VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
***************** LẠI HOÀI CHÂU
A CROSS – CULTURAL STUDY OF USING THE SANDWICH
FEEDBACK BY VIETNAMESE AND AMERICAN TEACHERS
AND ITS EFFECTS ON STUDENT’S UPTAKE

(NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HOÁ VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC
“SANDWICH FEEDBACK” ĐỂ PHÊ BÌNH
CỦA CÁC GIÁO VIÊN NGƯỜI VIỆT VÀ NGƯỜI MỸ
VÀ TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA NÓ ĐỐI VỚI SỰ TIẾP THU CỦA SINH VIÊN)

M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15
Hanoi - 2012 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI

v

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABSTRACT
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
1
1.2. Previous studies
3
1.3. Aims of study
4
1.4. Research questions
5
1.5. Significance of study
5
1.6. Scope of the study
5
1.7. Organization of the study
6
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
8
2.1. Definition of feedback

29
3.3.1. The patterns of SFC (Structures of SFC that teachers often use)
29
3.3.2. SFC as a politeness strategy
34
3.4. Discussion
41
CHAPTER 4: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
43
4.1. Pedagogical implication
43
4.2. Limitation of study and the suggestion for further researches
44
4.3. Conclusion
REFERENCE
QUESTIONNAIRE
45
46 1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
In the world where globalization has connected everyone closer, it is so common when
people mention every aspects of it day after day. The expression of globalization has
shown everywhere from the food to clothes, from house decoration to the choice of car,
especially in the way people communicate. The need of exchange information becomes
greater, leading to the born and development of cross-cultural communication. In this

and talk carefully in accordance with culture. Hence, it is a good reason for the choice
of this act to be the focus of research.
In Vietnam, the teaching and studying of English have a long time been imposed to the
curriculum, but it is clear that cultural factors were not paid enough attention. It is
required from the fact that teachers must have an orientation for their teaching
strategies, basing on solid knowledge of cross culture and politeness strategies,
bringing good effects to their teaching. In position of a teacher, the author of these
papers (researcher) has a motivation to carry out the research to raise her own
understanding of giving sandwich feedback, benefiting her in the way of giving
assessment for students. Moreover, not only is this politeness limited to the use in
classroom but also it can be applied in daily life among wise communicators which
helps them a lot in work and other fields.
1.2. Previous studies
There are hundreds of papers writing about cross cultural communication and
          
           -editing in foreign 3

In Vietnam, there are previous researches about
Vietnamese-American cross culture but none of them has mentioned about the use of
sandwich feedback. Communication strategies are also gets the concerns of many
learners (study of boasting by Nhung, 2010, about economicality and redundancy in
requesting by My, 2010, about expressing sympathy by Hien, 2010, about disparaging
by Van, 2010). Giving comment strategies are paid notice as well by Huong (2011)
with dissertation about corrective feedback, by Hang (2010) with application of
feedback in writing, etc.  (see definition in 2.2) is still a
new term in Vietnam. Hence, these papers not only revise the way that teachers in
Vietnam use feedback but also introduce a new type of feedback.

collecting data could be based on. The searching will focus mostly on the metaphor
images of sandwich, comparing it with a politeness strategy of giving comments to
students. Besides, the types, methods and field of application would also be paid
attention.
On the other hand, to narrow the view on Vietnam circumstances, the author would
carry out a survey and observations to calculate the data and make the necessary
implications. In this main part, the frequency, the method that teachers used would be
focused most. It is great if the author could find out some common structures and
sentences that teachers often use. In addition, the questions in the survey would be
around the attitude of students towards feedbacks and sandwich feedbacks. Their
uptakes should be let evaluated from their general results and their self-evaluation.
1.4. Research questions
- In what way that criticisms are often given to students by Vietnamese and
American teachers? 5

- How often do the teachers use the sandwich feedback in their assessment to
?
- What may be 
- What are the suggestions for teachers in teaching English for Vietnamese
students?
1.5. Significance of study
In the trend of studying about cross culture and its expression in daily life, this
linguistic dissertation adds an unfilled part about strategy of giving smart feedback to
learners. As mentions above, in Vietnam, those there are researches of politeness
strategy have been touched several years ago but the volume wrote about feedback is
still limited and there is no study about sandwich feedback before.
Another expected contribution of these papers is the withdrawal of similarities and

Following the usual format, the study is divided into four main chapters: Introduction,
Theoretical background, Data analysis and Conclusion respectively.
The first chapter: Introduction. It mentions the basic information about the research:
reasons to choose topic, the significance, objectives and scope of the study.
The second chapter: Theoretical background. It covers the review of literary products
for the definitions of basic concepts of the research: feedback, criticism, sandwich
feedback, politeness strategy, Vietnamese-American cross cultural researches.
The third chapter: Data collection and analysis. There is room for methodology, data
collection instruments, procedures of collecting data. The discussion of data collected
could be found in last sub part of this chapter. 7

The last chapter: Pedagogical implications and conclusion. It covers some pedagogical
implications for teachers to use the act politely and effectively, the recognition of
limitations of the research and the suggestions for further studies.
In brief, this first chapter presents the readers with an overview of the research: the
reasons for carrying out, the goals, limitation, organization and meaning of the study.
The readers would find reasonable ideas and good orientation for the following part of
data collection and data analysis.

students with constructive feedback is recognized as being critical to their development
as learners and can also enhance their self-esteem and motivation (DCQE, 2010).
However, it is not always easy for a person to give out their opinion which aims at
correcting 9

on the verge of being ignored or worse, turning out to be counteraction. The feedback
should be differentiated and objective (Eckstein, 2004). There is obvious effect of these
       Consequently, feedback is best
when it motivates students to overcome difficulties and vice versa, is worst when it
makes the student feel bad about him or herself (Eckstein, 2004). In short, a
communication strategy is necessary for teachers to consider, getting closer to their
learners and bringing them positive changes.
Feedback, under the view of communication, is a strategy that has been divided into
many patterns. Feedback itself is a pattern which turns out to be the large abstract root
for all the following ones, setting the context for the different categories: kind of
feedback, source of feedback, public feedback, grades as feedback and ways of
receiving feedback from students. To be more detailed, feedback has been divided into
many types: sandwich feedback, differentiated feedback, etc., among which, the first
one could be considered new and useful for all teachers with all kinds of tasks
(Eckstein, 2004). Sandwich feedback was invented, probably, as a clever method for
all teachers in particular and for all people in general.
2.2. Definition of criticism
a new term to people who have right to give feedback to
others       s thesis (2010), he limited the

which benefits his writing on literacy criticism. However, this way of defining should
be opened more with different forms, turning to be a more general one as criticism is

Communication is loaded with multiple intentions, thus people may not know how to
actually employ a critique without , making
a critique negative. It is recommended that the criticisms can guide, support, give 11

moral support and inspiration by involving both positive and constructive statements.
With a purpose of easing the intense when criticizing students, many teachers cleverly
insert that criticism in the middle of two praise or positive comments on strong points
of students. This balanced strategy actually will effect tenderly on the one who get the
feedback, creating a pleasant environment in class. Teachers and those who concern
are now quite excited to apply this new strategy of criticism which is later called
Sandwich Feedback communication.
2.3. Definition of sandwich feedback communication (SFC)
  (SF), as its
name may hint, is a metaphor
implying the ways of giving
comments to students. A sandwich
is a food item, typically consisting
of two or more slices of bread with
one or more fillings between them
(Internet [6]).
(image
retrieved from Internet)

The meat at the middle is the core of the cake, but hardly do people want to eat it
separately and the breads are must-components, making a perfect meal. The
comparison with sandwich may give us a more clear and vivid imagination of a
communication strategy.

two steps of showing corrective comments on specific action and then the advices for a
better performance.
Some people may argue that this road is complicated and there is no need to praise the
students after (and even before) the criticism. However, the advocates of using
contributes great role in a good 13

and fluent communication. Teachers need to state out where the students'
understanding is faulty and correct any misunderstanding they have, but do not want to
undermine their confidence. The commenters want them to feel good about what they
have done and to feel that they can do better. If the feedback is negative with students
they may tune the teachers out and not listen or give up all together. If they are
especially sensitive they may be hurt and take the criticism personally, and worse,
especially arrogant student may take the comments as an attack and attack back. Therefore, when giving feedback, teachers should start and end with positive feedback,
sandwiching suggestions for improvement between these reinforcing comments. Even
if there are largely negative things to say, the comments can still start with the things
that were well done and should be retained in the future.
Even in the less positive aspects of the feedback, the instructor can take a tone that they
are giving suggestions for improvement, not just condemning (Eckstein, 2004). Some

            
understand something, or something in a  
of the task. Usually in the class do the teachers ask for the opinion of other students
before giving out theirs. In this case, it is necessary to be sure that they know about this
technique and practice it. This can make the giving of feedback easier for both the

And there is a certain fact that people are well aware of the fact that some, mostly
negative, information cannot or should not be expressed explicitly or directly and that
indirect strategies should be applied. 15

Indirectness nowadays plays a vital role in our communication (Justová V., 2006). To
get thing done by words wisely, people should understand clearly the circumstance, the
interlocutors and the rules under the utterances, especially when they are indirect
speeches. Indirectness is a widely applied conversational strategy, people tend to use
indirect speech acts mainly in connection with politeness (Leech, 1983: 108) since they
want to diminish the unpleasant message contained in requests and orders.
Besides, the work of H.P. Grice takes pragmatics farther than the study of speech acts.
His aim was to understand how "speaker's meaning" - what someone uses an utterance
to mean - arises from "sentence meaning" - the literal meaning of an utterance.
According to him, many aspects of "speaker's meaning" result from the assumption that
the participants in a conversation expect each other to be cooperated which later he
called Cooperative Principle. It has four sub-parts or maxims that cooperative
conversationalists assume each other to be respecting:
- maxim of quality: Speakers' contributions ought to be true.
- maxim of quantity: Speakers' contributions should be as informative as required; not
saying either too little or too much.
- maxim of relevance: Contributions should relate to the purposes of the exchange.
- maxim of manner: Contributions should be perspicuous - in particular, they should be
orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.
The main work of the Cooperative Principle is done when particular non-literal
meanings are conveyed by speakers violating in an obvious way, or "flouting" these

of relevance is broken, the hearer should imply it as an indirect request rather than a

types of PSs: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness and off-record or
indirect strategy.
The bald on-record strategy 
want to open the door, ie). The positive politeness strategy notices the speaker that the 17

hearer has a face to be respected and it also confirms that the relationship is friendly
and expresses group reciprocity (For example: Is it ok for me to open the door?). The
negative politeness strategy recognizes the hearer's face but it admits that the speaker is
in some way imposing on the listeners like in the sentence: I don't want to interrupt
you but, would it be possible for me to open the door. Off-record indirect strategy
takes some pressure off when the speaker wants to avoid responsibility for doing so.
In brief, positive politeness means being complimentary and gracious to the addressee
(but if this is overdone, the speaker may alienate the other party) and negative
politeness is found in the various ways of mitigating an imposition (Leech). In the
limitation of this research, the author just wanted to focus on these two strategies as
they are used most often in daily life. In Brown and Levinson (1978), there are 15
positive strategies and 25 negative ones being listed. The following examples are taken
to present each strategy:
Positive strategies:
- St. 1: Noticing, attending to Hearer (H)
You must be in hurry. Why don’t you turn to next page for a sooner finish?
- St. 2: Exaggeration
I immediately impress with your beautiful slides
- St. 3: Intensifying interest to H
You have already finished the exercises, don’t you?
- St. 4: Using in-group identity makers
My dear students, how about writing a short paragraph together? I think our

please tell me more specific about the topic you want to present today?
Negative strategies:
- St. 1: Being conventionally indirect
If you have any disagreement on my comments for your presentation?
- St.2: Questioning, hedge 19

More or less, you have to fulfill that assignment before I come back
- St.3: Being pessimistic
I don’t suppose you can help me to move this table.
- St. 4: Minimizing the imposition
The only thing I do is to change a little in the content of your writing.
- St. 5: Giving deference
Excuse me Madam, could I open the door?
- St. 6: Apologizing
I am sorry to bother you but I think you should change the intonation when you
read that paragraph
- St. 7: Impersonalizing S and H
The listening results could be better with the attention on the very beginning
- St. 8: Stating the FTA as a general rule
The over-lengthy of impromptu talk is restricted.
- St.9: Nominalization
It is my honesty to give you the awards for your distinctive result
- St 10: Going on record and incurring a debt, or as not indebting H
I would be grateful if you could help me to clarify this problem
Social factors affecting politeness
Three most important factors that affect the use of politeness strategies are: Relative
power (P), Social distance (D), Ranking of imposition (R). Relative power refers to the

communication. Those reasons emphasize the importance of using feedback smartly,
praising the students and creating the relaxing environment in class.
Those are indispensable roles of SFC in teaching and learning procedure. All of reader
will agree that giving criticism is an act of threatening the face. Normally, people
would feel shy when their weaknesses are shown out before many people (in this case:
the class room circumstance). Encouraging the learners saves their face when being 21

criticized. With the knowledge of politeness strategies and indirectness, teacher could
break the maxims and lead the comments to the direction they want, benefiting their
learners.
Getting closer to some typical SFC, with the formed presented in previous part, the
author assumed that SFC is a clever combination between face saving act (with the use
of hedging, praising) and the criticisms. The negative politeness strategies are used
appropriately to show that the teacher did not want to inte  

negative strategies for the wide gap between people while in Oriental cultures, the
intimacy between interlocutors inspires them to use positive strategies to get closer to
each other.
2.5. Vietnamese and American cross-cultural SFC
It is the modesty and humility as well as harmonious relations with others that is
appreciated among Vietnamese people (Internet [7]). Seeking to avoid conflict in
relationships, they often prefer to speak about sensitive subjects indirectly. The desire
to achieve harmony between the self and the non-self remains an essential
preoccupation of the Vietnamese in interpersonal relations outside the family group.
The connections between members of wide social groups are expanded by the basic
principles underlying family relationships (Te, 2012). For example, Vietnamese uses
more than a score of kinship terms as personal pronouns, the choice of the appropriate

Moreover, teachers never say thanks to their students for a small service, such as
closing the window or passing the books around. The person who gives a compliment
never expects a "thank you" in return. In Vietnamese culture, a verbal expression of
thanks in this case refers to a lack of modesty from the person who receives the
compliment. If a verbal response is necessary, he or she would deny the compliment by
saying that he or she does not deserve it.