STUDENT ENGAGEMENT WITH WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN THE WRITING CONFERENCE a CONTRASTIVE CASE STUDY = sự THAM GIA của học SINH vào QUÁ TRÌNH CHỮA lỗi bài VIẾT NGHIÊN cứu bốn TRƯỜNG hợp TƯƠNG PHẢN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT WITH
WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK
IN THE WRITING CONFERENCE:
A CONTRASTIVE CASE STUDY

Supervisor: Nguyễn Chí Đức, Ph.D
Student: Đỗ Quỳnh Trang
ID: 17040042
Course: QH2017.F1.E2

HÀ NỘI – 2020


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

SỰ THAM GIA CỦA HỌC SINH VÀO
QUÁ TRÌNH CHỮA LỖI BÀI VIẾT:
NGHIÊN CỨU BỐN TRƯỜNG HỢP TƯƠNG PHẢN

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Chí Đức, Ph.D
Sinh viên: Đỗ Quỳnh Trang

Mã sinh viên: 17040042
Khóa: QH2017.F1.E2

HÀ NỘI – 2020


Signature of Approval

Nguyễn Chí Đức


I hereby state that I: Đỗ Quỳnh Trang from class 17E2, being a candidate for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts (Honored English Language Teacher Education program) accept the
requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper
deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should
be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions
established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper.

Signature

Đỗ Quỳnh Trang
04/05/2021


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation and
most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Chi Duc, a teacher of the
Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU. The completion
of my dissertation would not have been possible without his guidance,

supervision, and support throughout the execution of this research. Dr. Nguyen
Chi Duc had guided me from the very first stage of this research. I am very much
grateful for his invaluable insights into the topic, constructive criticism, as well
as his unparalleled support along the way, without which I would not have been
able to finish this project. It was a great honor and pleasure to work with him.
Secondly, I would like to send my great thanks to the students and teacher
who played a decisive role in this research. If it had not been for their kindness
and willingness to share their valuable time participating in this project, this
study would not have been completed.
Lastly, I also wish to thank my friends and family, who had provided me
with unconditional love, patience and support throughout the duration of this
project. To my fellow deadline-running mates, Vor the immortal, Thao, Kitti,
Chúp, and Nhất, I thank you all for having been extremely supportive and
motivating. To Danh, An Khanh, and Jan, thank you for your care, your
encouragement and your support. To my family members, especially Mom and
Dad, I am thankful for your patience and empathy.

i


ABSTRACT
While recent studies on written corrective feedback (WCF) have underscored the
importance of examining student engagement with WCF, student engagement
with WCF in the Teacher-to-Student and Student-to-Student writing conference
is still under-investigated. Based on the multi-dimensional conceptual
framework of learner engagement with corrective feedback put forward by Ellis
(2010), this paper reports on the findings from four contrastive case studies
which explored how four L2 Vietnamese secondary school students engaged
cognitively, behaviorally and affectively with WCF in the writing conference
either with their teacher or a peer in the context of an EFL writing classroom.

The primary data for this study were collected from multiple sources including
students’ writing drafts, direct observation, videotapes of the writing
conferences, retrospective verbal reports through stimulated recalls, and prepost-conferencing interviews. The findings demonstrated the complexity of
learner engagement as well as its association with the student’s learning
outcome. While students were more cognitively, behaviorally and affectively
engaged in the writing conference with their teacher, a lower level of cognitive
engagement, more negative feelings and revision operations were found in the
Student-to-Student writing conference. These findings contributed greatly to our
current limited knowledge about learner engagement with WCF in the writing
conference, particularly in an EFL context like Vietnam. In addition, these
findings also inform the writing teacher, especially those in the language centers,
about their decision-making process regarding how to implement the writing
conference in a way that successfully scaffolds their students’ engagement with
WCF, which, in turn, creates a favorable condition for enabling the error
correction and L2 uptake among these students.
Keywords: Written corrective feedback (WCF), writing conference, student
engagement with WCF, scaffolding, negotiation

ii


TABLE OF CONTENT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................... i
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................ii
LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATION............................... v
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1
1.

Research gaps ....................................................................................... 1

2.

Research aims and research questions .............................................. 4

3.

Meaningfulness and novelty of this study.......................................... 4

4.

Organization of this study report ....................................................... 5

CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................ 6
1.1.

Key concepts ......................................................................................... 6

1.1.1

Written corrective feedback (WCF)................................................ 6

1.1.2

Student engagement with WCF ...................................................... 7

1.1.3

The writing conference ................................................................... 9

1.2. Potential benefits of student engagement with WCF in the writing

conference ....................................................................................................... 9
1.2.1.

Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990)........................................... 10

1.2.2.

Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978)....................... 10

1.2.3.

Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996) ............................................ 11

1.2.4.

Scaffolding .................................................................................... 12

CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 17
2.2.1. Overall research design ..................................................................... 18
2.2.2 Research context ................................................................................ 19
2.2.3. Research participants and sampling ................................................ 20
2.3.

Data collection and data analysis ..................................................... 21

2.3.1. Data collection .................................................................................... 21
2.3.2. Data analysis ...................................................................................... 25
Quantitative analysis .................................................................................. 26
Qualitative analysis .................................................................................... 27

iii


CHAPTER 3. FINDINGS ............................................................................... 31
3.1.

Initial data cleaning ........................................................................... 31

3.2.

Success rate of error correction........................................................ 32

3.3.

Student engagement with WCF in the writing conference ............ 33

3.3.1.

Cognitive and behavioral engagement .......................................... 33

3.3.2.

Affective engagement ................................................................... 41

3.4. Correlation between the success rate of error correction and the
level of cognitive engagement with WCF in the writing conference ....... 45
CHAPTER 4. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATION ................................... 46
4.1.

Discussion ........................................................................................... 46

4.2.

Implications ........................................................................................ 49

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 51
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 53
APPENDICES ................................................................................................. 58

iv


LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND
ABBREVIATION
TABLE
Table 1. Han & Hyland’s summary of multi-dimensional framework of learner
engagement with WCF (2015) .......................................................................... 15
Table 2. Pretest scores and Teacher’s ratings for participants and their Class . 20
Table 3. Timeline for data collection procedure............................................... 22
Table 4. Proposed stages of the writing conference with teacher .................... 24
Table 5. Han & Hyland’s taxonomy of revision operations (2015) ................. 26
Table 6. Total numbers of linguistic flaws, mistakes and errors ...................... 31
Table 7. Summary of LREs that dealt with errors during the writing
conferences ........................................................................................................ 32
Table 8. Participants' success rate of error correction ...................................... 33
Table 9. Summary of students’ cognitive engagement level ............................ 34
Table 10. Total moments showing evidence of affective engagement............. 42
Table 11. Correlations between students’ success rate of error correction and
their level of cognitive engagement with WCF in the writing conference ....... 45
FIGURE

Figure 1. Ellis’ framework for investigating CF (2010) . Error! Bookmark not
defined.
Figure 2. Level of learner cognitive engagement ............................................. 29
Figure 3. Analyzing and coding pair talk for LREs.......................................... 30
Figure 4. An original copy of a flaw in Lisa’s second draft .. Error! Bookmark
not defined.

ABBREVIATION
WCF

Written corrective feedback

CF

Corrective feedback

v


L2

Second language

ZPD

Zone of Proximal Development

vi

INTRODUCTION
This section begins with the research gaps that altogether lay the foundation for
launching this research project. Next, I shall define the research aims and the
research questions that the present study aims to cover. Followed by are the
contributions that this research, if successfully conducted, can make to both
instruction and research practice in this area. Finally, it ends with the overall
structure of this research report. By and large, the primary aim of this section is
to give an overview of this thesis as a whole.
1.

Research gaps

In the foreign/second language (L2) writing instruction, written corrective
feedback (henceforth referred to for short as WCF) is generally deemed to play
at least two crucial roles. On the one hand, this feedback helps L2 student writers
to improve the quality of their writing performance, especially in the case of
writing accuracy. On the other hand, it also creates a favorable condition for
these students to pick up new language codes (e.g., a new lexical item or
grammatical structure). Albeit our long-held belief as mentioned above,
empirical studies that examine the effects of WCF on both L2 writing
development and L2 uptake to date have shown rather inconsistent findings.
While some report that WCF indeed helps improve the accuracy of L2 writing
(e.g., Chandler, 2003; Gascoigne, 2004; Lizotte, 2001), the others report exactly
the opposite (e.g., Fazio, 2001; Polio, Fleck & Leder, 1998). Truscott (1996)
even finds that WCF is “ineffective” and “harmful” to both L2 writing
development as well as general L2 acquisition (p.327). Due to the inconclusive
findings above, more research in this area is still welcome.
The inconsistent research findings above give rise to a critical speculation that it
might be student engagement with WCF, but not WCF per se that matters. To
operationalize the construct of student engagement with WCF both in research

and instruction practice, researchers and practitioners often resort to the use of
the writing conference. In nature, such a conference is a one-on-one meeting

1


session in which the writing teacher (or a more-able writing peer) dialogically
walks a student writer through a list of writing errors with a view to helping this
student writer first to understand the nature of these errors and then prepare for
their error correction as well as their further learning of the underlying
knowledge associated with these flaws. Remarking on the merits of the writing
conference, Hyland (2019) suggests that “responding to student writing during
writing conferences is a powerful means of providing feedback”, and one benefit
of a writing conference as such is associated with “the negotiation that takes
place [between the interlocutors], allowing both the teacher and the student to
constantly negotiate meaning and understandings” (p.5). However, there remains
a paucity of research that examines the effects of student engagement with WCF
in the writing conference on L2 writing development, especially the success rate
of error correction on the part of the student writer. Therefore, Hyland (2019)
still calls for more research as such to fill this gap.
To lay the foundation for a study as such, Ellis (2010) has proposed a threedimensional model of student engagement with corrective feedback, including
WCF. In this model, student engagement with WCF is defined as the way that
the student writer affectively, cognitively and behaviorally responds to WCF.
According to Ellis (2010), student engagement with WCF is an indispensable
component when investigating WCF, since this provides a critical link between
the WCF itself and the learning outcomes. A more thorough understanding of all
aspects of engagement, including cognitive, behavioral, and affective
engagement, can also help the writing teacher to enhance their pedagogical
practices in the WCF provision. Nevertheless, empirical evidence backing up
this model is still in its infant stage, urging a need for more empirical research

that aims to substantiate the plausibility of this framework. In fact, a few initial
endeavors have been made to put the above theoretical model to the test.
However, most of these studies have fastened their focus on either cognitive
engagement (e.g., Storch & Wigglesworth, 2010), behavioral engagement (e.g.,
Sachs and Polio, 2007), affective engagement (Ellis, 2010), but not the interplay

2


between and among all three types of engagement in the model as the whole.
This highlights another research gap for future research to fill in.
In nature, the writing conference can be led by the writing teacher (i.e., the
Teacher-to-Student writing conference) or by a writing peer (i.e., the Student-toStudent writing conference). What makes this conference conducive to L2
writing development and L2 uptake lies in the notion of scaffolding, which is
conceptualized by Ellis (2000) as “the dialogic process by which one speaker
assists another to perform a new function” (p.209). Schumm (2006) interprets
scaffolding as the process in which students are provided with some support in
their language learning and such support is, however, withdrawn when these
students show some sign of independence or mastery of the target
knowledge/skills (as cited in Habibullah et al., 2018). Compared to the peer, this
disciplined procedure is more aware of by the teacher in the field of L2 writing
(Khodamoradi et al., 2013). In addition, that the teacher uses more scaffolding
behaviors than the peer has been consistently found by many previous studies
(e.g., Malihe & Nasrin, 2011). However, when implementing the writing
conference, the socio-cultural context of the writing classroom also needs to be
taken into account. In an EFL context like Vietnam, Pham (2010) points out that
“the teacher is always seen as having much better knowledge than students” (p.
31) and students are expected to respect the teacher. Nguyen (2011) further
elaborates on this point that this very belief, however, makes students “stay away
from debating bluntly and straightforwardly” with their teacher for fear that they

may be considered rude, discourteous, or disrespectful (p. 6). Such a hierarchical
relationship might adversely result in learner’s failure to engage with the writing
teacher in the writing conference, let alone questioning them (Han & Hyland,
2016). Meanwhile, Pham and Gillies (2010) find that Vietnamese students are
more willing to get involved in peer assessment practice than that with their
teacher. In this sense, it can be predicted that the pattern of student engagement
with WCF through conferencing with his teacher might differ considerably from
that with his peer, at least in terms of their affective engagement. Nevertheless,
to the best of my knowledge, there have been no studies that directly compare

3


the pattern of student engagement with WCF between the Teacher-to-Student
and the Student-to-Student writing conference. The present study aims to fill all
the research gaps above.
2.

Research aims and research questions

To address all research gaps above, the present study aims to compare the pattern
in the student engagement with WCF in the writing conference either with their
writing instructor (i.e., the Teacher-to-Student writing conference) or their
writing peer (i.e., the Student-to-Student writing conference) as well as the
relationship between their engagement and the success rate of their error
correction. Using a contrastive case study as an overall research design, this
research seeks the answer to the following questions:
(1) How do L2 students cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively
respond to WCF in the Teacher-to-Student and the Student-to-Student
writing conference?

(2) Is there any difference in the pattern of the student engagement
with WCF between the Teacher-to-Student and the Student-toStudent writing conference?
(3) If yes, is this difference associated with their learning outcomes
measured by the success rate of their error correction and L2 uptake?
3.

Meaningfulness and novelty of this study

This research is meaningful in different ways. First of all, it is among the first
few studies that provided empirical evidence for the purpose of substantiating
the plausibility of Ellis’ (2010) multi-dimensional construct of student
engagement with WCF. From the research perspective, it also helps validate
whether this model can also work for research purposes. In addition, the findings
from this study can shed more light on the relationship between student
engagement with WCF and the success rate of error correction as well as
highlight any difference in the pattern of this engagement between the Teacherto-Student and the Student-to-Student writing conference. Pedagogically
speaking, this research can also inform the writing teacher, especially those in

4


the language centers, about their decision-making process regarding how to
designate their writing conferences with a view to scaffolding their students’
positive engagement with WCF and thus fostering their students’ L2 writing
development as well as L2 uptake.
4.

Organization of this study report

Apart from the Introduction and the Conclusion sector, this paper consists of four

main chapters. Chapter 1 – “Literature Review” is first to define the key concepts
and conceptual frameworks that altogether form the theoretical backbone of this
thesis and then make a critical review of related empirical studies with a view to
highlighting the research gaps that the present study aims to fill. Chapter 2 –
“Methodology” is, on the one hand, to explicitly state the research aims and the
research questions. On the other hand, it delineates the key features of the overall
research design, the research participants, the procedure for data collection as
well as data analysis and then provides the justification for the usefulness of this
research design for the above research aims. Chapter 3 – “Findings”, as the name
suggests, is to report the core findings from both qualitative and quantitative
analyses with the aim to highlight the contrastive patterns in the student
engagement with WCF between the Teacher-to-Student and the Student-toStudent writing conference. The final chapter – “Discussion and implications”
first aims to relate the findings of the present study to those of previous research
as well as the core tenets of relevant theories in the same area. Followed by are
the pedagogical implications drawn from the above findings and discussion.

5


CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter is first to define the key concepts that will be used throughout this
research report, including “written corrective feedback (WCF)”, “student
engagement with WCF” and “the writing conference” (Section 1.1).
Subsequently, it unpacks the potential benefits that the writing conference can
bring about for both parties involved, along with relevant theories supporting
such merits (Section 2.2). In the final section – Section 2.3, I shall critically
review some initial endeavours that examine student engagement with WCF
from a multi-dimensional approach with a view to highlighting the research gaps
that the present study aims to address.
1.1.

Key concepts

As the primary aim of this study is to examine the pattern in the student
engagement with WCF in the Teacher-to-Student and the Student-to-Student
writing conference, the three key concepts underpinning such an investigation
include “written corrective feedback (WCF)”, “student engagement” and “the
writing conference”. In what follows, I shall discuss these concepts in greater
detail.
1.1.1 Written corrective feedback (WCF)
In the current literature, different terms have been coined to label corrective
feedback. Some of the most common concepts include “corrective feedback”,
“negative evidence” or merely “feedback”. Chaudron (1977), for example,
defines feedback as any reactions that the teacher initiates to help their students
to improve the quality of an oral utterance or a written sentence. Long (1996)
further classifies the feedback that the teacher gives L2 learners either as positive
or negative evidence of their L2 performance. While the former refers to any
instances of their correct L2 use, the latter draws their attention towards
erroneous ones. It is clear from this conception that corrective feedback is a type
of “negative evidence”, which, in turn, prompts L2 students to make relevant

6


changes in their L2 use. With regards to modality, corrective feedback can be
either oral or written. As for the clarity, such feedback can be implicit or explicit.
Feedback is deemed to be explicit when the teacher immediately gives the
correct form for a particular form-related error. However, it is implicit if this
teacher only draws L2 students’ attention towards a form-related error by, among
others, underlining the erroneous word/phrase, using an error code or simply

putting a question mark next to this error, for instance. In this paper, the concept
of written corrective feedback – WCF, refers to the implicit written corrective
feedback that the teacher gives on student writing.
1.1.2 Student engagement with WCF
The issue of how the student writer responds to WCF and uses this feedback for
their writing revision has captured the interest of many researchers from far and
wide; however, each of these scholars has variedly interpreted the notion of
student engagement as the depth of processing (e.g. Sachs & Polio, 2007; Storch
& Wigglesworth, 2010), the revision behaviors (e.g. Hyland, 2003; Ferris, 2006;
Sachs & Polio, 2007) or merely the individual perception (Fithriani & Rahmah,
2017). The most well-articulated definition of student engagement with CF,
including WCF, to date might be the one proposed by Ellis (2010). Thus, this
conception of student engagement with WCF is also employed for the present
study.
“I use the term engagement to refer to how learners respond to the feedback
they receive. Engagement can be examined from three different
perspectives: a cognitive perspective (where the focus is on how learners
attend to the CF they receive), a behavioral perspective (where the focus is
on whether and in what way learners uptake oral corrections or revise their
written texts), and an affective perspective (where the focus is on how
learners respond attitudinally to the CF). These three senses of engagement
are applicable to the study of both oral and written CF (p.342).”
In the above definition, cognitive engagement, on the one hand, refers to
cognitive strategies that the student writer employs to process a set of given WCF
and then make relevant revisions. These cognitive strategies might include,
among others, their noticing of a particular gap/hole (i.e., knowledge/skill that

7

they have just partially mastered or not yet mastered at all) in their inter-language
system (Sachs & Polio, 2007), their mental attempt to search for relevant input
from available resources to fill the above gap/hole as well as to analyze this input
with a view to figuring out the underlying language pattern/rule (Sachs & Polio,
2007; Storch & Wigglesworth, 2010). This type of engagement also involves
meta-cognitive strategies that the student writer mobilizes and orchestrates in
order to plan for and monitor all cognitive processes above, identify any
problems emerged from such a process and thus devise relevant measures as well
as evaluate the usefulness of these processes as the whole (Han & Hyland, 2015).
Behavioral engagement can be roughly defined as what the student writer
actually does with WCF. Prior research in this area has investigated this type of
engagement by giving a closer look at the learning strategies that the student
writer uses to revise their work (Ferris et al., 2013), or how successfully they
come up with and execute expected revision (Hyland, 2003). In other words,
these studies either aim to detect the emerged pattern in their revision behaviors
or, at least, in the manifestation of such a behavior.
Affective engagement is, in nature, the student writer’s attitudinal response to
WCF, their immediate emotional reactions upon receiving WCF as well as the
changes in their emotions over the revision process (Han & Hyland, 2015). Ellis
(2010), however, has pointed out that this dimension is often neglected by
researchers in this area even though “it [in some cases] creates anxiety in learners
and thus interferes with acquisition” (p.344). Martin and Rose (2002) have
further divided the attitudinal response to WCF into three different categories:
affect (to express emotion), judgement (to judge character), and appreciation (to
value the worth of things or people) (as cited in Zheng & Yu, 2018). As a result,
in this study, when it comes to the scrutiny of the student writer’s affective
engagement with WCF, I shall fasten my focus on all three categories, including
(a) their feelings and emotions expressed upon receiving WCF, along with
changes in their feelings and emotions during the revision process, (b) their
personal judgements, and (c) their appreciation of given WCF.

8


1.1.3 The writing conference
The use of one-on-one conferences to discuss problematic L2 use has long been
proposed as an alternative to the conventional WCF provision and it has become
an increasingly popular tool in the L2 writing classroom thanks to the benefits it
brings about to both the writing teacher and the student writer. This
conferencing, according to White and Arndt (1991), is the work between the
student writer and their writing teacher (i.e., the Teacher-to-Student writing
conference) or a writing peer (i.e., the Student-to-Student) on a piece of writing
with the purpose of clarifying the writer’s intention, purpose, and meanings (as
cited in Luu, 2011). In nature, the writing conference can be viewed as
“conversational dialogues” (Freedman & Sperling, 1985) or “a two-way
communication” (Hyland, 2019, p.5) that allow all involved interlocutors to
constantly negotiate meaning and understandings (Hyland, 2019). For the
student writer, it gives them on-the-spot input about language problems and, at
the same time, enables them to ask further questions and thereby address points
of confusion (Ferris, 2002, p.104). For the writing teacher, the interactive nature
of the conference offers them a chance better to express what they want to convey
as well as cultivate a better sense of the ambiguities, together with the source of
these ambiguities in the student writing. These altogether, in turn, inform their
decision-making process regarding what to teach, how to teach and how to assess
in the following lessons.
1.2.

Potential benefits of student engagement with WCF in the writing
conference

From theoretical perspectives, student engagement with WCF in the writing
conference can bring about various learning affordances for the student writer
both in terms of their L2 writing development and incidental L2 acquisition. In
this section, such learning affordances will be further unpacked and substantiated
with the support of a relevant theory/model in the field of foreign/second
language instruction.

9


1.2.1. Noticing Hypothesis (Schmidt, 1990)
The first benefit of this conferencing is that it sets a necessary (but, of course,
not necessarily sufficient) condition for L2 learning through promoting the
notion of “noticing” (Schmidt, 1990). In his Noticing Hypothesis, Schmidt
(1990) underscores the importance of conscious attention in converting L2 input
into intake and then in transforming this intake into uptake. To be more specific,
L2 students can only learn new language knowledge (i.e., uptake) when they
notice the presence of such novel knowledge in the given input (i.e., noticing)
and then attempt to fasten their attentional focus on and process this knowledge
(i.e., intake).
In the writing conference, the student writer is walked through a list of their
writing errors either by their writing teacher or their writing peer. In this way,
they directly draw their attention towards those flaws first with a view to figuring
out the nature of the errors and then preparing for their error correction. In other
words, the “noticing” process that mediates the conversion of input into intake
is effectively activated through this conferencing, which, in turn, creates a
favorable condition for the transformation of this intake into uptake later on.
1.2.2. Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978)
Another relevant learning affordance the writing conference can create for the
student writer is a “push” that takes them out of their current developmental level

and then relocates them in the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky,
1978). In his influential Socio-cultural Theory, Vygotsky (1978) defines ZPD as
“the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by
independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration
with more capable peers” (p.86).
If we view writing errors as problems that the student writer needs to solve, but
is yet able to solve all by themselves, the writing conference provides them with
ZPD in which they are able to correct those errors with the support of the writing

10


teacher or their more capable writing peer(s). This can be done thanks to further
input that they receive from these so-called more-able others. It is also worth
noting here that such input can even be made more comprehensible as the student
writer has the opportunity to negotiate the meanings of this input with their
writing teacher or peers via their direct interaction – another potential benefit of
the writing conference that will be disseminated further below.
1.2.3. Interaction Hypothesis (Long, 1996)
As already mentioned above, when the student writer is engaged with WCF in
the writing conference, opportunities for making the input more comprehensible
are given as the result of the interaction that takes place between themselves and
their writing teacher or peer(s). According to Ellis (2000), “learning arises not
[only] through interaction but [also] in interaction” (p.209). As a result, moments
of learning occur during the process of conferencing. The Interaction Hypothesis
(Long, 1996) emphasizes the importance negotiation of form/meaning for L2
uptake:
“…it is proposed that environmental contributions to acquisition are mediated
by selective attention and the learners’ developing L2 processing capacity, and

that these resources are brought together most usefully, although not exclusively,
during negotiation for meaning, Negative feedback obtained during negotiation
work or elsewhere may be facilitative of L2 development, at least for vocabulary,
morphology, and language specific syntax, and essential for learning certain
specifiable L1-L2 contrasts (p. 414).”

Such a negotiation episode is triggered when a breakdown in communication
occurs, leading to a modified sentence from, in this case, the student writer. As
Gass and Mackey further (2007) explain, through these episodes, the attention
of the student writer is directed to problematic features of knowledge such as a
new word or grammar point, which, in turn, promotes L2 uptake.
Nevertheless, L2 students are not always in a good position to make the most of
the opportunities these negotiations offer (Hyland, 2019). Cultural and social
inhibitions of the educational context can have great influences on how learners
get engaged in the writing conference. For cultures in which there exists a great
emphasis on “maintaining a hierarchical but harmonious relation between

11


teacher and student”, “students are expected to respect and not to challenge their
teachers” (Hu, 2002, p. 98). Additionally, Pham (2010) points out that in the
classroom in the context of Vietnam, for example, “the teacher is always seen as
having much better knowledge than students” (p. 31). Hence, students from a
culture as such often find teacher feedback authoritative and tend to passively
and unreflectively incorporate all teacher comments in their writing revision
(Miao, et. al., 2006; Tsui & Ng, 2000). Furthermore, writing conferences are also
often described as “emotionally charged interactions” (Trees et al., 2009, p. 397–
398) due to “their evaluative nature”, which may “create tensions for both
teachers and students” (Hyland, 2019, p.6). The act of giving feedback in such a

face-to-face setting may hurt students’ self-esteem and undermine their
motivation, thus it may put up a barrier to their future learning. Meanwhile, there
have been extensive discussions in the current literature upon the affective
advantage of peer feedback. However, empirical research on this advantage still
remains relatively limited (see Chaudron (1984), Zhang (1995), and Pham and
Gillies (2010) for example). Therefore, the underlying assumption behind the
present study is that the student writer might demonstrate different patterns in
their affective engagement with WCF when they work with their teacher and
when they work with their peer in the writing conference.
1.2.4. Scaffolding
In the centre of the Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory lies the idea of scaffolding,
which demonstrates “how guidance supports developmental learning through the
ZPD” (Schwieter, 2010, p. 31) and it is within the ZPD that scaffolding occurs.
The concept of scaffolding originated from the work of Bruner (1983) who
defines scaffolding as “A process of ‘setting up’ a situation to make the child’s
entry easy and successful and then gradually pulling back and handling the role
to the child as he becomes skilled enough to manage it” (p. 60). Subsequently,
Donato (1994) describes scaffolding as a mechanism in which “a knowledgeable
participant creates, by means of speech, supportive conditions in which the
novice can participate and extend the current skill and knowledge to higher levels

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of competence” (p. 48). One of the latest definitions of scaffolding is proposed
by Ellis (2000), who conceptualizes scaffolding as “the dialogic process by
which one speaker assists another to perform a new function” (p.209).
Originally, Vygotsky’s formulation of the ZPD is concerned with the interaction
between ‘expert’ and ‘novice’ (1968). Therefore, in the educational context,
scaffolding is defined as the semiotic mediation between teachers and students

in the sense that it is the interaction of teachers and students that has the potential
to influence understanding and learning. Schumm (2006) further explains that
scaffolding involves students being provided with help in their language learning
and such help is diminished or stopped in order for the latter to become more
self-sufficient (as cited in Habibullah et al., 2018). Since teachers are more aware
of the disciplined procedure of scaffolding in learning, they also know when to
perform such withdrawal (Khodamoradi et al., 2013). Consequently, their
scaffolding is more likely to produce independent students and promoting their
autonomy in language learning (Malihe & Nasrin, 2011). Nevertheless, there are
also sociocultural theorists who have extended the concept of scaffolding to
include other forms of collaborative activity, including work among peers.
Donato (1994), for example, specifically explored the mutual scaffolding among
groups of university students performing an oral task. The findings confirmed
that such scaffolding did exist in collaborative between peers. De Guerrero and
Villamil (2000) also found that while two ESL learners worked jointly in
revising a written text, the reader showed scaffolding behaviors that facilitated
development, such as (a) recruiting and maintaining the writer’s interest, (b)
marking critical aspects or discrepancies in the writer’s text, (c) explicitly
instructing the writer on issues of grammar and mechanics, and (d) modeling (as
cited in Nguyen, 2013).
Put altogether, the scaffolding in the writing conference can help fasten the
attentional focus of the student writer on a particular erroneous L2 use, provide
standard samples related to this flaw, prompt the student writer to analyze these
samples with a view to figuring out the underlying knowledge and then guide

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them to plan for their future learning of this knowledge. However, such
scaffolding needs to be contingent on the performance of the student writer.

When they show some sign of independence or mastery of the target knowledge,
this scaffolding should be withdrawn. In this study, the writing teacher is
assumed to be more disciplined in executing such a scaffolding procedure than
the writing peer, which, in turn, might create different patterns in the student
engagement with WCF between the Teacher-to-Student and the Student-toStudent writing conference, especially in the case of their cognitive and
behavioral engagement.
1.3.

Empirical research on student engagement with WCF

So far, there have been some initial endeavors that have put Ellis’ (2010) multidimensional construct of student engagement with WCF to the test. However, a
study as such has still remained relatively scarce. Han and Hyland (2015), for
example, examined the engagement of four college students with WCF provided
by their L2 writing instructor through a qualitative enquiry. The results
illustrated the complex nature of student engagement with WCF, which was
found to be also mediated both by individual and contextual factors. Drawing on
Ellis’s framework (2010) of student engagement with WCF, they further
elaborated the core insights for each dimension of such engagement. In the
present study, I shall use this refined framework as the analytical tool for my
data analysis.
Dimensions
of
engagement

Sub-constructs on each dimension

with WCF
Cognitive

(a) Depth of processing of WCF, i.e., awareness at the level of

engagement

noticing vs. awareness at the level of understanding
(b) Meta-cognitive operations that regulate learners’ mental
effort exerted to process WCF

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(c) Cognitive operations developed to process WCF and
generate revisions
Behavioral

(a) Revision operations in response to WCF

engagement

(b) Observable strategies taken to improve the accuracy of the
draft, the accuracy of future writing, and/or L2 competence

Affective

(a) Immediate emotional reactions upon the receipt of WCF

engagement

and changes in these emotions over the revision process
(b) Attitudinal responses toward WCF

Table 1. Han & Hyland’s summary of multi-dimensional framework of learner
engagement with WCF (2015)
Similarly, Zhang (2017) investigated one female university student’s
engagement with computer-generated WCF on her writing through the lens of a
case study. The findings from his research demonstrated the dynamic interplay
between and among all three dimensions – cognitive, affective and behavioral –
in the student engagement with WCF. To be more specific, the results suggested
that the affective engagement of the student writer was affected by her writing
scores and this type of engagement also affected her subsequent understanding
and uptake of the knowledge associated with the given feedback. However, there
was no clear pattern in her overall behavioral engagement with the computergenerated WCF.
To extend the line of this research, Zheng & Yu (2018) took the multidimensional approach to unpacking the WCF engagement of a group of EFL
Chinese students of lower proficiency level. The results of this study again
showed the complexity of the student engagement with WCF and also indicated
that their low English proficiency may adversely influence their cognitive and
behavioral engagement with WCF since it could cause imbalances between and
among the three engagement dimensions. In fact, these students appeared to have
relatively positive affective engagement, but their cognitive and behavioral
engagement was extremely limited.

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