CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
As one of the most important language skills for learners, writing is a significant partin English classroom. English writing concerns many aspects in language such aslinguistic knowledge and discourse knowledge. The New Curriculum Standard (2017edition) pointed out that English curriculum in senior high school includes Englishlanguage learning and practicing, which emphases on the comprehensive development incore literacy. In writing, students’ thinking process and language use may be reflected intheir compositions, and students' integrated competence can be developed. However,English writing is found to be a tough task for students in senior high school in China as itis often influenced by other aspects in English learning. Many of the students worry aboutEnglish writing and want to know more about writing skills. Traditional teaching modelfor writing in China follows the process of “Presentation—Assignment —Assessment”(Ma, 2013), which is outcome-based. Students seldom make revisions to the composition,and the evaluation strategy of the exam form itself makes students lose interest in Englishwriting. In this way, students focus on grades but have no idea about “what to write” and“how to write”. In English writing teaching, teachers always feel time-consuming andlaborious. But the effect is not satisfactory, correcting the composition also takes a lot oftime.
Scholars and teachers in-service make every effort to find a way to help studentsimprove their writing skills. There has been a lot of researches concerning theimprovement of learners' writing. One effective way to improve students’ writing skills isgiving feedback, especially in the process writing approach. The author modifies thearticle based on readers' feedback on mistakes or inappropriacies in the content,organization, logic, wording, grammar, etc. Useful feedback is an important link toimprove the quality of writing. Feedback can be conducted in many ways, for example,feedback can be pided into teacher feedback and peer feedback according to thenprovider. Feedback also be classified as oral feedback and written feedback according tothe forms. Wang (2012) stated that The significance of feedback lies in that it can promptstudents to realize their own problems in a timely manner, so as to change their learningstrategies and improve their language ability. Teacher feedback has always been dominant,especially in the context of English teaching in China.In order to make the forms offeedback more perse in daily classes and better improve students' English writing ability,different forms of feedback are worth studying.
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1.2 Purpose of the Study
In view of the importance of feedback in promoting the development of students'English writing level, this paper aims to study the influence of oral feedback fromdifferent providers on senior high school students' English writing. In order to conduct theresearch in a relatively comprehensive way, this paper uses both quantitative andqualitative research methods which is designed to provide data support for the applicationof oral feedback in English writing. Moreover, some suggestions are proposed accordingto the results from this study hoping to provide some references for the oral feedback insenior high school English writing.
In terms of theoretical significance, in process-oriented second language writing,feedback can affect students' revision behavior and composition quality. In the teaching ofEnglish writing in high schools in our country, written feedback often occupies a majorposition. In recent years, some studies have found that oral feedback can also promote theimprovement of students' writing ability, and has advantages and characteristics thatwritten feedback does not have. This research aims to study the impact of oral feedbackfrom two types of feedback subjects (teachers and peers) on students' second languagewriting through experiments and interviews, and provides teacher oral feedback forinpiduals in the group so that students can get personalized guidance. Thus, it canprovide certain experimental data support for the effect of oral feedback in the teaching ofsecond language writing in high schools.
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Key Terms of This Thesis
2.1.1 Feedback
For the definition of feedback in a relatively broad way, Arkalgud Ramaprasad (1983)concluded that feedback is a term used in management issues, which refers to theinformation applied to change the situation of a certain gap. And he emphasized that thiskind of information should be expressed rather than be stored in one’s mind, or it is notfeedback. Thus, the definition of feedback from Ramaprasad in management filed can besummarized as information that should be expressed to alter the gap.
In language teaching, according to Richards and Schmidt’ s Longman Dictionary ofLanguage Teaching & Applied Linguistics, feedback was defined as “comments or otherinformation” for learners about the performance on their learning tasks or tests, whichmay come from teachers or other people (Richards et al., 2005). Lewis (2007) claimed inher book that feedback gives information for both teachers and students. For teachers,feedback is a way they check their own teaching; and for students, except for results orgrades, feedback is also the comment about the strengths and weaknesses during thelearning process. Also, Ellis (1994) stated in his book that feedback is the information forlearners, which can be used to adjust their interlanguage.
More specifically, in writing, Keh (1990) stated feedback as information for thewriter given by the reader about some inadequacies in a product. Receiving feedback canhelp the writer find the problems existed and revise the draft. It includes three areas, thatis, feedback from teacher, peer and conference. Feedback is the key concepts and steps forprocess writing.
To sum up, feedback is the information for learners given by others (instructors orpeers) whose purpose is to help the learners have a clearer understanding of the learningprocess or results and then improve their products or learning behaviors.
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2.2 Theoretical Foundations
2.2.1 Process Writing Approach
The process approach has been a way of writing since 1970s and it is not a new ideaof in the teaching of English writing (Keh, 1990). At that time, people started to payattention to what L2 learners do in the writing process instead of only focusing on theform of the text under the influence of study on L1 writers (Raimes, 1990). In processwriting, teachers provide as many opportunities as possible for learner to motivate theirwriting (Hewins, 1986; Raimes, 1990), which emphasized creativity and the developmentof writing ability (Zhong, 2016). Hewins (1986) gave an outline of process writing“Prewriting- First Draft- Feedback- Second Draft- Proofreading- Final Draft”. It ischaracterized by multiple drafts, and sometimes there are more than two drafts. Feedbackfrom readers during the draft composing can be very important and help the writer reach afinal draft (Keh, 1990). Thus, feedback is the key concepts and steps for process writing.
Brown (2001) adapted the main features of process writing according to theliterature as follows. First of all, it concentrates on writing process rather than finalproduct. Also, in this process, learners have more time and opportunities to think andwrite. They can learn more strategies for writing and have a better understanding on theirwriting process. In addition, both peer feedback and instructor feedback (sometimes in theform of meeting or conference) are encouraged throughout the composing process ofevery draft. Moreover, students will clarify what they really want to express, and theirtexts will be much more closer to their own intention with the help of feedback.
In conclusion, according to the description about the approach proposed by aboveresearchers, to help learners understand composing skills and strategies and form a bettercomposition, process writing advocate a continuous and creative composing way thatincludes prewriting and drafting based on feedback and revision.
Table 3.1 The Information of the Participants
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGH.....................................11
3.1 Research Questions..............................................11
3.2 Research Participants ..............................................11
3.3 Research Instruments...............................................12
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.......................................18
4.1 Students’ Utilization of the Two Types of Feedback in Revisions........................18
4.2 Students' Attitude towards the Two Types of Feedback........................................26
4.2.1 Students' Attitude towards the Two Types of Feedback before theIntervention...................................26
4.2.2 Students' Attitude towards the Two Types of Feedback after theIntervention.......................29
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION...................................... 40
5.1 Main Findings of the Study....................................40
5.2 Implications of the Study...........................................41
5.3 Limitations and Future Study....................................43
CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1 Students’ Utilization of the Two Types of Feedback in Revisions
The author identified the feedback points in each session and the results are reportedin the following chart (see Table 4.1). In some other research, teachers provide muchmore feedback than students (eg. Yang, 2006; Zhao, 2010; Ji, 2010) But the amount offeedback given by peers in this study is about the same as the amount of teacher feedbackperhaps because of the organization of peer feedback. Many of the previous researchconducted the feedback process in pairs and students could only get suggestions from onepartner at a time. In this study, students gave feedback to each other in a group with twomembers, which stimulated more discussion and a collision of different ideas. Besides, alot of suggestions raised by students emphasized on the detailed part in their peers’ texts,such as the choice of some words and expressions. The teacher participant said in thecommunication with the author that in her opinion, there was nothing wrong with thesedetails in original draft, and the quality of the composition will not be affected whetherthe students revised or not. Experienced teachers took a more macroscopic view of thestudent's compositions, therefore, the teacher paid more attention to the points that need tobe modified to improve the overall quality of the composition unless there weregrammatical or other errors. All of these reasons may result in the same amount of peerfeedback as teacher feedback.
Table 4.1 Comparison on Students’ Utilization of Peer and Teacher Oral Feedback
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION
5.1 Main Findings of the Study
Generally speaking, compared to the peer feedback, students used more teacher oralfeedback in their revised drafts. Because of their experience and knowledge, teachers giveuseful and efficient feedback, which hits the nail on the head. In teacher feedback,students relied more on their teacher and their learner autonomy may be reduced.Students seemed to expected direct teacher feedback that could be used easily in theirwritings. However, the use frequency of peer oral feedback was also not in a low level.No incorrect feedback was found during the whole session of peer feedback due to thenegotiation during the process. And peer feedback motivated more self revision due to theopportunities of learning from each other and thinking by themselves.
In this study, both teacher feedback and student feedback are accepted by studentparticipants. As for teacher feedback, the same as previous research results, students thinkteacher feedback is efficient and professional, and they can safely use the suggestionsgiven by teachers. Students prefer more teacher feedback, whether oral or written, thanpeer feedback. Few concerns existed in students’ minds about the effective of thefeedback as previous research stated. But this study found through interviews before theexperiment that students' views on peer feedback were not negative, and they showed antolerant attitude towards peer feedback. Besides, students have some interpersonalconsiderations when dealing with peer feedback. To sum up, we can learn from the post -experiment interview about information related to the utilization of feedback in twofeedback process and students' feelings after experiencing the two feedback sessions.Most of the reasons why students didn’ t use teachers' feedback were that the feedbackgiven by teachers was not direct enough and they didn’t know how to revise. The reasonwhy students didn't use peer feedback in this study was not because they didn’ t agreewith their partners' suggestions, but because they forget the feedback points proposed bytheir peers when they make corrections due to not making notes on those points in theprocess of oral feedback. However, the author found that the absence of note-taking wasrarely seen in teacher feedback session. It can be seen that compared to peer feedback,students showed more seriousness and attention in teacher feedback process. According tothe interview, In peer feedback, the atmosphere was more relaxed, and students weremore relaxed and casual. In the interview before the intervention, the students had a highevaluation on the teacher's feedback. It seemed that there was no shortcoming in theteacher's feedback. But after experiencing systematic peer feedback, students found peerfeedback was more timely, relaxed, direct and easy to accept than the teacher's feedback.As for the source of self-revision, the students mentioned in their interview that peerfeedback in groups could give them the opportunity to read the essays of different peers,so that they could find the good points in others' essays and apply them in their owncompositions.
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