Using peer feedback to improve students’ writing = Sử dụng phản hồi đồng đăng để nâng cao kỹ năng viết của học sinh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES




DƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO


USING PEER FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE
STUDENTS’ WRITING

SỬ DỤNG PHẢN ĐỒNG ĐẲNG ĐỂ NÂNG CAO
KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH


M.A. MINOR THESIS






HANOI - 2012
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



DƯƠNG THỊ PHƯƠNG THẢO


USING PEER FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE
STUDENTS’ WRITING

SỬ DỤNG PHẢN HỒI ĐỒNG ĐẲNG ĐỂ NÂNG CAO
KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH


M.A. MINOR THESIS





HANOI - 2012
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10
Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thu Thuỷ, M.A.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i

Declaration ii
Abstract iii
Table of contents iv
Lists of tables, figures and appendices vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. The rationale of the study 1
2. Scope of the study 2
3. Aims of the study and research questions 2
4. Significance of the study 3
5. Methods of the study 3
6. Design of the study 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Theoretical backgrounds of feedback in students‟ writing 5
1.1.1. Definitions of feedback. 5
1.1.2. Roles of feedback 5
1.1.3. Types of feedback 6
1.1.3.1. Teacher‟s feedback 6
1.1.3.2. Self-editing 7
1.1.3.3. Peer feedback 8
1.2. Previous studies on peer feedback and students‟ writing 10
Chapter 2: THE STUDY
2.1. Learning situation in writing class 13
2.2. Methodology 14
2.2.1. The participants 14

v

2.2.2. Instrumentation 15
2.2.3. Data collection procedure 15

2.2.4. Data analysis procedure 17
Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. The current practice of students‟ peer feedback in writing 19
3.1.1. The use of articles 22
3.1.2. Punctuation 23
3.1.3. Prepositions 23
3.1.4. Word order. 24
3.2. Improvement of students‟ writing after receiving peer feedback
25
3.3. Students‟ perceived difficulties when giving feedback to their peers‟
writings 28
3.3.1. Students‟ perceived difficulties in indicating the mistakes in
their peers‟ writings 28
3.3.2. Students‟ perceived difficulties in providing suggestions for
the mistakes in their peers‟ writings 31
3.4. Implications for the teaching and learning of writing using peer
feedback 33
PART C: CONCLUSION
1. Conclusion 35
2. Limitations of the action research 36
3. Suggestions for further study 36
REFERENCES
APPENDICES



vi

Lists of tables

Table 1: Students’ feedback given by peers.
Table 2: Examples of students’ giving peer feedback in sentence writing.
Table 3: Students’ improvement in the use of articles and punctuation after
receiving peer written feedback
Table 4: Students’ improvement in prepositions and word order after
receiving peer written feedback
Table 5: The students’ levels of difficulty in indicating the mistakes.
Table 6: The students’ levels of difficulty in providing suggestions for the
mistakes.

List of figures
Figure 1: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for mistakes
with the use of articles.
Figure 2: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for mistakes
with punctuation.
Figure 3: The proportion of students who provided suggestions for mistakes
related to prepositions.

List of appendices

Appendix 1: Questionnaire
Appendix 2: Criteria used to analyze the peer feedback on writing.
Appendix 3: Symbols for correcting mistakes



1

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Nowadays, education and training in Vietnam has tried to apply the
latest methodology in teaching language skills in general and in teaching
writing skills in particular in order to make language teaching and learning as
effective as possible. Hai Phong Community College (HPCC) is certainly not
an exception. Since its establishment in 2000, HPCC has paid great attention
to English as one of the important subjects so that students after graduating
should be able to use English confidently in their jobs and read documents
written in English in their majors. Therefore, all students at HPCC study
English for 4 terms. During these terms, they learn and practice the four basic
skills and some ESP lessons. The textbooks such as New Cutting Egde -
Elementary (Cunningham, Moor and Eales, 2005), New Cutting Egde - Pre-
intermediate (Cunningham, Moor and Carr, 2005) are chosen as the materials
at HPCC. The students share the same English course for all the four terms
(each term includes 60 periods, 45minutes/period) and some ESP (English for
specific purposes) for extra in each term. In these four terms, students learn
different skills, which are integrated in a module as organized in the
textbooks. However, writing skills are especially necessary for them.
Each of the textbooks like that consists of fifteen modules with specific
topic, vocabulary and grammar. At the end of each lesson, students are
usually asked to write a short paragraph of about 5 to 7 sentences based on the
topic of the lesson to revise what they have learnt. This writing not only helps
students revise the vocabulary and grammar but also gives them a chance to
get used to writing and expressing ideas in English. However, in order to
write a short paragraph like that writing correct sentences plays the crucial

2

role. Thus, the importance of writing in general and the importance of
sentence writing in particular is undeniable, yet, it places a heavy burden on

teachers. Besides that, each teacher at HPCC has responsibility to work with
at least 4 classes each term and there are about at least 40 to 80 students in
each class. A large amount of feedback from teachers is required. Therefore,
to help teacher to decrease the overloaded work of marking students‟ papers
and to make the process more effectively, one of the most effective ways of
giving feedback on writing - peer feedback in sentence writing- was
introduced. And this study was carried out during the first term of 2011-2012
school year and the textbook is New Cutting Egde - Elementary (
Cunningham, Moor and Eales, 2005) with the first year students learning
English at elementary level at HPCC who graduated from High School with
English level of 7 years.

2. Scope of the study
Feedback in writing is such a broad topic including teacher‟s feedback
and peer feedback. However, it is not my intention to cover both of them
because of the time and the length of the study, only peer feedback in
sentence writing skills among first year students learning English at
elementary level in the first semester at Hai Phong Community College.

3. Aims of the study and research questions.
The study is designed to investigate how peer feedback can be applied
to improve students‟ writing.
In order to achieve this aim, the study attempts to answer the following
questions:
1. How do students respond to their peers‟ writings?

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2. How do students improve their writings after receiving peer feedback?
3. What are students‟ perceived difficulties when giving feedback to

their peers‟ writings?


4. Significance of the study
Theoretically, the study proves that peer written feedback is crucial to
the teaching and learning of writing. Peer feedback in students‟ writing offers
a number of advantages. Indeed, peer feedback gives both the readers and the
writers more chances for collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral
negotiation and debate. It also gives the teacher a better chance of effectively
following the progress of individuals and groups, both in terms of the
feedback offered and revisions made.
The study, practically, points out that using peer feedback not only
eases the teachers‟ burden in giving feedback to students‟ writings but also
helps students improve their writing skills. Obviously, when students read
their peers‟ writings, they not only help their peers recognize and correct the
mistakes but also help themselves and become more critical writers.

5. Methods of the study
An action research was conducted to carry out the study with qualitative
features including document analysis and survey questionnaire to obtain
adequate information for the study.
First, document analysis of 210 students‟ drafts with peer written
feedback was done to find out how students provide feedback to their peers‟
sentence writing. Then, the students‟ first paragraphs were compared with
their second one and third with fourth and all with fifth paragraphs (all these

4

paragraphs were given peer written feedback) to see whether the peer written
feedback helps them improve their writings.

Second, the survey was done on the 42 students who had given peer
written feedback to find out the students‟ perceived difficulties in responding
to their peers‟ writing.

6. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and
Conclusion. The first part – Introduction gives reasons for choosing the topic,
the aims, the methods of the study and the significance of the study. It also
narrows the scope of the study and briefly presents an overall out-line of the
research study.
The second part - Development is sub-divided into three chapters.
Chapter 1 is Literature review, in which the related literature is reviewed.
Chapter 2 - The study - describes in detail the research methodology
which comprises the information of the learning situation, the participants,
instrumentation, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure.
Chapter 3 - Results and Discussion - presents the analysis and discussion
of the data and then draws the implications for the teaching and learning of
writing using peer written feedback.
The last part - Conclusion - offers some suggestions, limitations and
conclusion for the teaching and learning of writing using peer feedback.






5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1. Theoretical backgrounds of feedback in students’ writing.
1.1.1. Definitions of feedback.
Though there have been so far few attempts in the literature to define
the term “feedback” in teaching writing skills, many researchers, such as
Raimes (1983); Chaudron (1988); Ur (1996); Ellis (1985); Stemler (1997),
seem to have reached a consensus of the nature and function of feedback.
Feedback, which can be inferred from the above researchers‟ point of views,
has been traditionally identified as the teacher‟s response to the students, and
motivated by some actions related to student‟s learning.
Feedback is “any input from a reader to a writer with the effect of
providing information to the writer for revision” - Keh (1990:294). In other
words, when giving feedback, the reader gives the writer comments, questions
and suggestions with an aim to help him/her revise the writing.

1.1.2. Roles of feedback
Dheram (1995) and Brown (1988) agree that feedback seems to be
central to the process of teaching and learning of writing. Feedback in writing
is considered as an important aspect to develop students' language awareness
so that they can perform effectively in the writing classroom.
Feedback, as for Zamel (1981), is most effective when it points out
critical features of the language; gives information that allows the student „to
discover by oneself‟ rules and principles of language; and reduces ambiguity
of choice for the learner.


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Lewis (2002) also pointed out that feedback is not only motivational
factor but also provides students with information. First, feedback provides

information for both teachers and students. It gives teachers information about
individual and collective class progress and, indirectly, is a form of evaluation
on their own teaching. For students, feedback is an ongoing form of
assessment which is more focused than marks or grades. In addition, feedback
provides students with advice about learning. That means not only
descriptions of students‟ language use are provided simply but also comments
can be made on students‟ learning processes. Moreover, feedback provides
students with language input. Through feedback, students can learn new
vocabulary and structures. Besides, feedback is also a form of motivation
when it encourages students to study and to use language to the best of their
ability by taking into account whatever teachers know about students‟
attitudes. Finally, feedback can lead students towards autonomy by leading
students to the point where they can find their own mistakes.

1.1.3. Types of feedback
A review on the literature on writing reveals three major areas of
feedback as revision. These areas are: teacher‟s feedback, self-editing and
peer feedback.

1.1.3.1. Teacher’s feedback
Teachers, traditionally, are the main source of feedback both on oral
and written language. And teacher‟s feedback can be seen as feedback given
by teachers. Teachers are the ones who also bring “expertise in judgment”
from experience on similar tasks, giving them insight into various ways to

7

solve the assignments and in the difficulties previous learners encountered
(Topping, 2003).
Teacher‟s feedback plays a very important role in enhancing students‟

achievement. Obviously, it is the teachers who can give their students high-
quality, focused, constructive feedback. It is also the teachers who monitor
and maintain students‟ performance and progress by moving through the
class, assessing, suggesting, explaining, questioning, listening and
commending students‟ writing.
Beside that, teacher‟s feedback also has its own drawbacks. Some
studies showed that often teacher feedback is not “text specific”, can be
incorrect, or may not address the issues that it intends to (Ferris, 2006; Reid,
1993). In addition, Caulk (1994) found that teacher feedback was quite
“general”. Thus, it can be seen as “complementary”, as Berg (1999) and
Chaudron (1984) note. Moreover, other research suggests that there may be a
“mismatch” between the feedback that students want or expect and the
feedback that is actually given (Ping, Pin, Wee, & Hwee Nah, 2003).

1.1.3.2. Self-editing
According to Raimes (1984:149), “What students really need more than
anything else is to develop the ability to read their own writing and to
examine it critically, to learn how to express their meaning fluently, logically,
and accurately”. Self-editing, in his opinion, means students need to be able to
find and correct their own mistakes. Thus, one of the crucial factors for
students‟ success is students‟ attempt in language learning. If a learner was
aware of self-editing and tried to learn from his own failure, he would receive
more chances of overcoming difficulties in learning than others who did not
care for the reason why they failed. Besides, self-editing also develops

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students‟ critical skills to their own writing. However, in order to help
students to revise their own writings effectively, the teacher should provide
students with correction codes to work with.

1.1.3.3. Peer feedback
As mentioned above, peer feedback is considered to be a hotly debated
topic. And the term “peer feedback” is differently defined by various
researchers, such as: (Hyland, 2005); Hansen and Liu (2005); Zainurrahman
(2010); Topping (2009); Lewis (2002) However, these researchers seemed
to reach a consensus of the definition of “peer feedback”.
According to Bartels (2004), peer feedback means feedback from your
fellow students. If one student is working on the same assignment as another
student, peer feedback can mean exchanging drafts and comments on each
other‟s drafts.
Peer feedback is defined by Yang (Zeng, 2006) as feedback that is
given by peer. That means having other students to read and to give
comments, corrections, criticisms, and suggestions on what other students
have written.
The significant advantages of peer feedback have been realized and
widely acknowledged by language researchers and tearchers as well. Through
studies and practice, not only students but also teachers take advandges of
peer feedback.
For students, when using peer feedback on writing, firstly, they “can
and do revise effectively” on the basis of comments from their peers -
Rollinson (2005). It also may be that becoming a critical reader of others‟
writing may make students more critical readers and revisers of their own
writing. Secondly, the peers will let the writer (student) know if his/her

9

message was effective, and will encourage the writer to formulate his/her
writing in line with the characteristics and demands of the readers. Thirdly,
the peers are also potentially more sympathetic and provides instant feedback

than the teachers. Furthermore, peer written feedback also changes students‟
role in the class. As Jacobs (1989) says that with the teacher feedback, the
students‟ role is limited to producing writing which will be read and evaluated
solely by the teacher. In contrast, peer feedback on writing broadens students‟
involvement by giving them the additional roles of reader and advisor to go
with that of writer. Finally, Keh (1990) also discovered that when students
read the writings of their peers, they can find out their mistakes and at the
same time, this helps to remind them to avoid and correct such mistakes.
For teachers, when using peer feedback on writing, their time may be
saved by eliminating certain editing tasks, especially in large classes, thus
freeing them for more helpful instructions and guidance (Rollinson, 2005).
Peer feedback on writing also gives the teacher a better chance of closely
following the progress of individuals and groups (Rollinson, 2005). First, peer
written feedback helps teachers check if students are giving the proper type of
feedback and can provide actual examples of positive and negative feedback,
which is difficult to do with accuracy and depth in oral feedback. Second,
when writing assignments are turned in accompanied by the previous draft(s)
and the peers' comments, it is easier for the teacher to ascertain which ideas
originated with the student author and how well the student was able to
respond to and incorporate the feedback and suggestions from peers,
something that would not even be possible with oral feedback.
However, it is said that every coin has two sides, peer feedback is not
an exception. Against those enthusiastic claims and generally positive
findings, the only thing that makes peer feedback difficult to be applied in

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many writing classes is the time constraints. In fact, the peer written feedback
usually consists of reading a draft (probably more than one), making notes,
then write the comments, or engaging orally with the writer in a feedback

circle. All these stages will certainly consume a significant amount of time.
In sum, there are a number of reasons why many teachers have chosen
to use peer feedback on writing in the ESL writing classroom because of its
many advantages above. And from these advantages, peer feedback on
writing can be very useful in a wide variety of classes with students of
different levels. Peer feedback on writing can also be valuable in classes
where improving speaking skills is just as important as improving writing
skills. Overall, this technique can be instrumental in helping students
understand the process of writing and become independent thinkers and
writers.

1.2. Previous studies on peer feedback and students’ writing
Many researches have been implemented to find out whether peer
feedback has impact on students‟ writing and there have been many various
results. Every researcher has given his/her evidence to support his/her
arguments about this matter.
In the article “Using peer feedback in the ESl writing class”, ELT
Journal, 59(1), pp.23-29, Rollinson (2005) brieftly summarized some of the
main arguments in favor and against peer feedback. He points out many
advantages of peer feedback on writing with illustrated figures and these are
the reasons why teachers have chosen to use peer feedback in the ESL writing
classroom. Beside many avandtages of peer feedback, he also points out some
drawbacks when using peer feedback and the suggested ways to limit these
drawbacks by explaining how teachers can establish a positive context for

11

effective peer group response by organising proper procedures and training,
such as: (a) properly setting up the groups and establishing effective
procedures, b) adequate training, that is, coaching students in the principles

and practices of effective peer group interaction and response.Then he
determines that only if the class is adequately set-up and trained can the
benefits of the peer feedback activity be fully realized, and even so when
using peer feedback, teachers should take considerations of students‟ age,
cultural background, class size, and interlanguage level which may affect the
whole outcomes significantly.
According to Durham, Ph. D., Department of Middle Grades,
Secondary and Special Education, School of Education, Fayettevilie State
University, peer evaluation is considered as an Active Learning Technique in
the writing classroom (as in the article “Peer Evaluation as an Active
Learning Technique” Journal of Instructional Psyctiology, Vol. 32, No.4). She
implemented an action research during the fall of 2003 to determine the
impact of using peers in the evaluation of a partial research paper. In general,
through her studies, peer feedback (peer evaluation) is proved to be another
very effective way to evaluate student research papers. The students are
allowed to make corrections and revisions that were from their peers rather
than the teacher. In addition, peer feedback gave the students a chance to
defend their research design and statements that they had written. Finally,
peer feedback also allowed the teacher an opportunity to evaluate their skills
as evaluators.
Another study “Effects of Peer Feedback on EFL Student Writers at
Different Levels of English Proficiency: A Japanese Context” (TESL Canada
Journal, Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring 2006) was conducted by Kamimura to explore
the nature and effectiveness of peer feedback in EFL writing classrooms. His

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participants in the study were both high- and low-proficient Japanese EFL
learners. The students exchanged comments with their peers after receiving
training in peer feedback. They were divided into two groups (A and B) of 12

Japanese university freshmen who majored in English. The students' levels of
English proficiency were graded by a commercially available proficiency test
called General Tests of English Language Proficiency (G-TELP, Level 3 of
the test of used in the present study, with Level 1 being the highest and Level
4 the lowest). The test comprised three sections (listening, grammar and
vocabulary, and reading) with a total mark of 300 points. In this study, the
students in A Class and B Class were regarded as high-proficient and low-
proficient respectively. The students were compared in terms of their pre- and
post-tests, original drafts and rewrites, peer comments, and responses to the
comments. It was found that peer feedback had overall positive effects on the
compositions for both the high- and low-profícient students, with different
patterns observed in the relationship between the comments and revisions that
characterized the two groups.
In short, there have been many other researchers studying, practising and recognizing the advantages of peer feedback on writing. All of them points out different strong points and weak points of the use of peer feedback on writing. However, the advantages over the limitations of
peer feedback on writing are obviously undeniable.

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Chapter 2: THE STUDY

2.1. Learning situation in writing class.
As have been mentioned previously, all students at Hai Phong
Community College (HPCC) share the same course for all the four terms.
They study New Cutting Edge – Elementary (Cunningham, Moor and Eales,
2005) in the first and second term, and New Cutting Edge – Pre-intermediate
(Cunningham, Moor and Carr, 2005) in the third and forth term.
The students share the same English course for all the four terms (each
term includes 60 periods, 45minutes/period) and some ESP for extra in each
term. In these four terms, students learn different skills, which are integrated

in a module as organized in the textbooks. However, writing skills are
especially necessary for them.
Each of the textbooks like that consists of twelve modules (and three
modules are optional) with specific topic, vocabulary and grammar. At the
end of each lesson, students are usually asked to write a short paragraph of
about 5 to 7 sentences based on the topic of the module to revise what they
have learnt. This writing not only helps students revise the vocabulary and
grammar but also gives them a chance to get used to writing and expressing
ideas in English.
Then, the paragraphs are handed to the teachers who make comments
and give grades to the writings. In general, students, upon receiving their
paragraphs checked, tend to focus on the grade given to the text and put it
away, paying little attention to the meticulous comments provided by the
teacher. Although teachers have to spend a lot of time marking students‟
writings, the comments that the teachers make are not very useful to motivate

14

students and help them improve their writing skills. The writing tasks are just
a burden on them and they do the tasks quite unwillingly.
Therefore, the study was carried out in the first term of the course,
students studied the first six modules of the textbook New Cutting Edge –
Elementary (Cunningham, Moor and Eales, 2005). Because of the limitted
time and the contents of the language teaching, 4 aspects of mistakes were
chosen to teach: the use of articles, prepositions, punctuation and word order.

2.2. Methodology
There are many methods to carry out a research such as: case study,
survey research, experimental research, ethnographic research Howerver, an
action research was implemented to investigate how peer feedback can be

applied to improve students‟ writing.
Therefore, this section presents the participants, instrumentation and
data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure.

2.2.1. The participants
The participants chosen for the study are 42 students from one of my
classes who are studying with the New Cutting Edge – Elementary in their
first term. The teacher of this class is also the author of this paper. Actually, it
is difficult to select a random sample of individuals due to the large number of
students. Therefore, instead of randomly selecting individuals, the author
randomly selected the class for teaching. In this case, it is convenient for the
investigator to observe the participants to give feedback to each other‟s paper
as well as complete the questionnaire in class. More importantly, this class
has been assigned with a relatively equal proportion of good, average, and

15

poor English proficiency students and there are both males and females.
Therefore, the result would be more objective.

2.2.2. Instrumentation
In this study, in order to obtain adequate data for the study, two main
instruments were used. They were documents analysis of students‟ peer
feedback on writing and the survey questionnaire for students.

Documents analysis of students’ peer feedback
The students in the first term have to study the first six modules of the
New Cutting Edge – Elementary with six different topics such as food,
personal attitudes and qualities, leisure and fitness activities, etc. However,
the students in this term have to complete five writing tasks. Then, the author

collected 42 writing sheets with peer feedback on writing provided by the
students themselves in each writing task. There were five writing tasks, so,
there were 210 writing sheets in total. The presentation and analysis of the
written feedback were carried out to obtain the most truthful information
concerning the current practice of peer feedback on writing which were
provided by the students learning English at HPCC at elementary level. In
addition, this presentation and analysis of the written feedback given by peers
were implemented to find out what benefits of the feedback the students get.

2.2.3. Data collection procedure
The study was carried out in the first term of the course with the first
year elementary students. At the beginning of the term, students had taken a
written exam including writing a short paragraph (7-10 sentences) following
the given topics. The exam was used to test students‟ level that helped the

16

teacher have an overview of students‟ English ability. After that, students
started studying the first six modules of the textbook New Cutting Edge –
Elementary (Cunningham, Moor and Eales, 2005). Because of the limitted
time and the contents of the language teaching, four aspects of mistakes were
chosen to teach: the use of articles, prepositions, punctuation and word order.
The students were asked to write a short paragraph as homework after they
had finished each module to revise the vocabulary and the grammar. In the
following class, the teacher first trained the students the way to give peer
written feedback using symbols to show the kind of mistakes with carefully
explained criteria. In addition, the teacher also reminded the students of the
aim of the peer written feedback, how to give comments and to provide
suggestions to correct the mistakes in their peers‟ writings. Actually, students
were provided with a list of commonly used symbols which were presented in

the appendix 2 and they were all familiar with those symbols. The students
were encouraged to provide suggestions that they think are correct for the
mistakes indicated. Then, the teacher asked students to swap their paragraphs
basing on her different diagrams in which she paired her students on the
criteria of students‟ English ability such as very good - good, good - fairly
good, fairly good - average so that students can help together. In the next
step, the teacher asked students to choose two sentences in their peers‟
paragraphs to give feedback. Students were asked to read the paragraphs
silently, taking notes and giving feedback to their peers‟ writings. Finally, the
students were given the opportunity to make changes or to rewrite their text
before handing it into the teacher. The teacher then collected all the students‟
writing sheets which were given peer feedback.
The process was carried out through students‟ five paragraphs. The
students were asked to write the first paragraph after finishing the first two

17

modules and the second paragraph after module three. Students were asked to
choose two sentences in each paragraph and to give peer written feedback for
the same aspects of the use of articles and punctuation in the first and second
paragraph.
The teacher asked students to write the fourth paragraph after module
four and the fifth one after module five. Students were asked to choose two
sentences in each paragraph and to give peer written feedback for the same
aspects of preposition and word order in the fourth and fifth paragraph.
Students were asked to write the last paragraph after they had finished module
6. This time, the teacher asked students to give peer written feedback for all
aspects of the use of articles, punctuation, prepositions and word order for all
the sentences in the paragraph.
The students‟ drafts contained written feedback in sentence writing

provided by their peers were examined, analyzed and compared.
The next stage was the questionnaire for students. 42 sheets of the
questionnaire were distributed to the elementary students at the end of the
term and returned in full. To make sure that all students understood the
questions properly, the researcher also gave students careful explanation if
there were something required that were unclear or confused.

2.2.4. Data analysis procedure
Firstly, the analysis of the peer feedback on students‟ writing was done
on 210 writings basing on 5 writing tasks in order to investigate the current
practice of peer written feedback giving among elementary students at HPCC.
Secondly, it is necessary to compare the students‟ first paragraph to
their second one and third to fourth and all to fifth paragraph (all these

18

paragraphs were given peer written feedback) to see whether the peer written
feedback helps them improve their writings.
Finally, the analysis of the survey questionnaire was also done to find
out the students‟ perceived difficulties in giving peer written feedback to their
peers‟ writings.

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Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. The current practice of students’ peer feedback in writing
When giving sentence peer written feedback to their peers‟ writing, the
students were guided to focus on the four main aspects of giving sentence

feedback. They are the use of articles, punctuation, prepositions and word
order. Therefore, this part only discusses the way students gave feedback in
terms of the four aspects above.

Types of
mistakes
The total
number of
mistakes
The number
of mistakes
indicated
The number
of correct
suggestions
The number of
incorrect
suggestions
The use of
articles
49
23
c
7
Punctuation
27
19
9
5
Prepositions

45
17
8
8
Word order
24
15
7
5
Table 1: Students’ feedback given by peers.

The table 1 above shows that the total of mistakes of the four types
were 145, 74 of which were indicated by the students accounting for 51%.
However, the percentage of the indicated mistakes in each type is not equal.
The number of mistakes related to the use of articles is the greatest (49) and it
seems quite difficult for students to indicate (47%). Punctuation mistakes
seem not difficult for students to indicate and they have the greatest
percentage of the indicated mistakes (70%). The percentage of indicated

20

mistakes related to prepositions is a little lower than all of the other types
(38%). Thus, preposition mistakes seem to be the most difficult for students to
indicate and provide suggestions. The mistakes related to word order also
seems not difficult for students to indicate and 62% of the mistakes were
indicated (15 out of 24 mistakes).
Having a look at the correctness of the suggestions which the students
provide, the figures in the table 1 also show that there were a total of 59
suggestions, 34 of which were correct, making up 46%. The percentage of
correct suggestions for mistakes related to punctuation, prepositions and word

order are the same (47%) while the percentage of correct suggestions for
mistakes related to the use od articles is the lower with 43%. These figures
prove that peer feedback is rather useful as to some extent it helps students
improve their sentence writings in general and their grammar in particular.