Practice of peer written feedback in paragraph writing skills among third-year students of Hanam College of Education (HCE)

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

PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN
PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS AMONG THIRD- YEAR
STUDENTS OF HANAM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (HCE)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

HANOI, 2016


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

PRACTICE OF PEER WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN
PARAGRAPH WRITING SKILLS AMONG THIRD- YEAR
STUDENTS OF HANAM COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (HCE)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
N

HANOI, 2016


DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I confirm that this is my own research, and that has not been published or submitted
for any other degrees.
Student’s signature

Phạm Thị Hồng

i


ABSTRACT
The main aim of this minor thesis is to examine the way in which the thirdyear students of HCE give feedback to their peer’s written paragraphs, the
difficulties students might encounter when responding to their peer’s writing, to
find out whether the method is effective.
In order to get adequate information for the study, document analysis of
students’ peer written feedback and survey method were applied. The participants
involved in the study were 20 third- year students from 2 classes of HCE.
The data analyzing suggests that the students gave feedback on all areas of
the paragraph especially on grammar and vocabulary. And, the study results also
reveal that peer feedback is effective to the students’ learning of writing.
Although the peer written feedback to students’ writing brings the certain
effectiveness, a large number of HCE still have difficulties in indicating the
mistakes in their peer’s writing and in giving suggestion to overcome those
mistakes.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

On completing this thesis, I own profound indebtedness to so many people,
without whose contribution and spiritual support I could not have accomplished it.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr.
Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, for his scholarly instruction critical comments, great
encouragement and valuable materials, without which the thesis would not have
been completed.
I would like to send my heart-felt gratitude to the teachers at the Foreign
Language Department of Hanam College of Education (HCE) who have supported
me by giving useful advice and providing me with their useful teaching materials.
My sincere thanks also go to the third-year students of HCE for their patience and
willingness to do my survey questionnaire. Moreover, I would like to send my
gratitude to my family and my friends for encouraging me and supporting me
during the time of the thesis. Without them, I would not have been able to complete
this thesis.

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LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES
Table 1: Students’ giving feedback on grammar
Table 2: Examples of students’ giving feedback on grammar
Table 3: Students’ giving feedback on vocabulary
Table 4: Examples of students’ giving feedback on vocabulary
Table 5: Students’ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings
Table 6: Students’ difficulties in providing suggestion the mistakes in the peers’

writings
Table 7: Students’ improvement in the paragraph organization after receiving peer
written feedback
Table 8: Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback
Table 9: Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving written feedback

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The percentage of students who gave feedback on paragraph organization
Figure 2: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the grammatical
mistakes
Figure 3: The percentage of students who provided suggestions for the vocabulary
mistakes.
Figure 4: The percentage of students who gave general written comments

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ...........................................................................i
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES ...................................................................................... iv
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................ vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................I

1. Rationale of the study ..................................................................................................I
2. Aims and objectives of the study ............................................................................ III
3. Scope of the study ..................................................................................................... III
4. Significance of the study .......................................................................................... III
5. Research methodology ............................................................................................. IV
6. Organization of the thesis. ........................................................................................ V
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ..................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND
LITERATURE REVIEW...................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.1. Theoretical background .................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.1.1. Definition .................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.1.2. Types of feedback to students’ writing. .. Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.2. Literature review ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.3. Different views of peer written feedback in the teaching and learning of writing
..................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.3.1. Arguments in favor of students’ peer written feedback in the teaching
and learning of writing......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.3.2. Argument against peer written feedback in teaching and learning of writing
................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.4. Different types of peer feedback in writing.... Error! Bookmark not defined.

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1.4.1. Oral comments ........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.4.2. Using the checklists ................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.4.3. Written comments ...................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOG Y.. Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.1. Research questions ............................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2. Research methods .............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

2.2.1. The participants .......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2.2. Instrumentation........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2.3. Data collection procedure ......................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.2.4. Data analysis method................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS ........................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1. Student’s practice of giving peer written feedback .......Error! Bookmark not
defined.
3.1.1. Feedback on paragraph organization ....... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.2. Feedback on grammar ............................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.3. Feedback on vocabulary............................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.4. General comments feedback..................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1.5. Students’ using the checklist when giving feedback .... Error! Bookmark
not defined.
3.2. Students’ difficulties when giving written feedback to their peers’ writings
..................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.2.1. Students’ difficulties in indicating the mistakes in their peers’ writings
................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.3. Improvement of students’ writing after receiving peer written

feedback

..................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.3.1. Students’ improvement in paragraph organization after receiving peer
written feedback .................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.3.2. Students’ improvement in grammar after receiving peer written feedback
................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

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3.3.3. Students’ improvement in vocabulary after receiving peer written feedback
................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION...... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.1. Findings ............................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3. Implications for teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback.
..................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3.1. Implications for teaching of writing using peer written feedback. .......Error!
Bookmark not defined.
4.3.2. Implication for learning of writing using peer written feedback ..........Error!
Bookmark not defined.
PART C: CONCLUSION.......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
1. Concluding remarks .............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
2. Limitation of the study ......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ VI
APPENDICES .............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
English is an international language and considered to be one of the key
factors which any country needs on the way of developing. Students after
graduating are the labor force of each country. Therefore, the demand to use English
frequently is very necessary to all students in general and students in Hanam
College of Education (HCE) in particular.
Among the four skills, writing seems to be the most difficult. As an English
teacher, I deeply feel the responsibilities to help students improve their skills,
especially writing skill. There are many ways which can be applied to improve the
students’ writing skills, and peer feedback is one of them.

According to Hyland (1990), providing effective written feedback is one of
the most important tasks for English writing teachers. Ferris (1995) shares the same
belief: teacher feedback has been indicated to be desirable for the development of
student writing. Bitchener, Young & Cameron (2005) debate that written feedback
should be provided as it is often neglected and misunderstood by students. Other
linguists such as Dochy, Segers, & Sluijsmans (1999) strongly hold it that students
peer feedback has many pros over cons and peer learning and assessment help
students develop communication skills, the ability to collaborate, critical thinking,
and habits of life-long learning.
In the peer feedback method, students write the first draft and exchange it
with their peers. Then, they read each other’s papers and give feedback, usually
based on the checklist from the teacher. The checklist focuses on some areas of the
writing such as organization, grammar and vocabulary, etc. The selection of the
areas to be included in each specific feedback method depends on the characteristics
of the students.
The use of peer feedback, especially peer written feedback in writing
classrooms has been generally supported in the literature as a valuable aid by many
researchers. There are some main reasons why a lot of teachers have chosen to use

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peer written feedback in the writing classroom. First, peer feedback has great
influence on the success of teaching and learning.

In this method, students

exchange their papers to their peers. It means that there are more opportunities for
collaboration, consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate. This is
very necessary to the progress of teaching and learning English. Second, peer

feedback is essential to the teaching and learning writing because peer readers can
provide useful feedback so that peer writers can do revision effectively on the basis
of the comments from peer readers. Last, it is found that when students become
critical readers of others’ writings, they will be more critical readers and revisers of
the own writings. However, using peer written feedback is not easy because
students’ level of English proficiency is not always the same and this method also
takes a lot of time from teachers and students.
Recently, every school and university in Vietnam has tried to apply the latest
methodology in teaching language skills in general and in teaching writing skill in
particular in order to make language teaching and learning as effective as possible.
HCE is not an exception. HCE was founded 50 years ago. However, the faculty of
foreign languages has just been founded for only 7 years. Working in such a young
faculty, the English teachers of the college have to cope with a lot of challenges. To
overcome these, the teachers have tried their best to study and apply the latest and
most effective method to their teaching the four skills in general and the writing
skill in particular. Many methods have been applied to teach the writing skills. One
of them is the peer written feedback. This method has been applied for the thirdyear students for one year. This research was done to investigate how students give
feedback in paragraph writing skill among the third-year students of HCE; to
examine the difficulties students might encounter when giving feedback; and to find
out whether the method is effective From these, the author could have a clear idea
about the application of this method in teaching English and decide whether to use
this method in teaching the writing skills in the future or not.

II


The text book named “Academic Writing” (By Liz and Roar, Third edition)
is used to teach writing paragraph at HCE. This textbook consists of 14 lessons with
specific forms of paragraph. At the end of each lesson, students are usually asked to
write a paragraph based on the specific form of paragraph (compare and contrast,

cause and effect, problem and solution, narrative, etc.) to revise what they have
learnt. A huge amount of feedback from the teacher is required. In order to ease the
teachers’ burden in giving feedback to students’ writing and make this process
meaningful to students’ learning, a new way of giving feedback, peer feedback was
introduced.
2. Aims and objectives of the study
This research aims at investigating students’ peer written feedback in paragraph
writing skills among the third-year students of HCE to have a clear idea whether this
method is suitable with the students and could be used in the further or not. This aim of
the research is specified by the following objectives. The first is to examine the
students’ current practice of giving peer written feedback; the difficulties students
might encounter when giving feedback, and to find out whether the method is effective.
The second is to propose some implication for teaching and learning using peer written
feedback and provide some suggestions for further study.
3. Scope of the study
Apparently, there are many various techniques of feedback in writing such as
teachers’ written feedback, self-correction, peer feedback and oral conferences.
Within the framework of a minor thesis, this study only focuses on one type of
feedback, peer written feedback in writing paragraphs among the third- year
students of HCE.
4. Significance of the study
Theoretically, writing is the most prominent skills that language learners
need to learn as an essential component of their academic practice and later on in
their professional life, which partially explains why teaching writing has prompted a
good deal of research that covers various aspects of its broad instructional contexts.

III


Therefore, this study mentions a method- peer written feedback and tries to find out

whether feedback is crucial to the teaching and learning of writing. Peer feedback
gives both the reader and the writer more opportunities for collaboration,
consideration and reflection than oral negotiation and debate.
Practically, using peer written feedback also relieves the teachers’ heavy
workload of marking the paper and makes this process meaningful to students’
learning. And it also helps students improve their writing skills. Obviously, when
students read their peers’ writings, they not only help their peers recognize and
correct mistakes but also become more critical writers.
5. Research methodology
5.1. Research questions
With this aim in mind this study will be guided by the following research
questions:
1. How do the third-year students of HCE give feedback to their peers’
written paragraphs?
2. What difficulties might the students encounter when giving feedback to
their peers’ written paragraphs?
3. To what extent do the students improve their writings after receiving
feedback from their peers?
5.2. Research methodology
In order to obtain adequate data to seek answers to the research questions,
this study used two methods. They were document analysis and questionnaire.
Document analysis helps the author find out the data to answer research question
number 1 and number 3, and questionnaire provides information to help the author
answer research question number 2.
In the document analysis, 20 students’ first drafts with the peer written
feedback were collected and analysed to find out how student gave feedback to their
peers’ written paragraphs. Then, the students’ first drafts were compared with their

IV

second drafts to see whether the peer written feedback helps students improve their
writing or not.
The questionnaire was done on 20 students who had given feedback to find
out the difficulties students might cope with when giving feedback to their peers’
writing.
6. Organization of the thesis.
The paper consists of 3 main parts:
Part A: Introduction- briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims, research
questions, scope as well as the significance and organization of the study
Part B: Development -This part consists of 4 chapters
Chapter 1: Theoretical background and literature review- discusses the literature
related to students’ writing’s feedback, different views and ways of peer feedback in
writing and the guiding principles for effective peer written feedback.
Chapter 2: Research methodology- describes the methodology which deals with the
participants, instrumentation, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure.
Chapter 3: Data analysis - analyses the collected data.
Chapter 4: Findings and discussion- reports the final results and draws the
implication for the teaching and learning of writing using peer written feedback.
Part C: Conclusions- summarizes the major findings of the study, acknowledges its
limitation and provides suggestions for further study.

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