to the writing.

-

They should comment on both content and form of the student writing because they
should not only cater to the students’ need but also shift those expectations according to
what contributes most to the development of writing skills.

-

They should balance the comments of praise and criticism, taking the advice of Reid
(1993) that “as they write, receive response, and revise, students should be able to feel
good about what they have done well and realize that they can improve on what they have
not done effectively”.

-

They should explain the feedback strategies before applying them, using suitable
vocabulary and structures in feedback. If using the coding system, they must be sure that
their students understand the codes’ meaning.

-

They need to be flexible in using and combining the forms or techniques together with
their pragmatic intention to each error item.

III. Suggestions for further study

Although the study has achieved the objectives set at the beginning, it cannot avoid some
limitations. The research only investigates the corrective feedback of the teachers in one
particular teaching situation- the 11th form students at Ngo Gia Tu high school. Further studies
can look at the teacher feedback on the variety of respondents’ writing.
Due to the shortage of time and knowledge and the limited framework of a minor thesis, many
other types of feedback that have not been touched in this research. Therefore, further studies
should aim at other types of feedback such as oral teachers’ feedback, peer- responding, selfediting, conferencing. Also, the findings of this study can be used to make comparative and
contrastive analysis with other types of feedback so that we can find out which feedback is more
effective for students to improve their writing.
Obviously, mistakes are unavoidable. Therefore, all valuable comments, advice and suggestions
from teachers, colleagues and friends will be highly appreciated by the author.