VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ THÙY LINH

PRAISE AS CLASSROOM COMMUNICATIVE REINFORCING
DEVICE: PERCEPTION OF HAIPHONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

(Nhận thức của sinh viên trường Đại học Hải Phòng về lời khen ngợi như là
một phương tiện tăng cường giao tiếp trong lớp học)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

HANOI - 2010
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
Page
Acknowledgements i
Declaration ii
Abstract iii
Table of contents iv
List of figures and tables vi

INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Purpose of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Methodology 2
5. Significance of the study 3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Teacher praise: definition and functions 4
1.1.1. Definition of teacher praise 4
1.1.2. Functions of teacher praise 4
1.2. Classification of teacher praise 6
1.3. Students’ perception of teacher praise 8
1.3.1. A framework of students’ perception 8
1.3.2. Students’ perception of teacher praise 8
1.4. Resistance to teacher praise 11
1.5. Guidelines for effective teacher praise 11

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 15
2.1. Sampling and defining the case 15
2.2. Data collection 16
2.2.1. Instruments 16
2.2.2. Procedures 18

Figure 1.1: Constructs of three components of mind……………………… ………… 8
Figure 1.2: Guidelines for effective praise…………………………………………… 13
Table 2.1: Teachers’ profile…………………………………………………………… 16
Table 3.1: Means and Standard Deviation for different types of teacher praise…… …20
Table 3.2: Percentages of students’ cognition………………………………………… 22
Table 3.3: Students’ preference for different types of teacher praise……………………22
Table 3.4: High – achievers’ and low – achievers’ preference for teacher praise……….26

1
INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale of the study
It is human nature that actions bringing pleasure tend to be repeated. When a
person earns praise for having done something right, that praise acts as a reinforcer
stimulating that person to repeat the desirable behaviour. Every one of us desires praise at
some level, and in one form or another. In a working environment, being praised for
working well helps people to feel worthwhile. They will feel motivated to continue
working hard and will be encouraged to do whatever needs to be done to support the
business. In educational settings, being noticed and appreciated for their good behaviour,
students are willing to do more than they are asked, volunteer ideas and become more
involved and committed to what they are doing.
Most educational psychologists and other sources of advice to classroom teachers
stress the significance of teacher praise in communication transaction as it positively
influences students’ academic achievement (Gettinger, 1983; Luiselli & Downing, 1980),
on-task behaviour (Ferguson & Houghton, 1992; Vollmeyer & Rheinberg, 2005), pupil’s
speech (Moore, Knott & McNaughton, 1989), students’ perceptions (Baker & Graham,
1987, Stipek & MacIver, 1989) and helps to provide encouragement to students, to build

3.1. What are different types of praise that the teachers at Haiphong University offer in
classroom?
3.2. What is students’ preference for different types of teacher praise?
3.3. What are students’ emotional responses to different types of teacher praise?
3.4. To what extent is students’ self – concept influenced by different types of teacher
praise?
3.5. To what extent is students’ behaviour influenced by different types of teacher
praise?
3.6. To what extent are high – achievers different from low – achievers in terms of their
preference for different types of teacher praise?

4. Methodology
The research employed case study, using observations and semi – structured
interviews as instruments of data collection.
3
5. Significance of the study
Although studies of teacher praise are numerous in Western cultural and
educational settings, such studies of teacher praise in Vietnam are extremely scarce. The
study is undertaken to find out the teacher praise and how students perceive it in
Vietnamese context, particularly in Haiphong University. Therefore, this study contributes
to enriching the researches on this area in the context of university English classrooms in
our country. The findings and implications of this study will be of much help to both
teachers and students of English teacher training.

4
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter sets out to review the literature related to teacher praise, its

5
again and become a habit. When administered properly, such positive reinforcement can
successfully modify behaviour and stimulate learning.
In the educational settings, this use of praise as a positive reinforcement has been
widely recommended as a teaching strategy. Stringer & Hurt (1981, p. 1) stated that “the
communication transaction of verbal praise is an interpersonal experience and plays an
important role in the reinforce ment process, which in turn affects the learning and
behavioral activity of students.” Furthermore, Thomas (1991) referred to praise as a kind
of positive reinforcer, with consistent praise thought to encourage desirable behaviour,
while extinguished undesirable behaviour. He suggested that praise could be a
motivational tool in the classroom if reinforcement was descriptive and involved using the
students’ name, choosing appropriate praise words carefully and describing precisely the
behaviour that merits the praise. Similarly, Woolfolk (1987), quoted in Moore (2007, p.
202), discussed praise as reinforcement that teachers use a rewarding stimulus to motivate
some action or behaviour. Numerous researchers have demonstrated that teacher praise can
improve academic behaviour. Blaney (1993) investigated the effects of teacher praise on
academic achievement of elementary students, comparing groups that were taught using
high (i.e., praising correct responses, providing corrective feedback for incorrect response)
versus low (i.e., neutral feedback, such as “OK” for correct responses and “No” for
incorrect responses) levels of teacher praise. The author found that students in the groups
that received higher rates of praise for correct responding performed significantly better on
academic tests than did students who received lower praise rates for correct responding.

Praise as informational feedback
In contrast to behaviourists, constructivists in Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) emphasize interaction as both the means and the ultimate goal of learning
a language. Therefore, the teacher acts as an advisor during communicative activity, a
facilitator of students’ learning, or a co-communicator, and helps learners in any way that
motivates them to work with the language. So, praise in this approach is regarded as both
communicative reinforcer and informational feedback.

Effort, which is often used synonymously with strategy or process praise, is a
type of praise that focuses on a specific strategy the student used to complete a task. An
example of a teacher giving a student effort praise would be, “Wow! You did great! You
must have worked hard on this.” On the other hand, ability praise, which is used
synonymously with trait – oriented or person praise. “Wow! You did well on this task! You
are very smart,” would be an example of a teacher offering a student ability praise. 7
General versus specific praise
Based on the way teacher praise is administered, it is also often divided into one
of two categories, general or specific praise. The first type is the form of praising which is
directed either at no one in particular or if directed at an individual, it is generic in its use.
Some illustrations of this type are “Great job, class!” or “Well done, Jonny”. General
praise also lacks credibility because it takes no effort at all for a praiser to give a
compliment without having paid any attention to the performance of the person. In
contrast, specific praise is both directed at an individual student and very specific in what
is being praised. Considering the following statements as examples of specific praise,
“Nice job explaining absolute value, Rita” or “Amy, I really like how you used deductive
reasoning to answer that question”. It is obvious that specific praise not only lets the
student know they are correct, but it is also meaningful because it allows them to see
exactly what specific behaviour the teacher is praising and to know that the teacher has
been paying attention to their performance.

Verbal versus non – verbal praise
Coooper et al., (1994) looked at the different ways praise can be delivered,
verbally and non – verbally. Verbal praise occurs when the teacher follows a student action
or response with some type of positive comment. The common type is one – word praise or
brief phrases such as “Good,” “Excellent,”, “Correct,” or “That’s right”. Another
commonly overlooked form is the use of student ideas. This technique can be used by

of students’ perception of teacher praise involves integration of thinking (cognition),
feeling (affection) and acting (conation).

1.3.2. Students’ perception of teacher praise
In a series of related studies, various researchers have to do much work to explore
how students perceive teacher praise in classrooms.

9
Regarding students’ preference for ability versus effort praise, a study performed
by Burnett in 2001 (n=747) measured Australian primary school students’ preferences for
teacher praise. Results showed that 91% of students preferred to be praised often or
sometimes while 9% said that they never wanted any praise. It was found that most
students (84%) had a preference of effort praise, rather than ability praise (16%). The
findings of Burnett suggested that if teachers meet students’ preferences for praise, they
would often give effort type. In another study conducted by Merret & Tang in 1994, 1779
British primary students were asked about their preferences for rewards, praise,
reprimands, and punishments. Again, an astounding 90% of the students preferred to
receive praise often or sometimes. These results are in line with Burnett’s mentioned
earlier.
Some psychologists (Apter, 2009) warned that praise for overall ability was
harmful because it suggested that any good performance was a result of natural ability,
which implied that a poor performance was a result of natural deficiency. Praise for an
outcome that emphasized ability then made students reluctant to take on a challenge, which
always had the possibility of failure, because it signaled lack of ability. Failures then
threatened one’s overall self – esteem. Henderlong and Lepper (2002) argued that ability
praise may have unintended consequences for motivation, performance, and determination,
especially when students experience continuous setbacks in the areas in which they were
praised. In six studies, Mueller and Dweck (1998) looked at the effects of praising for
ability and effects of praising for effort on fifth – grade students and how they handled
these types of praise under conditions of failure and conditions of success. Their overall

However, other researchers have argued that verbal praise can have potential negative
consequences. They have wrapped up that not all students prefer to be praised verbally. For
example, Elwell & Tiberio (1994) realized that while adolescents perceive praise to be
important to academic achievement, they do not want to be praised verbally in front of
their classmates. It may be even more powerful than verbal praise. Research suggests that
when verbal and non – verbal messages differ, students tend to respond to the non – verbal
message. (Moore, 2007, p. 204)
The results of the previously described studies suggest that different types of
teacher praise is perceived differently by different groups of people. It is also
recommended as a powerful tool in the classroom for producing desirable academic
responding. As such, one might expect that teachers use praise effectively as part of their
teaching repertoire. 11
1.4. Resistance to teacher praise
Whereas the empirical literature has demonstrated the positive effects of teacher
praise, there are some opposing the use of praise in the educational settings. Most of those
are individuals who believe that learning is intrinsically worthwhile and rewarding, at least
when learners are allowed to follow their own interests at their own pace (Montessori,
1964). They consider all elements to control through extrinsic reinforcement as
unnecessary, intrusive and perhaps harmful. Farson (1968) stated that it was questionable
as a motivator since verbal praise was an evaluation, and judgement of any kind which
causes people to feel uncomfortable. Farson labeled praise as “a piece of psychological
candy” and contends that rather than being a reward, praise is in fact a threat, because of
the user’s intent to motivate, move, or change the recipient (cited in Stringer, B. and Hurt,
T. (1981)). Similarly, some teachers avoid praise because they want to train their students
to think for themselves rather than depend on the teachers for guidance.
Other arguments against using praise for improving achievement were put forth by
Rowe (1974). Through her three observations, she noticed that praise inhibited the verbal

3. Shows spontaneity, variety and other signs of credibility;
suggests clear attention to the student’s accomplishment
4. Rewards attainment of specified performance criteria
(which can include effort criteria, however)
5. Provides information to students about their competence or
the value of their accomplishments
6. Orients students toward better appreciation of their own task
– related behaviour and thinking about problem solving
7. Uses student’s own prior accomplishments as the context
for describing present accomplishments
8. Is given in recognition of noteworthy effort or success at
difficult (for this student) tasks
9. Attributes success to effort and ability, implying that similar
success can be expected in the future
10. Fosters endogenous attributions (students believe that they
expend effort on the task because they enjoy the task and/or
want to develop task – relevant skills)
11. Focuses students’ attention on their own task – relevant
behaviour
12. Fosters appreciation of, and desirable attribution about, task
– relevant behaviour after the process is completed.
1. Is delivered randomly or unsystematically
2. Is restricted to global positive reactions
3. Shows a bland uniformity that suggests a conditioned response
made with minimal attention
4. Rewards mere participation, without consideration of
performance processes or outcomes
5. Provides no information at all or gives students information
about their status relative to peers
6. Orients students towards comparing themselves with others and

and procedure of the study.

15
CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY
This research studied a group of students’ perception of different types of teacher
praise in Foreign Language Department, Haiphong University. Five teachers teaching this
group were also the subjects of the research. In this case study, the way teachers delivered
praise in the classroom was recorded and the praised students were interviewed to see how
they perceived their teacher praise. Descriptive statistics was employed to analyze the
collected data.

2.1. Sampling and defining the case
Defining the case
There were some criteria for this purposive sampling. The first criterion was a
mixed ability class, which has both high – achievers and low – achievers. The second was
that the students specialize in English language teaching, for the researcher intended to
expand the findings and implications for their future career. Last but not least, the
participants were selected based on accessibility and willingness to take part in the study.
A case that satisfied these selection criteria was a class of 50 English language
teaching students K9 in Foreign Language Department, Haiphong University. The age of
students ranges from 19 to 23, 92% being 20 or 21 years old. This group comprises 12%
boys and 88% girls. They come from different districts of Haiphong city, 46% in urban
areas and 54% in rural areas. They had studied English for seven years in secondary and
high schools, and for two years as university students. Basing on GPA for the first two
years at university, 22% of the students were evaluated “very good”, 48% “good” and 30%
“weak”. Since they are the third year students, they are used to the ritual language teaching
in the department and familiar with the teaching style of their teachers. In class, the

British studies
2
B
Female
36
M.A
12
Grammar
3
C
Male
38
M.A
15
English Teaching
Methodology
4
D
Female
30
M.A
5
Phonetics and
Phonology
5
E
Male
32
M.A
7

Classroom observation
This is a method of measuring classroom behaviours from direct observations that
specifies the behaviours that are to be observed and the frequency with which they are
occurred in the classroom. This method permit researchers to study the processes of
education in naturalistic settings, provide more detailed and precise evidence than other
data sources and supplies a coherent, well – substantiated knowledge base to improve
understanding and better models for improving teaching. During classroom observation,
the researcher observed and noted down the teaching sequence with the use of an
observation form which was created on the basis of what and how to praise. By means of
this form (see Appendix), names of the students who teachers gave praise were singled out.
After the class, data were examined with regard to the first research question which the
study set out to address.

Semi-structured interview
In order to give insights into the students’ perception of teacher praise, semi –
structured interviews were conducted with praised students. The choice of semi –
structured rather than structured interview was employed because it offered sufficient
flexibility to approach different respondents differently while still covering the same areas
of data collection. It started trying to minimize the hierarchical situation in order that the
subject felt comfortable talking with the interviewer. Then, the questions for interview
tended to be asked in a similar order and format to make a form of comparison between
answers possible. However, there was also scope for pursuing and probing for novel,
relevant information through additional questions that the interviewer posed during the
process. Usually the interviewer’s role was to engage, encourage and facilitate the

18
interviewees to talk about their views and experiences in depth but with limited reciprocal
engagement. After each observation session, the students who earned teacher praise were
asked for the semi – structured interviews with the question design based on the framework
of students’ perception, specifically their cognitive (self – awareness), affective

interviews were categorized according to five research questions, using descriptive
statistics. Quantitative method (figures in numbers and percentages) and qualitative
method (teacher praise statements and students’ opinions) were both adopted to analyze the
collected data.

Summary
The author has strong interest in discovering the teacher praise types and the
influences they have upon students’ perception in the classrooms. Thus in this paper, a case
study was exploited with purposive sampling of English language teaching students K9 in
Foreign Language Department, Haiphong University . The devices of data collection were
classroom observations and semi – structured interviews, with a detailed description of the
procedure. The way to analyze the data was also presented. The next chapter is about to
interpret the results of the study.

20
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The research was conducted in five weeks to investigate how students perceive
different types of teacher praise. This chapter showed the results of all data gathered
throughout the research. The information reported here was derived from quantitative and
qualitative methods. Then, the findings and implications were stated.

3.1. Different types of teacher praise
The observations aimed at exploring the types of praise that teachers administered
in the classroom. Following the data collection, the data obtained were simplified for
analysis. For each teacher, 5 visits during 5 weeks were combined, providing the time that
teacher praise occurred was a 225-minute period.
The total number of praise given was 30, among which mean frequencies were
computed for each type of praise as follows:

No.

Non-verbal
14
2.8
1.92

Table 3.1: Means and Standard Deviation for different Types of Teacher Praise
As can be seen from the table, little difference was found for the times of
occurrence between effort praise and ability praise. However, there were statistically
significant differences in the appearance of specific versus general praise, verbal versus
non – verbal praise.
The data revealed that effort praise was delivered when the teachers appreciated
students for their successful or brave attempt, hard work, and their applying of appropriate
strategies to fulfill the tasks. Take these as illustrations: “You must have tried really hard”,
“That was hard for you, but you kept going on”, “You are finding really good ways to deal
with classroom management”. Meanwhile ability praise focused on intelligence or
competence of the students, such as “Very smart!”, “That’s good! I can see that your