Lợi ích từ việc giảng viên nhận xét tương tác vào bài viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên

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LỢI ÍCH TỪ VIỆC GIẢNG VIÊN NHẬN XÉT

TƯƠNG TÁC VÀO BÀI VIẾT TIẾNG ANH

CỦA SINH VIÊN

<b>1. INTRODUCTION</b>

Teachers’ responses to student writing has been
acknowledged as central to teaching composition
(Freedman, Greenleaf, & Sperling, 1987). In
fact, since the early twentieth century, Carpenter
et al (1913) considered the role of response or
“criticism” to the teaching and learning of writing
as “one of the most important in the whole problem
of teaching English, upon which the value of the
criticism success in teaching composition finally
depends” (Carpenter, Baker, & Scott, 1913, p. 142).

Responding to students’ writing is arguably
a most widely adopted method; yet it is time
consuming and “the least understood” (Sommers,
1982, p. 170). The questions of how to write helpful
comments, to what extent teacher written response
is supportive to student revision, and whether
student successful revision is the result of teacher
comments, are never simple to answer.

A growing body of research has attempted to
answer these tricky questions. Teacher written
response has been examined in both first language

<b>TÓM TẮT</b>

Trong quá trình dạy và học viết tiếng Anh, giáo viên thường phản hồi trực tiếp vào bài viết của
sinh viên, làm cơ sở để người học chỉnh sửa trước khi hoàn thiện bài viết. Việc này được coi là
tốn thời gian, công sức của giáo viên, nhưng giới nghiên cứu vẫn đang tranh luận về hiệu quả của
nó đối với chất lượng bài viết. Trong nghiên cứu này, chúng tơi phân tích tác động của phản hồi
tương tác của giảng viên đối với chất lượng bài viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên Việt Nam học tiếng
Anh như một ngôn ngữ thứ 2. Chúng tôi thu thập trên 30 bài viết về 15 chủ đề của 03 sinh viên
đại học người Việt trong 24 tuần. Tác động của phản hồi tương tác được phân tích theo chuẩn
của Ferris, chất lượng bài viết được phân tích định tính theo chuẩn Viết Phân tích của Hoa Kỳ, so
sánh kết quả sử dụng phương pháp ANOVA (định lượng). Kết quả cho thấy, người học tiếp thu,
sử dụng gần 70% góp ý nhận xét của giảng viên, và có cơ sở thống kê để nhận định chất lượng
bài viết lần cuối cao hơn lần đầu, đặc biệt về nội dung, bố cục, văn phong (không cải thiện về sử
dụng từ và ngữ pháp). Kết quả nghiên cứu giúp cải thiện quy trình dạy và học viết tiếng Anh trình
độ đại học tại Việt Nam.

<b>Từ khóa:</b> nhận xét của giáo viên, phản hồi, phản hồi tương tác, viết tiếng Anh.
<b>TRƯƠNG ANH TUẤN*_{; LANNIN AMY}**_{; NGƠ Q CHUNG}***</b>
*_{Trung tâm gìn giữ hịa bình Việt Nam - BQP,}_✉

**_{Đại học Tổng hợp Missouri, Hoa Kỳ}

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(L1) and second language (L2) writing classes.
Teacher response, as agreed upon by most teachers
and researchers, has evolved into more than just
written marginal or end comments. Responses may
include all types of interaction with student drafts.
They could be formal, informal, in written, or oral
forms to a series of drafts, or to one polished final
paper. Responses may be used in formal mainstream

classrooms, or in an informal, casual interaction
between teacher and student (Freedman et al., 1987).

Teacher response might be explicit, implicit, or
a combination of both. A teacher might comment
as explicitly as “I’m interested in your idea here,”
“I like your voice in this paragraph,” or “I think
this sentence needs a verb.” Teachers might also
engage indirectly, such as “What do you think this
paragraph lacks?” or “I’m lost here!” Reflective
response might also be used, such as “I’m just
curious to see what is happening here,” or “as a
reader, I like to see more details in this scene.”

In this study, we attempted to explore the effects
of reflective response on student revision as defined
by Anson (Anson, 1989). The study was a pilot
study for a future research with greater sample. We
examined 15 papers, including 30 drafts produced
by three college students who studied English as
a second language over a period of two academic
semesters (24 weeks). These papers were written as
an additional writing exercise, out of the students’
normal class time, and not for credit or grading. No
pressure was placed on the students with regard to
what they wrote, when they wrote, and where. By
doing this, we intended to give more freedom to
the students, and avoid imposing the concepts of
teacherly “ideal text” on the students (Sommers,
1982). The students would revise their drafts only

because they wanted to do so, not because of
meeting any requirements by the teacher for the
purpose of grading.

The effects of reflective response were analyzed
using a rating scale developed by Ferris (1997). We

the result of the teacher response, and if the changes
in drafts improved the overall writing quality as
evaluated using a version of the National Writing
Project’s analytical writing continuum (NWP,
2009). Improvement in a student’s paper was
determined by two procedures: (a) holistic scoring
of the first and final drafts on a six-point scale, and
(b) analytical scoring centered on six traits: content,
structure, stance, sentence fluency, word choice,
and conventions.

<b>2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE</b>

<b>2.1. L1 response research and theory</b>

Written teacher response has been a topic
drawing concern from a large number of researchers
and educators, resulting in a growing body of
research in the field. As early as 1913, Walter
Barnes wrote:

I believe that children in the grades live, so
far as the composition work is concerned, in an

absolute monarchy, in which they are the subjects,
the teacher the king (more often, the queen), and the
red-ink pen the royal scepter...In our efforts to train
our children, we turn martinets and discipline the
recruits into a company of stupid, stolid soldierkins-
prompt to obey orders, it may be, but utterly devoid
of initiative (Barnes, 1913, pp. 158-159).

Similarly, a teacher who emphasizes
mechanical errors, or “[a teacher] ferrets out the
buried grammatical blunder, who scents from afar
a colloquialism or a bit of slang” (Barnes, 1913)
was not an effective composition teacher, to use the
words by A. Lunsford & Connors (1993).

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Lunsford, 2008; A. Lunsford & Connors, 1993;
R. Lunsford & Straub, 1995, 2006; Moxley, 1989;
Sperling & Freedman, 1987; Straub, 2000) among
many others. Though written comment was the most
widely used method, also the most time-consuming
(Sommers, 1982), the influence of written teacher
response on student writing improvement is still
controversial. Earlier researchers showed their
skeptical view on the effectiveness of teacher
response while more recent researchers have
expressed milder, more balanced arguments over
the influence of written teacher response on student
writing revision and quality (Bitchener & Ferris,
2012; Ferris, 2003, 2004).

<b>2.2. Earlier skepticism</b>

Researchers (such as Hairston, 1986;
Knoblauch & Brannon, 1981; Sommers, 1982;
Sperling & Freedman, 1987) tended to draw
a bleak picture of the effectiveness of written
response to the improvement of student drafts. For
example, in Knoblauch & Brannon’s (1981) review,
teacher comments showed minimum influence on
student writing, students failed to interpret and
handle teacher responses, and even if the students
understood the feedback, their paper was not better.
Sommers (1982) reported that “teachers’
comments can take students’ attention away from
their own purposes in writing a particular text
and focus that attention on the teachers’ purpose
in commenting” (p. 149). Students made changes
in their paper in the way the teacher wanted, not
what they thought was needed. Teacher responses
focused more on errors than on idea development,
and teachers did not prioritize errors to be fixed.
Sommers also observed that “teachers’ comments
are not text-specific and could be interchanged,
rubber-stamped, from text to text” (p. 152). Teacher
response tended to be generic, which included
vague directives and abstract commands. Brannon
& Knoblauch (1981) reported that students revise
their drafts to meet their teacher’s expectation,
not because of their need for idea development.

Teacher response was believed to be authoritative
and imposing, which emphasized logical, rational
arguments, rather than being reflective and clear.

More importantly, written response was even
reported to be unsupportive and even harmful to both
teachers and students (Hairston, 1986; Sperling &
Freedman, 1987). Hairston believed that responding
may leave negative effects on teachers (such as
frustration, burn-out, and despair) and on students
(cognitive overload, defensive barriers that resist
teacher comment). Sperling & Freeman (1987), in a
case study with a high school student, reported that
response was not supportive to student revision,
and that the student misinterpreted the teacher’s
message. The student seemed to ignore problems
pointed out in the comments by the teacher. These
observations are echoed by Wilson who reported
that students receptively accepted the comments,
and made changes to satisfy the teacher, to have
good marks, which damaged and demotivated
students’ view of what writing means (Wilson,
2009). Sperling & Freeman, therefore, called for
clearer, more careful, well-constructed, helpful,
relevant feedback from teachers in responding to
student drafts.

<b>2.3. More recent balanced perspective on </b>
<b>response</b>

A milder, more balanced view in judging
teacher’s written feedback and student revision was
noticed in recent studies (i.e. Anson, 1989; Beason,
1993; Crone-Blevins, 2002; Freedman et al., 1987;
A. Lunsford & Connors, 1993; R. Lunsford &
Straub, 1995; Mathison-Fife & O’Neill, 1997;
Smith, 1997; Sperling, 1994, 1996; Straub, 1997).
These researchers attempt to construct an analytical
framework in examining teacher comments and the
influence on student writing.

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helpful than response to final polished products.
Teacher response is preferred over peer, parent,
or other adult response. But when grading was
involved, teacher feedback was not helpful on the
final piece submitted for grading.

In a series of studies, Sperling (1994,
1996) proposed that in order to reach a deeper
understanding of student writing in the context
of school, teachers should have in mind five
orientations when responding to student writing: i)
interpretive (relating elements in students’ writing
to teachers’ prior knowledge and experience or
to students’ prior knowledge and experience); ii)
social (playing different social roles in reading
students’ papers, such as peer and literacy scholar,
teacher, and aesthetic reader); iii) cognitive/
emotive (reflecting reasoning and emotions as
teachers read students’ papers); iv) evaluative

(critically assessing students’ writing, explicitly and
implicitly, opening chances for extensive criticism
on students’ writing); and v) pedagogical (treating
students’ papers as teaching and learning tools)
(Sperling, 1996, pp. 23, 24). These orientations
form an analytical framework for investigating the
perspective of teacher-as-reader in responding to
student writing. Having questions, relating to prior
knowledge and experience, playing multiple roles
in reading a paper, and sharing these hypotheses
with students helps students understand themselves
better as writer and reader. The framework might
serve as a holistic approach to investigating student
writing in classroom context where teacher response
is valued.

In their landmark research, Straub & Lunsford
(1995; 2006) investigated 3,500 comments by 12
experienced teachers and professors of English on
156 sets of responses. The researchers examined
written teacher comments by analyzing the “focus”
and “mode” both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Focus is understood as the issue to which the
comment refers while the mode refers to how the

<i>Figure 1: Categories for analyzing comments </i>

(R. Lunsford & Straub, 1995, p. 159)

<b>FOCUS</b>

<b>Global</b>

Ideas

Development
Global structure

<b>Local</b>

Local structure
Wording
Correctness

<b>Extra-textual</b>

<b>MODE</b>

Corrections
Evaluations

Qualified Negative
Evaluations

Imperatives
Advice
Praise

Indirect Requests

Problem-Posing Questions

Heuristic Questions
Reflective Statements

Straub & Lunsford reported that most of the
teachers’ comments were text-specific, focused on
global issues. The comments were framed in a
non-authoritative mode and supported writing as a process.
Anson (1989) attempted to examine responding
styles and their relationship with thinking styles.
The researcher categorized written teacher response
styles into three groups of dualistic, relativistic,
and reflective. Dualistic responders tend to focus
their attention on surface errors and mechanics.
Teacher responders clearly prescribed what is right
from what is wrong, and that students should make
changes in their revision. “The tone of the responses
implied that there were standards for correct and
incorrect ways to complete the assignment, and that
a teacher’s job was to act as a judge by applying the
standards to the student’s writing,” or “[the tone]
was highly authoritative and teacherly” (Anson,
1989, pp. 344, 348). Grammatical issues seem to be
the focus of dualistic comments. Dualistic response
emphasized narrowly prescriptive comments
(Straub & Lunsford, 1995). Dualistic response
tends to focus on spelling out issues, not to offer
options for revision. The following example is a
typical dualistic response:

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one obvious reason why you did not write more,

is that you have very serious deficiencies in your
knowledge of the mechanics of writing. I am
referring here to tense, spelling, punctuation, and
sentence structure (Anson, 1989, p. 344).

The second type of responders, relativistic,
commented almost nothing. They wrote minimum
comments on the margins of student papers as well as
in the summary statements. Relativistic responders
seemed to avoid focusing on the student’s text,
and to be “entirely unconcerned with giving the
students anything more than a casual reaction…
the text seems ‘owned’ by the writer” and teachers
did not want to intrude into the text. Relativistic
responder provides “no options for revision,” just
“idiosyncratic response of a single reader” (Anson,
1989, pp. 349-350).

The third approach examined was reflective
response. Reflective responders tend to make
suggestions and possibilities for future revision.
This type of comment expresses concerns for
student writers in “ideas, textual decisions,
personal reactions.” Reflective responders acted
as “representative readers” of student text, not
authoritative teachers. Final choices of whether or
not making any changes to the drafts will be decided
by the students themselves. Reflective response also
implies that the student writing was “in-process
drafts” which serves as “tools for further learning.”

Reflective responders often phase “maybe you could
think about…”, “what if you…”, “and how about
seeing if there’s a way to…” The tone of reflective
response tended to be collaborating, suggesting,
guiding, and modeling. The reflective responder
seems to be “rhetorically sitting next to the writer”
(Anson, 1989, pp. 351, 353). Below is an example
of a reflective commentary to the student’s writing:

Hi Bobby. The first thing that strikes me before
I even read your story is that it’s very short… I’m
wondering if it’s short for a good reason, or it’s
short because you just couldn’t think of things to
say. It’s possible for a piece of writing that’s very

short to be very good. Poetry is that way, certainly.
On the other hand, the more you put in, the more
chances are that your reader is going to be able to
get into your story. Stories generally- and this essay
is a story- are fairly well-detailed… if you just keep
it short and don’t put in many details then we never
really get into your story at all (Anson, 1989, p. 351).
Reflective responses tend to “place more
responsibility on the writer … not just in the style or
form of the response, but in its focus and content.”
By challenging the students to rethink their essays,
reflective response appeared to “challenge the
students to rethink their ways of viewing the world”
(Anson, 1989, p. 352).

<b>2.4. L2 written feedback research</b>

Research in L2 written feedback has been
growing, with attention being paid to the
effectiveness of teacher’s written comments to
student writing and in the ways feedback is given
(e.g., Ashwell, 2000; Bitchener, 2008; Bitchener
& Ferris, 2012; Bruton, 2009a, 2009b, 2010;
Chandler, 2003; Conrad & Goldstein, 1999;
Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris, 1995b, 1997,
2001, 2003, 2004; Ferris, 2010; Ferris, Brown, Liu,
& Stine, 2011; Ferris, Pezone, Tade, & Tinti, 1997;
Guénette, 2007; Hartshorn et al., 2010; F. Hyland
& Hyland, 2001; K. Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Leki,
1990; Storch & Wigglesworth, 2010; Truscott,
1996, 1999, 2007; Van Beuningen, De Jong, &
Kuiken, 2012; Zamel, 1985). Earlier L2 written
feedback research yielded similar findings to L1
research. Teacher comments were reported to be
vague and form-related. They focused on language
errors rather than on global issues such as ideas and
organization (Zamel, 1985).

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students from mixed backgrounds, Fathman &
Whalley (1990) reported that specific comments
on grammatical errors have greater effect on the
improvement of grammatical accuracy than general
comments on content do. The researchers also
noted that both grammar and content response
might be provided either separately or at the same

time “without overburdening the students” (p. 187).
This claim was further supported by later studies
(e.g. Ashwell, 2000; Ferris, 1997). Feedback on
some selective patterns of errors was helpful to
student writing (Ferris, 1995b). Chandler (2003)
reported, for example, that error correction helped
students gain greater accuracy than when they did
not receive error feedback. Form-related comments
(on grammatical errors) led to better grammatical
accuracy than content-related feedback did (Fathman
& Whalley, 1990; Ferris & Roberts, 2001). Error
correction helped prevent error fossilization (i.e. a
tendency to resist to change errors so that the errors
become fixed) in L2 learners (Higgs & Clifford,
1982; Lalande, 1982).

However, earlier studies in L2 written feedback
also revealed that error correction was ineffective,
even harmful to students’ fluency, and led to no
improvement in long-term progress (Fazio, 2001;
Kepner, 1991; Polio, Fleck, & Leder, 1998; Robb,
Ross, & Shortreed, 1986; Semke, 1984; Sheppard,
1992; Truscott, 1996). Truscott (1996), for
example, claimed that error correction was harmful
to student fluency and led to no improvement in
long-term progress and that students might not gain
anything from error feedback. Zamel (1985) and
Lunsford and Connors (1993) reported that teacher
feedback was often vague, form-related, and
inaccurate. Truscott (1999) suggested that teachers

should adopt a correction-free approach in teaching
writing, and teachers should focus on extra writing
practice rather than spending time handling errors.

In recent reviews, Ferris summarizes a number
of issues in response research: i) teachers often rely
on marginal or end of paper notes whose purpose is

provide positive feedback. A number of techniques
have been utilized to respond: questioning, making
statements and imperatives, recommending, etc., ii)
teachers adjust their responses to types of writing
task and student writing proficiency; and iii) some
response styles tend to be more effective to revision
than the others. Comments about information,
grammar, or mechanics are more likely to lead to
successful revision than comments about such issue
as thinking or argumentation (Bitchener & Ferris,
2012; Ferris, 2003).

One of the main concerns in L2 response
scholarship is how to determine if teacher response
affects student revision. Several taxonomies have
been developed to trace revision changes. Faigley
& Witte (1981) proposed a system that traces
revision by classifying changes into surface changes
(changes that do not result in new information)
and text-based changes (changes that lead to new
content or deletion of old content) (Faigley & Witte,
1981). Storch (2010) and Ferris (2003) argues that

this revision scheme tends to be misleading because
i) students tend to make by far greater number of
surface formal changes than text-based changes
within a writing, and ii) the scheme does not deal
with how such a change affects the general quality
of the draft.

Another procedure monitoring teacher response
and student revision is proposed by Ferris (1997).
This rating scale traced the students’ drafts and
the teacher’s response to see how students utilized
the comments in their revision. Students’ revision
was coded as <i>not revised, successful revision, and </i>

<i>unsuccessful revision</i>. These changes were also

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revision (i.e. Conrad & Goldstein, 1999; Ferris,
1997, 2001; F. Hyland, 1998).

Many researchers, such as Bitchener and Ferris
(2012), Storch (2010), Guénette (2007); K. Hyland
and Hyland (2006), and Ferris (2003, 2004),
suggests that future studies in L2 response should
consider student background and motivation level
for L2 learning. These include the amount of time
students commit to spend on writing (in-class and
out-of-class). The relationship between students and
teacher should also be noted. The types of writing
student compose, the ways teacher constructs
responses (linguistic, pragmatic, etc.) might also

count in the relationship between response and
revision. Whether or not teacher’s written feedback
is harmful to student’s writing as Truscott (1996,
1999) claims or whether teacher’s feedback is
helpful to students’ immediate revision are also
issues that merit further explorations.

There has been a debate about whether or
not teacher’s written feedback is helpful to
non-native students of English (e.g., Chandler, 2003;
Ferris, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2011; Ferris, 2006; A.
Lunsford & Connors, 1993; Truscott, 1996, 1999,
2007; Zamel, 1985). Among many types of written
feedback, the current study only explores only one
type, written reflective feedback, and to examine
if written reflective response has any effect on
ESL students’ revision. Given the fact that written
feedback is still the most widely adopted method
by writing teachers and is time consuming and
yet appropriately examined, it is necessary to
investigate whether or not teachers’ feedback make
a difference to students’ writing progress. The study
was designed to answer the two following research
questions:

<i>1. To what extent does teacher’s written </i>
<i>reflective response influence ESL learners’ revision </i>
<i>process?</i>

<i>2. To what extent does ESL students’ revised </i>

<i>draft improve after receiving teacher’s written </i>
<i>reflective response? </i>

<b>3. THE STUDY</b>

<b>3.1. The participants</b>

The study was conducted on three female
college students. They were Vietnamese first year
students (mean age is 20). They were pursuing
different degrees in different majors, at different
universities. For the purpose of ethics, their names
are coded as Queen, Pie and Tea. Queen was
studying English and commerce in Singapore; Pie
was following a business program at a university
in Wellington, New Zealand; and Tea was studying
finance in Russia.

The length of the participants’ experience
with English varies. Queen has been learning
English since she was at her secondary school in
Vietnam (for about seven years) and she is now
learning English in Singapore. Pie and Tea have
acquired Russian as their second language. Pie
learned Russian for six years before switching to
English when she began her business program in
Wellington in 2009. By the time data for the study
was collected, Pie has been learning English in New
Zealand for roughly a year. Tea, interestingly, still
used Russian as a means for her accounting program

since Russian was a language of instruction at her
university. Tea, however, wanted to learn English
since she was considering a Master’s degree in an
English speaking university. By the date of the data
collection process, Tea had been learning English
for almost two years. To fully examine the effect
of teachers’ responses (if any), it is appropriate to
select the participants with diverse backgrounds of
English learning.

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