VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ VIỆT HÀ
THE STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES
TOWARD PEER FEEDBACK ON THEIR WRITINGS:
CASE OF 11 GRADERS IN BAC KAN GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL
(THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN BẮC KẠN VỀ Ý
KIẾN PHẢN HỒI CỦA BẠN HỌC VỚI BÀI VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CỦA CÁC EM M.A MINOR THESIS

MAJOR: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 601410
Hanoi-2012
Hanoi-2012

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration………………………………………………………………
Acknowledgements …………………….………………………………
Table of contents……………………………………………………….
List of Tables and Figures ………… ………………………………….
Abstract …………………………………………………………………
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale of the study …….…………………………………………
1.2. Aims of the study ……………………………………………….
1.3. Scope of the study……………………………………………….
1.4. Significance of the study………………………………………
1.5. Methods of the study……………………………………………
1.6. Design of the study…………………………………………
CHAPTER ONE. LITERATURE REVIEW.
2.1. Teaching writing in EFL classroom ……………………………….
2.1.1. Why learn to write…………………………………………….
2.1.2. Writing in EFL classroom……………………………………
2.2. Process writing approach…………………………………………
2.3. An overview of written peer feedback on writing………………….
2. 3.1 Definition of peer feedback and formats of peer feedback…….
2.3.2. Advantages of peer feedback…………………………………
2.3.3. Disadvantages of peer feedback………………………………
2.3.4. Student‟s attitude toward peer feedback………………………
CHAPTER TWO . METHODOLOGY
3.1. Context of the study…………………………………………….

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3.3. Research design…………………………………………………
3.3.1. Peer feedback activity……………………………………….
3.2.2. Writing cycle………………………………………………
3.3. Participants………………………………………………………
3.4 Data collection instruments…………………………………………
3.5. Research procedure………………………………………………
3.6. Data analysis…… ………………………………………………
CHAPTER THREE. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Research question 1: What are the attitudes of 11 graders in Bac
Kan gifted High school toward written peer feedback?
4.2. Research questions 2: How much of the peer feedback was
included in the students‟ second draft of their writings?
4.3. Research question 3: To what extent did peer feedback lead to
improvement on the students‟ second draft of their writings?
CHAPTER FOUR. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
CONCLUSION
6.1. Summary of major findings………………………………………
6.2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study………
6.3. Suggestions for further study……………………………………

Figure 1: The writing process ( Seow)……………………… 8
Figure 2: The process wheel ( Harmer)…………………………………………………. 8
Figure 3: The design of peer feedback activity……………… 20
Figure 4: Student‟s writing performance between two drafts……………………………35
Figure 5: Mistakes corrected for improvement over mistakes pointed out………………36 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale of the study
Feedback is widely seen in education as crucial for both encouraging and
consolidating learning (Anderson, 1982; Brophy, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978 cited in
Ken Hyland and Fiona Hyland, 2006). Providing feedback to students has been
recognized one of the most important tasks of writing teachers for feedback

Fei Hong (2006) finds that response of the students is not at a level sufficient to
improve the quality of writing. Students incorporate much higher percentage of
teacher feed back than peer feedback because they have more confidence in the
teacher (Tsui and Ng‟, 2000).
The earlier studies show conflicting findings. The results of studies
depend partly on students‟ attitude toward peer feedback, which is a crucial
factor affecting the effectiveness of peer feedback. Although many studies on
peer feedback have been conducted in the world, „what our students think of it‟
remains a common concern.
For all the above mentioned reasons, I, in this study, wish to investigate
the attitude of 11 graders in Bac Kan gifted high school toward peer feedback.
1.2. Aims of the study .
This research is conducted to investigate students‟ attitudes toward the
written peer feedback; the rate of students incorporating peer feedback into their
revisions and improvement of their writings resulting from peer feedback.
1.3. Scope of the study.
The study is limited to the investigation of the attitude of a small group of
11-grade students at Bac Kan gifted high school towards peer feedback in
writing as well as the extent to which peer feedback helps the students to
improve their writing. It is, thus, just a small-scale survey and no generalization
of the findings is intended.

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1.4 Significance of the study
The research is carried out with the hope that the results of the study will
provide significant insights into written peer feedback and how the students react
to these responses. In addition, with the findings in the study, I hope to answer to
the question whether or not peer feedback is a useful alternative way to reduce
teacher‟s burden of correcting students‟ writings. This may lead to suggestions


CHAPTER ONE. LITERATURE REVIEW.
2.1. Teaching writing in EFL classroom
2.1.1. Why learn to write
Literacy, which refers to ability to read and write, is a desirable skill for
whole population. In industrialized societies, education as well as literacy gives
literate people a huge advantage over illiterate ones. Although when growing up,
all human beings learn to speak first and writing later. Writing is an integral skill
and need to be taught. That is because “spoken language can be acquired
naturally as a result of being exposed to it, whereas the ability to write has to be
consciously learned” (Jeremy Harmer. p3). In context of education particularly
in the examinations, candidates‟ knowledge is measured through their writing
proficiency. Therefore, those with a good writing ability will have more
advantages. When learning a foreign language, people learn to communicate
with others. Yet face to face interaction in which communicators can listen to
talks, look at facial expression and gestures does not always convey all what the
communicators mean. Even in some cases when face to face communication
takes place, communicators can not understand each other because of bad
pronunciation or strange accents, writing is an effective means of
communication. That is another reason why people have to write. Moreover, in
EFL classes, writing helps students learn reinforce grammatical structures,
vocabulary, idioms which have been taught by their teacher; express ideas in
newly taught language logically and acceptably in written English discourse;
force the brain to work. Being able to write is difficult not only for foreign
learners but for native speakers as well because writing has been described as a
complicated cognitive task. It is more than a direct production of what the brain
knows, it demands careful thought, discipline and concentration. Training
students to write is a challenging task and demands the care and attention of
language teachers.
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Seow (2003) defines, process writing is comprised of four stages: planning,
drafting, revising and editing. Similarly, J. Harmer (2007) suggests that this
process has four main elements: planning, drafting, editing (including reflecting
and revising) and final version.
+ Planning (pre- writing): is any activity in the classroom that
encourages students to write. In this stage, students generate tentative ideas and
gather information for writing.
+ Drafting: At this stage, the writers focus on the fluency of writing and
are not preoccupied with grammatical accuracy or the neatness of the draft.
+ Responding (Reflecting): The readers play a central role in the
successful implementation of process writing by giving response. The readers
will help writer rediscover meanings and facilitate the revision of initial drafts.
+ Revising: The writers review their texts on the basis of the feedback
given in the responding stage. They reexamine what has been written to see how
effectively they have communicated their meanings to the readers, to improve
global content and the organization of ideas.
+ Editing: The writers are engaged in tidying up the texts in term of
grammar, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and accuracy of supportive
textual material such as quotation, examples as they prepare the final version for
evaluation by the teacher.
Both Seow and Harmer have the same ideas that the stages is in a
recursive and non linear sequence. The many directions that writers can take can
be shown by the following plan of the writing process (Seow: 315) or the
process wheel (Harmer: 6)
8 Figure 1: The writing process (Seow)


(1990) further explains that the writing process in this approach usually passes
through several rounds of peer editing and self-assessment before it reaches the
teacher for final assessment, making this approach a favorable one when training
students to use peer feedback.
2.3. An overview of written peer feedback on writing
The use of peer feedback activities in ESL and L2 writing classes have
generally supported as a potentially valuable aid for its social, cognitive,
affective, and methodological benefits (Rollinson, 2004). As the main focus of
this research, peer feedback will be discussed in this section.
2. 3.1. Definition of peer feedback and formats of peer feedback
Peer feedback is referred to by many names, for example, peer
response, peer review, peer editing, peer critiquing, and peer evaluation.
According to Liu & Hansen (2002: 1) peer respond is „use of learners as sources
of information and interactants for each other in such a way that learners assume
roles and responsibilities normally taken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor,
or editor in commenting on and critiquing each other‟s drafts in both written and
oral formats in the process of writing‟. Another definition is given by Rollinson
(2005) in which he considers peer feedback an educational arrangement, in
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which students comment on their fellow students‟ work for formative or
summative purposes.
Peer feedback takes many forms and serves many purposes. It has already
been mentioned that it can be employed in the form of conferencing, in the form
of written as well as oral comments, or both simultaneously. This „flexibility‟ is
another useful aspect of peer feedback (Rollinson, 2005). Peer feedback can also
take many formats, some of the most common ones being: 1) to assign groups of
two, three, or four students and ask them to exchange their first drafts and give
comments on each others‟ drafts before making final versions; 2) to make
students read their own essays aloud, or get a colleague to read it instead, while

he also approves use of peer feedback because it helps the students become
critical readers and enhances collaboration as well as communication between
student reader and students writer
Orsmond et al. (2000, cited in Liu & Carless, 2006) argue that peer
involvement in assessment, conducted in a non-threatening, collaborative
atmosphere, enables students to learn better because it prompts them to think
more critically. Liu & David Carless (2006) finds out evidence from the research
by Falchikov (2001) that peer feedback enhances student learning as students are
actively engaged in articulating evolving understandings of subject matter.
Calkin (1986, 10) adds that peer feedback can create “a learning community in
the classroom and everyone in it must be both a teacher and a student”.
Moreover, peer feedback can also help to establish a social context for writing.
The student writers have sense that they are writing to a „real‟ audience rather
than to the teacher.
In sum, the results of many previous researches express the positive
attitude of students toward peer feedback. It gives benefits to not only the
student writers but the student readers as well.
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2.3.3. Disadvantages of peer feedback.
Many researchers, for example Rollinson (2005), Hy land (2000) also
believe that ESL students will always question the purposes and advantages of
this technique which is particularly true with students who are accustomed to
teacher-fronted classroom. The main criticism is that they instinctively feel that a
better writer such as their teacher is the one who is qualified to provide them
with useful comments. They do not believe that their peers can help them since
they do not have confidence in their peers‟ abilities. Thus, they do not want their
friends to give feedback or correct their paper. They prefer the feedback and
correction only from their teachers. They see the peer feedback as a useless
activity and a waste of their time. Therefore, they might ignore or do not want to

feedback.
2.3.4. Student’s attitude toward peer feedback.
A few studies have explored the student‟s attitude toward peer feedback.
These studies, however, produced different results.Nooreiny Maarof, Hamidah
Yamat and Kee Li Li conducted a study of 150 Malaysian students from five
secondary schools to investigate ESL students‟ perception of the role of teacher,
peer and combined teacher-peer feedback in ESL writing. The result showed that
most of the students thought that their peers do not point out or correct all
mistakes when giving written feedback compared to their teachers. They also
believed that their peers only provided general comments on their essays.
Asifa Sultana (2009), citing a study conducted by Sima Sengupta (1998),
shows that out of 12 students, not one of them revised their written work from
their peers‟ feedback. The students mentioned 18 times that they were
„embarrassed to have peers read the composition‟. Even one student in that study
opposed peer feedback activity because he did not want his classmate to see his
writing for the reason that he did not have confidence in his own writing
proficiency. He said “I think organization is better if teacher tells me what to do.
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I think I do not like my neighbour to read my composition. I have many mistakes.
I am not… I do not like… my class friend.
The result in a study by Fei Hong (2006) also challenges some beliefs
about the affective and pedagogical advantages of peer response. The data
collected over one semester through observations, interviews and questionnaires
revealed that participants have very negative reactions to peer response. When
asked to read and give feedback on the writing, the students looked carelessly
through each other essays, made few comments and ten minutes later started to
talk about unrelated issues. Thus, among the above mentioned studies, peer
feedback seems not to be preferred and not effective in ESL and EFL writing
class. In addition, to find out the reason why peer feedback failed in writing

five sections of an undergraduate writing course offered by the English
Department at Hebron University in the academic year 2010/2011. A pre-test,
post-test as well as a pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire consisting of
twenty statements follow a five-point Likert scale. The results indicated that
students viewed peer feedback as a worthwhile experience; it offered an
opportunity for social interaction. It also improved students‟ writing skills.
Furthermore, the technique enhanced students‟ critical thinking, confidence,
creativity, and motivation. In addition, it helped in improving their assignments.
Additionally, Chuang‟s study explored 60 Taiwan university students‟
perception of peer review activity. All students received careful planned peer
review training and experienced four peer review sessions. She found that peer
review activity was considered as facilitating interesting and favorable by most
participants.
Peer feedback as well as other types of feedback receives different points
of views from different subjects, however, the importance of effective peer
response should be admitted. This was what Hyland and Hyland (2006) said”
effective peer response was the key element of helping novice writer to
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understand how readers see their work” To use peer feedback successfully, the
responsibility belongs to the teacher to help and prepare students to be ready for
this challenging technique.
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CHAPTER TWO. METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this study is to investigate the students‟ attitudes toward
peer feedback as well as explore the effect of peer feedback on students‟ English
writings. This chapter begins with some information about the context of the
study. This is followed by a presentation of the research questions. Then,
information about the research design, research participants, and research

what need improving more. Therefore, to improve 11 grade students‟ writing
ability I spend more time on writing lessons.
The Writing section may begin with a model, followed by activities that
guide students through the writing process such as model analysis, language
work, and guided writing. In this part, students are required to produce various
text types such as personal and formal letters, narratives, chart, graph and table
description, and expository essays.
The ready made materials in text book lead students to engage in imitating
copying and transforming models of correct language texts to the new writing
task. There seems to be no explicit emphasis on the process of planning,
drafting, revision, and editing.
Moreover, the textbooks do not offer much chance for free writing
practice. This is quite far from the given goal of teaching writing in CLT that is
to enable learners to become more independent and effective writers. As a
result, the teachers have to adapt writing tasks to explore the students‟ creativity.
3.2. Research questions.
To investigate the students‟ attitudes toward peer feedback on their
writings at Bac Kan gifted high school, I attempted to find out the answers for
the following questions
1/What are the attitudes of 11 graders in Bac Kan gifted High school
toward written peer feedback?
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2/ How much of the peer feedback was included in the students‟ second
draft of their writings?
3/ To what extent did peer feedback lead to improvement on the students‟
second draft of their writings?
3.3 Research design
3.3.1. Peer feedback activity
Since all participants had not received any formal training of peer

to elicit ideas about the topic and guided students how to write the topic. Then
Finding a reviewer
Reading the peer‟s first draft
Giving written feedback
Revising the first draft