Teachers' corrective feedback on the 11th form students' writing at Ngo Gia Tu high school Nghiên cứu thực trạng việc phản hồi chữa lỗi của giáo viên trên bài v

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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 11
th
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. In classroom, teaching and learning writing also plays an important role. Through
writing, learners are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince other people. We

are able to discover and articulate ideas in the way that only writing makes possible. Therefore,
writing has always occupied a place in the language syllabus. In addition, 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.

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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
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 11
th
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

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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 11
th
form students because they have been taught writing skills for one
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.

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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
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.
Byrne (1991,p.01) defines writing as “the act of forming graphic symbols: making marks on a flat
surface of some kind. The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to
form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences, although again we can be said to
be “writing” if we are merely making lists of words, as in inventories of items such as shopping
lists”. Writing, however, is a far more complicated process than the production of graphic
symbols. It is “a process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident,
trial and error, or whatever into a message with a definite meaning… writing is a process of
deliberate decision” (Lannon, 1989, p. 9). Another way of viewing writing, called the cognitive
view, is to see writing as decision - making (Flower & Hayes, 1981). When writing something,
whether an email message, a letter, or an essay, the writer is engaged in making one decision after
another. He or she decides what to begin the text with, whether to include or to leave out an idea
that comes to mind, whether to begin a new paragraph or continue the same one, what
information to place in the beginning of a sentence, and so on. Successful writing is the result of

making the right decisions most of the time during the act of composing and revising. If writing is
a mental activity of skillful decision-making, learning to write is defined as “learning to make
decisions appropriate for the situation (the purpose of the text, the writer’s objective, the reader’s

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purpose in reading the text, the circumstances in which the writing and reading take place) and
learning to recognize where inappropriate decision have been made, so that they can be put right
before the text arrives at the reader’s desk” (Renandya & Richard, 2002, p.1). From the process
approach view, writing is defined as a set of procedures which is inventive, complicated, repeated
and which is the same with overall structure of writing in native and target language. (Silva, 1990,
p.15). Writing composes of a set of stages that require writers to follow carefully so that they can
produce a good writing. Ferris and Tribble share the same view with Silva. Writing, from the
language teachers' view point, is also "a language skill which is difficult to acquire" (Tribble,
1996, p.3). It is “a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take into account
the sometimes extended period of thinking that precedes creating an initial draft” (Ferris, 1995, p.
10). Tribble also stresses that writing “normally requires some forms of instruction” and that “it is
not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (1996, p.11).
The above definitions reflect unlike attitudes towards writing of the authors who are under the
control of different theories. However, in general, writing is a daunting task for students because
it requires the correctness of not only form but also meaning to get the best communicative goals.
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.
1.1.2.1. The text-based approach
Teachers who focus on form often present model texts for students to imitate, so textbooks are
usually used to provide a good range of models. Teachers who adopt this approach normally put
themselves in the role of an editor and proofreader who may not be especially interested in the
quality of ideas or expressions but primarily concerned with formal linguistic accuracy. This

writing situation lacked audience and purpose. White(1990: 6) states that the model plays a very
important role in arranging ideas and using correct form because it is considered as the pattern for
students to imitate in their writing. The aim of this kind of writing is to produce a final text basing
on the product of others. The problem is that the writer does not know what processes he has to
follow in order to reach the final product. It means that there is no emphasis on writing process.
Escholz (1980, p.24) viewed the imitation of models as being “stultifying and inhibiting writers

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rather than empowering them or liberating them”. This approach limits students’ ability to think
and write critically, but it still seems to be suitable for teaching low proficiency students.
1.1.2.2. The genre-based approach
This approach is “more socially oriented and focuses on the ways in which writers and texts need
to interact with reader” (Tribble, 1996). Writing in this approach is viewed as an essentially social
activity in which successful communication is considered the main aim of texts. This approach
based on a systematic-functional model of language and suggests that a genre is a social process,
as it is used by members of a particular sociolinguistic community to achieve their
communicative goals. It is goal-oriented, that is the particular members of a social group that a
genre is decided upon, and staged, because it involves a number of stages to be reached in order
for the participants to achieve communication (Martin et al, 1987). The implementation of a
genre-based approach can be translated into prescriptism, as “genre pedagogy is underpinned by
the belief that learning is best accomplished through explicit awareness of language rather than
through experiment and exploration” (Candlin & Hall, 2002: 22).
1.1.2.3. The process approach
Nowadays, the teaching of writing puts more emphasis on writing process than final product. In
process approach, students are trained to generate ideas for writing, to think of the aim and
readers, and to write multiple drafts before reaching written products that communicate their
ideas. During their writing, they receive response from readers in order to improve the previous
drafts to the final versions. Therefore, in this approach, students “explore a topic through writing,
showing the teacher and each other their drafts and using what they write to read over, think
about and move them on to new ideas”. Teachers’ role is to give students time to tray ideas, to

give content feedback so that they can develop their writing (Raimes, 1983, p.10). This approach
views that writing is a process which contains a number of distinct stages or activities the writers
have to go through in order to produce a good piece of writing. But this process is not a
straightforward “plan- outline- write” process that many believe it to be; it is a “complex,
recursive, and creative process whereby the writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they
attempt to approximate meaning” (Zamel, 1983, p.165).
The process approach seems to be underpinned by a completely different pedagogic philosophy,
as it views writing as a process and not as a product, and it implies that writing should be taught
in a completely different way, as “teachers are encouraged not to impose their views, give

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models, or suggest response to topics beforehand” (Candlin & Hall, 2002, p. 23). Eventhough
supporters of the process approach claim that “the idea behind it is not really to dissociate writing
entirely from the written product and to merely load students through the various stages of the
writing process” (Seow, 2002: 315-316), it has been criticized for lacking focus on the actual
product, especially for those learners that come from a different cultural background, “an
emphasis on a process approach often disregards the importance of written forms… for the L
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student, many writing conventions will remain a mystery… emphasizing the process to the
exclusion of the product neglects direct instruction in certain text features” (Reppen, 2002: 321).
The number of stages constituting writing process remains controversial. As for Oshima and
Hogue (1991), the writing process includes three major stages, namely: pre-writing, planning
(outlining), writing and revising drafts. According to Hedge (1990), these embrace more stages
which are as follows:
Being motivated to write -> getting ideas together -> planning and outlining-> making notes
-> making a first draft -> revising, re-planning, redrafting -> editing and getting ready for
publication
It should be pointed out that the choice of the most appropriate approach should always be made
in relation to a particular group of learners and after a great deal of needs analysis, which means

that in many cases the teacher might need to implement a teaching model that integrates
principles of several approaches. Reid (1993, p.30) states that such an approach enables “learners
to write their way into more precise, interpretive texts, while at the same time fostering greater
attention to forms of the writing, to reflection on what is involved in the creation of a text and to
adapting writing style to the audience and context of writing”. Thus, the question “which
theoretical strends are we going to adopt? Are we going to use the text-based approach, the genre-
based approach or the process approach” are risen by Richards and Renandya (2002: 303) does
not necessarily have a one-dimensional answer.
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)

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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. This feedback is provided to ask for
further information, to give directions, suggestions, or requests for revision, to give students new
information to revise, and to give positive feedback about what the students have done well
(Ferris, 1997). According to Chaudron(1988, p.133), feedback unlike the narrower term of
“correction”, is an essential part in classroom interaction. Teachers’ feedback is a major means to
inform learners how accurate they have done of both their formal target language production and
their classroom behavior and knowledge. Similarly, Keh (1989, p. 294) suggests that feedback is
“input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information for revision". From these
points of view, teachers’ feedback can be regarded as an effective means to communicate to
students about their writing. In other words, it is a kind of information through which learners
know how well they have done in their writing so that they can enhance their composition.
However, this information is much more useful if it is provided on preliminary and intermediate
stage, rather than on the final one as Seow (2002) claims, “feedback is regarded as teacher’s

quick initial reaction to the students’ drafts”. 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”. Obviously, feedback
is very necessary for the success of the writing tasks and cooperation between teacher and student
is very much necessary for the successful implementation of feedback.
1.2.2. The benefits of teachers’ feedback to writing
It is important to bear in mind that teaching and providing feedback on writing has close
relationship with each other as feedback will be given in terms of the demands and expectations
that are required by the teacher throughout instruction. Penaflorida (2002) states that teachers
should be careful when assigning a writing task, so they neither encourage their learners to solely
imitate model compositions and thus impede their imagination, nor ask them to write a task
without any preparatory exercise. Lewis (2002) sums up the five benefits of giving feedback.
First, Feedback provides information for teachers and students. It is a way for teachers to describe
their learners’ language. It is a form of evaluation on their learners’ knowledge and on their own
teaching. Penaflorida (2002, p.346) stresses the importance of feedback as “an integral feature of
student writing, in as much as it enables students to identify their own strengths and weaknesses”.

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It means that highlighting strengths and weaknesses makes students know how to improve
themselves and becoming more effective writers. Comments can also give direct information
about language, by stating a rule or by giving example. Second, feedback provides students with
advice about learning. According to Ferris (2003, p.127), there is “evidence that learners do take
seriously and thus utilize it in order to enhance their writing ability”. Thus, feedback can be
considered a pedagogical tool that teachers use in giving advice for the writing improvement
purpose. Third, feedback provides students with meaningful and individual language input. It is
important to extend students’ language by writing comments in language at a level slightly higher
than the students’ own current language. By this way, students can learn new vocabulary and
structures in context. Undoubtedly, feedback, in these cases, is given to" teach skills that help
learners improve the language proficiency to the point where they are cognizant of what is

expected of them as writers" (Williams, 2003, p.1). Fourth, feedback is a form of motivation.
Feedback further serves as a source of motivation since it enables learners to evaluate their
progress, to understand the level of their competence, and to maintain their effort in striving to
reach realistic goals (Riviere, 2000). Both hardworking and underworking students need
encouragement but it needs to be given in different ways. 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 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. The teacher returns their compositions with a grade and errors marked in red, and
perhaps with few notes of students' performance. Next, the students quickly switch to a new type
of writing lesson; they will write a new paper and repeat this process. According to
Sommers(1982), this kind of response is too general, too incentive, confusing, arbitrary, and
idiosyncratic. To support her view, Chenoweth( 1987) points out that such type of feedback only
cracks the surface of the student writing, but does not “directly address the writers' main
problems, which are more related to the way in which they accomplish a given writing
task"(p.25). Keh (1989) also criticizes that one-shot commentary provides little information for
the students to improve their papers in terms of coherence or content. Their overall ideas suggest

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that such practice does little or nothing to improve the student writing, either in the short or long
term. In other words, this approach proves to be ineffective to the student revision.
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. Undoubtedly, the process approach to
teaching writing not only leads students to write multiple drafts, but also encourages teacher to
respond to student writing as a process. The process approach to feedback giving is therefore

better than asking students to submit the final piece for evaluation for the following reasons. First,
it enables students to practice through several revision cycles. Second, it gives writers more
chances to develop and present their ideas, to improve both the form and content of their
compositions effectively based on teachers’ feedback. It sends the message to students that
writing is the process of improving through revising based on teacher feedback, rather than a
single act of producing one and also the final draft for grading.
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
Summative or external assessment is used to evaluate students’ writing ability through their final
products. It aims to judge how well students have finished the writing tasks but not to “shape
students’ thinking or learning”. In the meantime, formative or internal assessment is used to give
feedback during student writing process. It aims to help students to improve their writing and
writing ability (Lippman, 2003: 203). Formative feedback is a kind of feedback that is often
written in the margin or between sentence lines of the student’s paper. On the one hand, detail and
text-specific feedback allows students to act and commit to change. On the other hand,
summative/ general comments, while giving the teacher’s opinion on the overall content and flow
of the draft, encourage students to develop their own alternatives and give them a choice in
forming plans to solve the problem (Ferris, 1997). This view is well supported by Fathman &
Whalley’s (1990, p. 186) that “general comments that do not refer to specifics within the text can
be effective… giving encouragements helped improve the students’ rewrites.”. Therefore, both

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types of feedback are applicable in helping students to improve the quality of their final products.
Statistics, however, show that general comments make less positive changes than text-specific
ones. The disadvantage of general feedback, lack of commitment to change, may be overcome if
the teachers balance both text-specific and summary comments in the most effective way.
1.2.4.2. Negative feedback versus positive feedback

There has been a lot of research into the effects of positive and negative comments on the student
revision (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996; Hedgcock & Lefkowitz, 1994; Ferris, 1995). These researchers
claim that the teacher should find some positive things to praise in learners’ writing. They try to
comment on some positive features of a text, and if possible avoid commenting on every single
error that might burden and discourage learners. This indicates that at least a minimum of positive
comments on each writing is significant, as “students have better attitudes towards writing if they
receive positive feedback” (Kroll, 2003, p.62). It helps motivate students to write.
However, Ferris (1997) finds that “few of the positive comments led to any changes in the
revision, nor were they apparently intended to”. She also notes that the teacher’s critical
comments is still of great help in improving their writing. This result suggests that, although the
students appear to enjoy and appreciate praise, negative feedback - criticisms shouldn’t be left out
or its role down played. Therefore, a combination of praise plus criticism produces best effects in
terms of student’s scores on both grammar and comprehension. Researchers from these
statements have stressed the role of teachers in balancing between these two kinds of feedback.
1.2.5. Focus of teacher feedback
It is undeniable that teacher’s response has great influence on students’ approach to writing and
their improvement. Fathman & Whalley (1990: 178) state that “there is little agreement among
teachers or researchers about how teachers should respond to student writing. Much of the
conflict over teacher response to written work has been whether teacher feedback should focus on
form (e.g. grammar, mechanics) or on content (e.g. organization, amount of detail). Griffin (1982)
has noted “the major question confronting any theory of responding to student writing is where
we should focus our attention”(p.129). It is generally accepted that teacher’s comments on
grammatical errors will help students improve accuracy more effectively. However, 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

12
than on form, or a combination of both. Similarly, Fathman & Whalley (1990: 186) come to the
conclusion that students can develop their writing skills when teacher feedback focuses on both

content and form at the same time. Form feedback has no effect on developing ideas of writing.
Whereas, content feedback helps improve the content of the rewritten product. Although there are
different ideas about what, when and how to give feedback to students’ writing, the author does
support Reid’s (1993) view that teacher’s feedback should allow the student to revise, see
differently and be capable of transferring the change to other pieces of writing.
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. Using marking systems is one of the indirect techniques
(underlining all misspelled words and omitted or superfluous affixes; putting a question mark
above a confusing phrase or structure; and inserting an arrow () to indicate a missing article or
preposition). Generally, these indirect methods are used whenever it is assumed that students can
correct their own errors. Direct correction techniques which include underlining a word and
providing a verbal tip such a “use conjunction”; crossing out superfluous words; and supplying
the correct form or structure are also used as it is assumed that students are not able to correct
these errors by themselves. Allwright (1975), suggests that any error correction process includes
some of the following general features: indication that an error was committed, identification of
the type of error, selection of remedy, provision of a correct model, the furnishing of an
opportunity for an attempt, indication of improvement (if applicable), and the offering of praise.
In other words, teachers should be careful in constructing their own feedback forms, in explaining
those feedback forms together with their pragmatic intents to the students, and most importantly,
in helping the students process the comments and revise their drafts effectively.
To facilitate error correction, many teachers use feedback codes which are useful for learners to
minimize the chance to be confused, as mistakes are of different nature. However, when using
feedback codes, teachers should be sure that students also understand the meaning of the codes.

13
٨ means “add” (put in)
( ) means “omit” (take out)
> means “indent” (go in 5 spaces to the right)
? means “mystery” (I can’t interpret this. Rewrite or leave out)
| means “separate” (leave a space between these items)
Myers (1987)
1.2.7. Issues in the teachers' written feedback
1.2.7.1. Traditional “marking”
Traditional way of teachers’ written feedback which is often provided in the form of “a final
grade on a paper and often accompanied by much red ink throughout the essay" (Grabe and
Kaplan, 1996, p. 318), has not always been beneficial. One problem is that some teachers spend
more time correcting than their students spend looking at the correction as they tend to compare
their grades with other’s. Though in Gannon’s opinion (1985, p.12), the most popular term for
feedback or response to writing was “to mark, as there are a number of mistakes and errors that
the teacher has to point out", he also suggests that “marking” is a procedure far more complex
than it seems. Undoubtedly, “it would not be difficult to assign a mark out of 10, 20 or 100 or
whatever, but what for?”(1985, p. 74). His ideas stress the purpose of feedback that it should not
be single-dimensional but include all aspects involved in writing.
1.2.7.2. Appropriating students’ texts
Appropriating students’ text may occur when “teachers’ comments take students’ attention away
from their own purpose in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers’
purpose in commenting” (Sommers, 1982, p.149). To put it simply, it is the case when teachers
are being extremely authorative in their response, and resort to techniques such as deletion of
whole parts of learners’ text or substitution of the learners’ ideas. This technique does not
guarantee students’ awareness of errors and their ability to reproduce those language items
correctly in future writing. Teachers should be careful not to over-correct since this does not get
students involved in correcting their own work (Jordan, 1997). They are simply given the answers
for their errors but the problem is no teacher can be sure if they read the correction or learn
anything from it. Teachers are also uncertain whether they understand the teachers’ correction or

not. Besides, some students may want to know why something is wrong more than the correction
itself (Byrne, 1988). This is also important because knowing the cause will help students avoid

14
similar mistakes. Moreover, students may lose their confidence if the teacher covers the paper
with his/her correction of many or all errors, which is often the case in intermediate language
classes. Brannon and Knoblauch (1982, p.158-159) state that “This correcting also tends to show
students that the teacher’s agenda is more important than their own, that they wanted to say is less
relevant than the teacher’s impression of what they should have said. One consequence is often a
diminishing of students’ commitment to communicate ideas that they value and even a
diminishing of the incentive to write”. Thus, teachers’ response needs to be mild and appreciative
of the learners' own ideas, style and favorite techniques. To fulfill this job, teachers are advised to
“serve as a sound board" to help writers clarify their intention, to “see confusions in their text and
to explore alternatives that they may not have considered” (Brannon & Knoblauch, 1982, p.162).
1.2.7.3. Overlooking the students’ varying levels of writing ability
Another common problem in teachers' written response is that they often give the same feedback
to every students’ writing. In fact, learners are different in terms of their language proficiency,
competence, ability, creativity, meta-cognition, etc. As a result, they are distinct in terms of
writing ability as well as comprehension and desire to receive teacher feedback. It has been
shown that low-ability writers expect “to revise from a narrow outlook and make changes
addressing the surface grammatical structure of composition, usually at the level of word, rather
than deeper issues of content and organization” (Porte, 1999, p.19). High-ability students,
however, "tend to concentrate on getting the content right first and leaves details like correcting
spelling, punctuation and grammar until later” (Hedge, 1990, p.23).
Taking the students' varying levels of writing into consideration is, therefore, of great importance
as it enables teachers to choose the most effective way of giving feedback. Additionally,
accomplishing this task “gives information not only about individual learners but also the whole
class's learning process” (Lewis, 2002, p.1). It leads teachers to see which of the language aspects
being introduced are really absorbed into students' language use. Ferris et al (1995) recommends
that writing teachers should respond somewhat differently to students of varying ability levels.

1.2.8. Principles of teachers’ written feedback
Even though over the past few years, there has been a widespread debate over the issue of
feedback, there is “no clear set of universal guidelines that will guarantee such a supportive and
positive experience for all students”, (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996: 377) because there is a great deal of
diversity regarding language teaching, teachers, learners, topics and institutional constraints.

15
This shift of paradigm and focus in the teaching and feedback on writing over the years that
reflects a change in the theories of language is also observed by Richards and Renandya (2002).
The current paradigm in feedback focuses on communication and process, as opposed to the
traditional one that focused on language and product. Ferris (2003) provides a list of
considerations concerning teacher feedback which focuses on communication and process; the
most important of which are the following:
+ Feedback should include all the aspects that relate to writing, such as content, structure
and grammar. This is of importance, as good writing theoretically and philosophically involves
several parameters that relate to all the different kinds of competence that have been discussed in
the previous subsection. As with every other skill in language learning, learners should be
expected to demonstrate a balanced combination of all these aspects that constitute good writing.
+ Feedback should be comprehensible and non-appropriative. In order for feedback to
help the learners’ development, it must be clear and systematic, so that learners’ errors are made
obvious in order to minimize ambiguity and vagueness.
+ Feedback has to take into consideration contextual variable, especially in the case of L
2

learners. Background knowledge and prior experience, will be reflected upon a learner’s text,
meaning that there are particular cultural and linguistic norms in the target language that need to
be explained. Unlike the first two that are a posteriori consideration, that is considerations to be
made after the learners have submitted their writing, this third point can also be taken into
account in the priori stage, which is the instruction. The more prior experiences leading to
particular deficiencies are taken into consideration in the instruction stage, the less there will be

traces of incapability to deal with particular forms of writing.
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.


16
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 sudy was conducted at Ngo Gia Tu high school, Tu Son town, Bac Ninh province, which has
been recognized as a standard national school. The school has 40 classrooms, a multi-functioned
room which is used for physical education activities and large meetings. 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. Their parents are farmers so
their living condition is not really good. After school, they have to help their mothers with
housework and farming. However, 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 audio-visual room.
The students are taught merely the content prescribed in nationally authorized textbooks. They
are poor at English. Most of them said that they wanted to improve their English proficiency but
they couldnot. They only learnt English for exams. So, they are mainly provided with
grammatical structures, limited vocabulary and language skills which consist of speaking,

listening, reading and writing. 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.
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.

17
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. Therefore, students do not have much chance for free
writing practice. This is quite far from the given goal of teaching writing in CLT that is to enable
learners to become more independent and effective writers. Furthermore, teachers do not have
much time to give comments on the students’ writings or ask them to write multi drafts.
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. This means that instead of
randomly selecting individuals, the researcher randomly selected classes for investigation. It is
convenient for the investigator to observe the participants complete the questionnaires in class.
Of the 90 students, 41 are male and 49 are female. Most of these students have learnt Ennglish 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. All of them hold a B.A. in English.
One has taught English for 6 years; the rest have more than ten years teaching experience. They
all have taught writing for 6 years since the writing section was separated from others in new
English text books. Most of them are willing to participate in the survey with the hope that the
results will help them have better understanding on feedback giving.

18
Access to the teachers and students would not be a problem as the researcher proposed to
distribute the questionnaires to those who are learning and working within her own department.
2.4. Instruments for Data Collection
In this study, in order to obtain adequate data for the study, three main instruments were used.
They were document analysis, questionnaire and follow-up interviews. Data gathered was
normally largely qualitative, but it might also be quantitative.
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.

Question 1 examines what students think of the importance of their teachers’ written feedback.
Question 2 to question 8 and question 11 work out the students’ opinions on teachers responding
practice in terms of the feedback types, feedback focus and the evaluation of the feedback forms.
Questions 9 and 10 are expected to find out factors affecting students’ comprehension of
teachers’ feedback and what strategies students often use to solve the problem.
The aim of the student questionnaire is to investigate what they really think of their teachers’
feedback, what their preferred feedback types and forms are, and what problems they have when
handling the teachers' feedback. On this basis, the researcher will give some suggestions to
improve the currently used methods for the students’ benefit.
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.

19
Question 1 to question 6 aims at finding the teachers’ practice of giving feedback, the frequency
of teachers’ written feedback to each student’s composition, the frequency of using the forms as
well as the types of feedback when responding to student writing and the focus of feedback.
Question 7 to question 9 are expected to find out how teachers help students process feedback
effectively. The purpose of these questions is to justify whether there is a problematic issue in
teachers’ written feedback or not.
Question 10 deals with the teachers’ problems in responding to the student writing. Together with
question 7, it is hoped to find out the causes of the current problems.
Question 11 helps the teachers in general and the author in particular find out good
recommendations to improve the current feedback at Ngo Gia Tu high achool and thus help the
students to revise their papers more effectively.

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. In fact, the
questions in the interview were based on those in the questionnaire. Each conversation lasted 15-
20 minutes during which the teachers could further explain their rationale for providing feedback
and their current practice as well as the problems they encounter in giving feedback on student
writing. The data were recorded, transcribed, and then translated into English.
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 11
th
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’
written commentary on the students’ writing compositions were examined and analyzed.

20
At the first step, the teacher questionnaire was handed out to the eight teachers. While the
teachers were completing the questions, the researcher also was there to give clarification if any
confusion arose. After that, 90 sheets of the questionnaires for the students were distributed to the
students during the class time. Before the questionnaire was completed, the researcher took time
to explain the purposes of the questionnaire, the requirements of the respondents. Then they were
constructed to complete the questionnaire. They were also encouraged to raise any question if

there was anything unclear in the survey questionnaire.
After the teachers finished answering the teacher questionnaire, the researcher went on to make
interviews with two teachers. She had the discussion with them to understand more about their
rationale of feedback giving and their current feedback giving practice.
At the last step, from the second semester of the school year, the students’writing regarding
teachers’ written feedback of the two classes were collected by the researcher. 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.
In short, these instruments were used to get information of teacher’s feedback giving practice and
the students’ reactions towards the feedback they received. The respondents involved in the study
were 90 11
th
form students and 8 English teachers at Ngo Gia Tu high school. They were
randomly selected to answer the questionnaire, to participate in the interview, and to provide
documents for analysis. The following part will reveal the analysis of the data collected.
2.6. Data Analysis
2.6.1. Data analysis of questionnaire for teachers and direct interview
2.6.1.1. Teacher practice of giving feedback (question 1- question 6)
* Purpose of teacher feedback (question 1)
As can be seen from the table below, teachers might provide feedback to the student writing for
several reasons. 100% of the teachers agree that they give feedback so that their students can
promote the writing. Besides, 62% of them respond to the student writing in order to search and
point out students’ strength and weakness. Half of them use feedback as a means to enable

21
students to evaluate their progress. Only a quarter of them believe that feedback is meant to
justify the grade they give to the student writing. Surprisingly, 3 in 8 teachers respond to the

student writing to demonstrate that teachers are more knowledgeable than their learners. Only one
teacher uses feedback to enhance the relationship between teachers and students. According to the
information obtained from the survey, we conclude that most teachers in Ngo Gia Tu high school
are in agreement that they give feedback so as to provide students with information and advice
about their writing performance, which helps them to develop their writing ability.
Purposes
Numbers
Percentages
a. to help students improve their writing
8
100
b. to enable students to evaluate their progress
4
50
c. to justify the grade you give to their writing
2
25
d. to inform students that you are more knowledgeable than them
3
37
e. to search and point out students' strength and weakness
5
62
f. to enhance the relationship between you and students
1
12
Table 2.1 : Teachers’ purposes of giving feedback
Furthermore, when asked “Do you think giving feedback on the student writing is important?” in
the interview, both of the teachers appreciate feedback for different reasons as follows :
+ Giving feedback to the student writing is very very important for two reasons. Firstly,

feedback enables students to realize what level they have achieved in writing and it shows
students where they are wrong and how to get it right. Secondly, feedback may motivate students
to write better
+ Feedback is really important. It can be seen as a kind of evaluation, which shows my
students at what level of competence they are. Thanks to my feedback, students can realize
whether their ideas, structures, vocabulary in their writing are correct and how to correct them.
Obviously, both teachers are in agreement that the teacher feedback on the student writing plays a
very important role in helping improve students’ writing skills.
* Frequency of teacher feedback to each assignment(question 2)
The number of times the teachers give feedfack to each writing composition reveals the feedback
approach they employ. The figures below show that 7 in 8 teachers use one-shot commentary to