VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT LÃ NGUYỄN BÌNH MINH

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING PEER CORRECTION
ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILLS TO STUDENTS
IN INTENSIVE ENGLISH CLASSES
AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

(NGHIÊN CỨU TÍNH HIỆU QUẢ CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG
PHÁP NGƯỜI HỌC CHỮA BÀI CHO NGƯỜI HỌC NHẰM
NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN CÁC LỚP
TĂNG CƯỜNG TIẾNG ANH – ĐẠI HỌC LUẬT HÀ NỘI)

M.A Minor Thesis
Field: Methodology
Code: 60 14 10 Field : Methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Supervisor: Lê Văn Canh, M.A.
HANOI - 2009

iv

TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration
Acknowledgements
Abstract

List of Abbreviations
Lists of figures, tables and graphs

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1. Identification of the problem 2
1.2. The Scope of the Study 2
1.3. The Purpose of the Study 2
1.4. The Significance of the Study 2

5.1. Pedagogical Implications 42
5.2. Limitations and Recommendations for further study 43
5.2.1. Limitations 43
5.2.2. Recommendations for further studies 44

Bibliography
Appendices

vi
List of Abbreviations
EFL
English as a Foreign Language
HLU
Hanoi Law University
L1
First Language
L2
Second Language
M
Mean
N
Number
p
Probability
SD
Standard Deviation
SPSS

Table 7:
Comparison of students’ attitudes towards peer correction between
pre- and post-questionnaire (Item 1 – 12)
34
Table 8:
Distribution of summed scores of the items 13-17 in the
questionnaires
35
Table 9:
Mean scores of students’ feelings towards peer correction
constraints (Items 13 – 17)
36
Table 10:
Comparison of students’ attitudes towards some constraints of peer
correction in the pre- and post-questionnaire (Items 13-17)
37-38 viii
List of figures and graphs
Page
Figure 1:
Students’ experience in studying English.
23
Figure 2:
Students’ self evaluation of their English standard
24


List of Appendices Appendix 1: Pre-treatment Questionnaire
Appendix 2: Post-treatment Questionnaire 1
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Identification of the problem

Of the four language skills, writing is considered a complex skill that most learners
find difficult to study well. That is because in language teaching, it is a productive and taught
skill. As Penny Ur (1996:11) puts it “it is a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” and that
“requires some forms of instructions”.
Having taught EFL writing for some years, I realize that students face quite a few
problems in learning writing. Worst of all, many learners make mistakes and errors when they
write in the target language, regardless of how competent they are at grammar. Students rarely
proofread their writings before handing in to teacher as she notices quite a few careless
mistakes in grammar as well as spelling which can be avoided if students revise their work. It
is, therefore, essential for teachers to find out effective methods to overcome this problem.
In many countries, particularly in Vietnam, teaching EFL writing is included in the
curricular and the teaching of writing is just to pass exams. The traditional method employed
to teach writing is product-oriented approach. As far as this approach is concerned, teachers
focus on what a final piece of writing will be like and the normal procedure is to assign a piece
of writing, collect it, then return it for further revision with their errors either corrected or
marked for the students to do the correction (Raimes 1983).
In recent years, EFL writing teachers have borrowed techniques from first language

As stated in the previous part, the purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness
of peer correction on improving learners’ writing skills in the writer’s teaching context.
Therefore, the results of this study will contribute a new implication to teaching EFL writing,
particularly, to the area of error treatment. If peer correction is found to be effective, it will
provide teachers at HLU an alternative method to treat errors in students’ compositions at
small scale, and thus to improve learners’ writing proficiency. The study will also provide a

3
great opportunity for language teachers to review and to reconsider effective ways of
responses to various writings, and so pave the way for a better teaching of writing at different
scales. More importantly, as being an alternative method, it may require revision of the
currently used materials/ textbooks in order to incorporate peer correction in the writing
lesson.
1.5. The Organization of the Study

This minor thesis consists of five chapters. In this chapter, the challenge as well as
approaches to EFL writing is briefly discussed; scope and rational of the study stated. The
purpose and organization of the study are also mentioned. Chapter two is the review of
literature which attempts to put the study in a proper context. Chapter three describes method
and procedure. Chapter four reports and analyzes quantitative and qualitative findings. The
last chapter presents the pedagogical implications of the study and points out its limitations
and suggestions for further research. 4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW As stated in Chapter 1, the purpose of this study is to explore the effects of a new
approach to L2 writing pedagogy, peer correction. To help contextualize this study, we will

2.2. Approaches to Teaching Writing: Product vs. Process Approach

2.1.1. The product approach

The product approach is the traditional approach to teaching writing which focuses on
the end result of the act of composition, that is, the final draft of a paragraph, letter, an essay,
story and so on. The writing teachers who subscribe to the product approach are more
concerned to see what a final piece of writing will be like and measure it against criteria of
“vocabulary use, grammar use, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and
punctuations”, as well as content and organization (Brown, 1994: 320). Students in the classes
adopting the product approach typically are provided a model and encouraged to mimic it in
order to produce a similar product. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the normal
procedure is to assign a piece of writing, collect it, then return it for further revision with their
errors either corrected or marked for the students to do the correction (Raimes 1983). A model
for such an approach is outlined below:
Stage 1:
Model texts are read, and then features of the genre are highlighted. For example, if
studying a formal letter, students' attention may be drawn to the importance of paragraphing
and the language used to make formal requests. If studying a story, the focus may be on the
techniques used to make the story interesting, and students focus on where and how the writer
employs these techniques.
Stage 2:

6
This consists of controlled practice of the highlighted features, usually in isolation. So
if students are studying a formal letter, they may be asked to practise the language used to
make formal requests, practising the 'I would be grateful if you would…' structure.
Stage 3:
Organisation of ideas. This stage is very important. Those who are in favour of this
approach believe that the organisation of ideas is more important than the ideas themselves

and getting ready for publication”. All the ideas above share one common thing, that is,
process approach undergoes certain steps which require learners to fulfill different tasks in
order to construct a good piece of work. Here in this thesis, the writer introduces the basic
process scheme: prewriting  drafting  revising  editing  publishing. The steps
involved in this process are described in the table below with some suggested strategies to
achieve each step:

STEP
DESCRIPTION
STRATEGIES
Prewriting
An activity that causes the writer to
think about the subject. The writer
understands the purpose of the
writing, discovers the topic, thinks
about the audience, gathers
information and organizes his
thoughts before he begins to write.
Drawing
Talking
Brainstorming
Graphic organizers
Research
Listing
Field Trips
Drafting
The process of putting ideas down on
paper. The focus is on the content and
fluency of the writing, and the writer
is not preoccupied with grammatical

Displaying in the room
Table 1: 5 Steps of the Writing Process

The process approach to teaching writing brings about quite a few pedagogical
benefits. To begin with, it helps writers develop skills to write on their own as well as develop
thinking skills and learning strategies. Moreover, the approach emphasizes the individual
learner’s development of the ability to assess and manage his own learning through the use of
strategies and a feeling of self-efficacy.

Product vs. Process Approach

Product Approach
Process Approach
• Model text to be imitated.
• Emphasis on organization of
ideas.
• One draft.
• Emphasis on end product.
• Teacher as audience.

• Teacher as authority.
• Importance of teacher-corrected
papers.
• Model text as resource for comparison.
• Emphasis on ideas and idea
development.
• Multiple drafts.
• Emphasis on process.
• Various audiences according to type of
writing.

heavy workload of correcting students’ writing errors, which is a time-consuming, “tedious
and unrewarding chore” (Hyland, 1990). They therefore can spend more time preparing lesson
plans carefully, developing teaching materials to suit learners’ need, and doing scientific
research to improve their teaching method and quality. Students themselves are the one who
benefit from this.

10
Peer feedback is no doubt beneficial to students for various reasons. First and
foremost, peer correction is the source of motivation and encouragement for students to write.
It is clear that writers need to write for audiences, preferably those that can give more or less
immediate feedback. The students themselves know that they write for more than just the
teacher. That their friends are going to read their composition encourages them to devote more
time and effort to produce good work. Furthermore, peer audiences are more sympathetic than
the more distant and judgmental teacher audiences, that makes learners self-confident in their
writing. Peer correction also provides a change from the one-way interaction between teacher
and students, so students may find interests in the new learning environment. As well, peer
correction is considered a task-based learning. In task-based learning, students are motivated
because there are specific tasks’ outcomes for them to fulfill; hence, knowing that they have
achieved the goals, they can enjoy the satisfaction.
Second, peer correction provides more chance for students’ social interaction and
collaboration. According to Larsen-Freeman (2000: 164), cooperative or collaborative
learning essentially involves students learning from each other in pairs or in groups. Students
benefit from the givens of the socio-cultural approach to teaching and learning as it is through
the promotion of interaction with peers and teachers that new meaning is constructed and
conveyed. Vygotsky’s (1978: 57) work has shown us that cooperative interaction allowed
students to progress. As Johnson (1994: 4) suggests, cooperative learning can be described as
a process with the following qualities:
Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals. Within cooperative
situations, individuals seek outcomes beneficial to themselves and all other group
member. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups through which

2.3.3. How to incorporate peer correction into the writing lesson?

The advantages that peer correction brings about to teachers and learners are obvious.
For teachers, peer correction helps reduce their heavy grading workload, especially when they
teach large classes. For students, it can give constructive information about their writing.
Therefore, peer correction is considered a common tool to optimize learning opportunities
from mistakes learners make in written compositions and to encourage the editing stages of

12
process writing. In order to make peer correction work, there are two important things that
instructors must do. First, it is of great importance to make students aware of the benefits of
peer correction, so that they will responsibly take part in the peer correction process. Second,
modeling or training learners on how to do peer correction. It is advisable to use worksheets or
forms to guide responders to give appropriate and useful responses.
There are a variety of ways to implement this learning strategy. Students can exchange
their work within their pre-assigned pairs. The exchange can happen in or out of class.
Students can exchange with a neighbor in class or papers can be collected by the instructor and
then re-distributed. An in-class correction will allow students immediate feedback and the
instructor can expect the finished assignments at the next class meeting time. Some
complicated assignments would require an out-of-class peer correction in order that students
have enough time to complete the task well.
It should be noticed that peer correction is included in the revising step. Therefore, it
can only be implemented in the writing lesson once students have finished writing the first
drafts. Depending on different lessons and schedules, learners’ compositions may be
completed in the class time or at home. Hence, peer correction can be integrated in the writing
lesson following this procedure:
 Procedure
 Set the writing task. After completing the first step, teachers ask students to write the
first draft. Ask learners to double-space or leave a clear margin to reserve space for
correction.

In the research conducted by Karegianes et al (1973:203), a quasi-experimental design
was employed to determine the effects of a highly-structured peer editing treatment on essay
writing proficiency of low-achieving tenth grade students. After the ten-week period, the peer
editing group had significantly higher writing proficiency than those students whose essays
were edited solely by teachers.
Jacob (1988) did an experiment on the third-year Thai students majoring in English.
They were asked to rewrite their drafts after considering peer comments on grammar. The
study concluded that there was relatively small amount of miscorrection and peer feedback

14
can play a role in the development of writing ability by giving students additional perspectives
from which to learn and apply writing skills.
In Keh’s experiment, she distinguished “high order concerns” such as ideas,
organization, content, etc., and “low order concerns” which she regarded as linguistic errors
(surface, mechanism errors). She also suggested when such feedback should be given in the
writing process. The result of her questionnaire reveals that students felt peer feedback was
useful in gaining a conscious awareness that they were writing for more than just the teacher.
Students also found peer feedback useful for obtaining immediate feedback and “detecting
problems in others’ papers”.
Mangelsdorf (1992) explores the question from the perspectives of student writers
whether peer review is helpful to their learning, with the result that it not only helps improve
the “high order concerns” (Keh, 1990), but also helps them correct and reduce mistakes.
Storch (1998) conducts a classroom-based study to provide descriptive accounts of
students’ engagement in a collaborative text reconstruction task which pushes learners not
only to produce meaningful text but also pay attention to grammatical accuracy with the
purpose of investigating which type of grammatical items is of the students’ most concerns,
and finding how students use the reasoning to arrive at grammatical decision.
De Guerrero & Villamil (2000) adopt the theory of ZPD (Zone of Proximal
Development) and a microgenetic approach to observe the mechanisms by which strategies of
revising take shape and develop in the inter-psychological space created when two learners are

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the research methodology used to answer this
study’s research questions. It presents the research questions, provides a description of the
participants, a brief rationale for the research design. In addition, it contains a description of
the instrument and procedure used to gather the data.
3.1. Research Questions

This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of peer correction on improving writing
skills of students in intensive English classes at HLU basing on assessing participants’
perceptions towards this technique. Therefore, a research question was formulated:
What are learners’ perceptions of peer correction?
This research question attempts to uncover:
(a) Do learners consider peer correction helpful?
(b) What are the learners’ perceptions of the value of giving and receiving peer
correction?
3.2. Research Design

An experiment research was chosen for this study in order to investigate the
effectiveness of peer correction on improving learners’ writing skills. It was conducted to
point out the differences in students’ attitudes towards peer correction before and after the
experiment. This research conforms to a design in which a single group is studied, subsequent
to a treatment presumed to cause change. Therefore, this study is diagramed as follow:

Pre-treatment questionnaire
O
Treatment
X

COMPARE

to respond to the questionnaires compared to face-to-face interview.
To gather data for the study, two questionnaires were administered to students, one
before and the other after the experiment period. The pre-treatment questionnaire was given to
the subjects right before the experiment with the intention to generate data, which would help

18
to investigate the students’ initial perceptions about peer correction. It set the foundation of
comparison for another post-treatment questionnaire. Both questionnaires were written in
simple English to make sure that learners clearly and correctly understand them. Each
questionnaire includes two main sections which are described in detail as follow:

(1) The pre-treatment questionnaire
It consists of two main sections. The first section has 6 questions aimed at gathering
general information about the participants, their gender, age, experience in learning English
and peer correction, and their attitudes towards writing and error correction. The second part
includes 17 Likert-scale items to generate data about students’ perceptions of peer correction
before the treatment.

(2) The post-treatment questionnaire
In the post-treatment questionnaire, the same 17 Likert-scale items were used to find
out if there were any changes in the subjects’ attitudes towards peer correction after the
experimental period. The second part consists of two questions, one close-ended, one open-
ended to investigate whether students like this new technique and will use it in the future or
not. The open-ended question is hoped to elicit respondents’ reasons for using or not using
peer correction besides the reasons given in the questionnaire.
The researcher used one-group pre-treatment questionnaire and post-treatment
questionnaire design, so only one class was treated as the experimental group. The pre- and
post-treatment questionnaires were administered to all 26 students. All the copies were
collected and found statistically valid.
The questionnaires of this study are in the Appendix.