An investigation into English major freshmen's perceptions on, attitudes towards and perferences for teacher's written corrective feedback at HU

An investigation into English major freshmen's
perceptions on, attitudes towards and
perferences for teacher's written corrective
feedback at Hanoi University of Industry

Nguyễn Thị Đan Quế

Trường Đại học Ngoại Ngữ
Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English Linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15
Người hướng dẫn: M.Ed. Thái Hà Lam Thủy
Năm bảo vệ: 2010

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Ngữ pháp; Từ vựng; Phương pháp dạy học

Content:
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Background of the study
Nowadays, English has become a means of international communication and has been widely
used in various fields of the modern life such as: business, education, science and technology. It
not only helps Vietnamese students approach advanced educational systems but also plays a key
role in the context of internationalization of universities in Vietnam. Being aware of its
importance on the way of innovation and integration, Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) has
started a training program of English majors since 2006. Although HaUI is known as a leading
one in providing vocational education and English has always been one of the main subjects in
its curricula, training English as a major is really a big challenge for both administrators and
teachers.
As a teacher at English Department, HaUI, I realize that the teaching and learning of 4 language
skills, namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing play a decisive role in the academic
success of students in subsequent years. Especially, the skill of writing is always a major concern
of both teachers and students in second language (L2) acquisition. However, the teaching of
writing skills is somewhat like “a journey through woods with a lot of thickets and thorny issues”

(Raimes, 1991). Undoubtedly, providing feedback to written texts is one of the most challenging
and problematic tasks that any L2 writing teachers have to regularly face.
Over the past two decades, there has been a dramatic shift in the paradigms of teaching writing
with an importantly increasing focus on the writers and their complex composing process. As a
result, the role of teacher in providing feedback has changed from “a judge and evaluator” to “a
consultant, assistant and facilitator” (Zamel, 1985; Reid, 1993; Ferris, 1995). Traditionally,
teachers provide feedback and comments on students’ final drafts, which is now considered to be
insufficient or even counterproductive (Zamel, 1985). In the light of process-oriented approach,
revision is given more prominence. Teachers usually intervene and give response to student
writing at several points during the writing process. Despite these changes in writing pedagogy,
there has been little consensus about effectiveness of teacher’s corrective feedback to students’
writing improvement.
Furthermore, the importance of teacher feedback is recognized in revision (Zamel, 1985; Ferris,
1995) and research on ESL writing has demonstrated that students tend to favor and value their
teachers’ written corrective feedback (Cohen, 1990, Ferris, 1995). Also, teachers themselves
consider response is a critical part of their job as writing teachers (Ferris, 1995, Reid, 1994).
Despite the perceived importance of teachers’ written corrective feedback, there lacks clear
evidence that students successfully incorporate teacher feedback in their revised writings.
Corrective feedback research has focused mostly on teacher’s strategies and their effects on
student writings with regard to accuracy. Much less has been done to find out about students’
attitudes, perceptions and preferences. That there has been an unexplored area of research on the
effectiveness of teacher corrective feedback to students’ writing improvement as perceived by
students themselves and on students’ reactions to teacher response raises the issue of whether
teacher practices of providing feedback match students’ expectations or still presents a
mismatch. Furthermore, being aware of students’ perceptions and preferences towards teacher
feedback helps teachers to find appropriate strategies to intervene and respond to their students’
texts.
For the above reasons, this study is carried out to investigate first-year English major students’
perceptions on, attitudes towards and preferences for teacher corrective feedback at Hanoi
University of Industry context as an effort to offer the teachers of English a valuable insight into

their students’ response to teacher feedback. As a result, the research will give some pedagogical
implications in writing instruction in general and in the responding to student writing in
particular.
2. Aims of the study and research questions
This study aims to investigate students’ attitudes to teacher’s corrective feedback they received,
their perceptions and preferences. As a result, the research can inform teachers of their students’
feedback and suggest some feasible solutions to problems in responding.
For the achievement of above-mentioned aims, the study is designed to seek the answers to the
following research questions:
1. What are students’ perceptions and attitudes towards their teacher’s written corrective
feedback?
2. What strategies do students employ to handle their teachers’ written corrective feedback they
received?
3. What are students’ preferences for types and strategies of teacher’s written corrective
feedback?

3. Methods of the study
In order to provide reliable data for the study, both qualitative and quantitative approaches will
be exploited.
First, a survey questionnaire including both multiple-choice and open-ended questions will be
conducted on 60 first-year HaUI students. The questionnaire is designed to examine students’
attitudes towards teacher feedback, their perceptions regarding the importance and usefulness of
teacher feedback and their preferences for types and strategies of teacher corrective feedback.
However, in order to have an appropriate survey instrument for the study, the questionnaire will
be piloted to 20 students in the different writing classes and will be administered by the
researcher in case students need further explanation for the questions.
Second, semi-structured interviews conducted on 09 students selected from 3 different classes
are expected to explore further the issues touched upon. The language of the interview will be
Vietnamese so that the respondents feel comfortable to give reliable answers. This study will
utilize the instrument of interview in order to closely investigate students’ perceptions and

attitudes towards their teacher’s written feedback. Class observation is also carried out to bring
about deep insight into students’ attitudes and to help the researcher choose samples for the
interview.
4. Scope of the study
Feedback is a broad theme in L2 acquisition that covers a variety of aspects such as: teacher,
peer, and self feedback, written vs. oral feedback. Regarding teacher’s written feedback, I take
the Toshihiko’s view that there are corrective and evaluative feedbacks (1992). Within the
framework of this paper, I just want to focus on teacher’s written corrective feedback in the
context of ESL writing.
Researching into this issue, I will examine the attitudes, perceptions and preferences towards
teacher’s written corrective feedback from English major freshmen at Hanoi University of
Industry. This study is undertaken in three writing classes which utilize portfolio assessment, so
the multiple-draft approach to responding is a prerequisite.
5. Significance of the study
This study, carried out in the context of Hanoi University of Industry, is expected to be a chance
for the researcher and colleagues to look back on their teaching methodology in general and on
their practices of responding to written works in particular. This study also informs the teachers
of students’ reactions to their practices of providing feedback and offers them a practical
reference from which they will have some suitable adjustments in their methodology. Some
suggested pedagogical implications are expected to provide teachers with some useful strategies
to intervene and respond to their students’ writings.
Furthermore, this study can offer reliable and updated information for further study and those
who interests the topic.
6. Structure of the study
This study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion.
Part I: The introduction identifies the research problem, purposes, research questions, methods,
scope, significance and structure of the study.
Part II: The development consists three chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature review – examines the theoretical background regarding writing pedagogy
and teacher written corrective feedback.

Chapter 2: The methodology – describes in details the setting, data collection methods and
procedure, data analysis methods of the study.
Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings – analyzes data from instruments of the study, discusses
findings and pedagogical implications of the study.
Part III: The conclusion summarizes the main ideas, points out limitations of the study and
suggests directions for further research.
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