TYPE OF FEEDBACK GIVEN BY TEACHERS TO STUDENTS’ WRITING

MAWADDAH BINTI SALLEH

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the

requirements for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Science with Education (TESL)

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

UNIVERITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

APRIL 2010

TYPE OF FEEDBACK GIVEN BY TEACHERS TO STUDENTS’ WRITING

MAWADDAH BINTI SALLEH

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

UNIVERITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

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A dedication to the faith, family and friends

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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All praise be to Allah the Lord Sovereign of the universe and may Allah praise His

Prophet Muhammad and his household. Alhamdulillah my gratitude to Him. Without

His love, I will not be here, still breathing. Thank you Dear Allah for the strength You

gave me to go through in the process of making this research.

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to PM Dr. Masdinah Alauyah

for her confidence, guidance and support. Without her guidance in these two

semesters, it would be an impossible task for me to complete this project.

My love and thanks to my parents who has been my back bone for this project.

Without the constant support from them, I will never be who I am today. Also thank

you to my siblings for giving the energy when I am tired.

The school and teachers, my endless gratitude for allowing me to do my

research. It is impossible to complete this research without the endless help and

support from teachers and principle of the school

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ABSTRAK

Kajian ini mengkaji jenis maklumbalas yang diberikan oleh guru terhadap

penulisan pelajar. Selain itu, kajian ini juga melihat samada terdapat sebarang

perbezaan diantara guru yang mempunyai latar belakang pendidikan Bahasa Inggeris

secara formal dengan guru yang tidak mempunyai pendidikan Bahasa Inggeris secara

formal dalam memberikan maklumbalas. Selapas kajian dijalankan, dilihat, Guru

mempunyai kecenderungan untuk memberi maklumbalas dalam bentuk tatabahasa

lebih dari isi kandungan penulisan. Selain itu terdapat sedikit perbezaan dalam

memberikan maklumbalas bagi dua guru tersebut. Implikasi dari kajian ini mendapati

bahawa walaupun terdapat latar belakang pendidikan yang berbeza, guru seharusnya

mendapatkan satu standard untuk member maklumbalas supaya kualiti penulisan

pelajar dapat dipelihara.

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ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the type of feedback given by teachers to students of

Secondary School. The study also would like to see if there are any preferences in

giving feedback by teachers from different educational background. The preferences

of type of feedback given in students writing was divided into two; Content-Focused

Feedback and Form-Focused feedback. The students’ data which were obtained from

the checklist were triangulated with the teacher’s data which was collected through

interview. After the study was conducted, it was found that there were no differences

in giving feedback in terms of type but it does have an effect according to the

category of Form-focused feedback. Teachers in this study prefer to give Form-focus

feedback as compared to Content Focus feedback. The Implication rises from the

study are teachers, despite the background should have the same focus when giving

feedback because it will affect the quality of students’ writing.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

TITLE i

CONFESSION ii

DEDICATION iii

AKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

ABSTRAK v

ABSTRACT vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

LIST OF FIGURES x

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xii

LIST OF APPENDIXES xiii

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the Study 7

1.2 Problem Statement 2

1.3 Objectives of the Study 3

1.4 Research Questions 3

1.5 Significance of the Study 4

1.6 Scope of the Study 4

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1.7 Chapter Summary 4

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 Introduction 5

2.1 Writing in Malaysia Educational Context 6

2.2 Defining Feedback 7

2.3 Types of Feedback 7

2.3.1 Form Focus 7

2.3.1.1 Direct Form-focused Feedback 9

2.3.1.2 Indirect Form-focused Feedback 9

2.3.2 Content Focus 10

2.4 Teachers’ Educational background and connection with giving

feedback 11

2.5 Chapter Summary 12

3 METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction 13

3.1 Research Design 14

3.2 Subjects 14

3.3 Research Instruments 15

3.3.1 Interview 15

3.3.2 Students’ Writing 17

3.3.3 Checklist 17

3.4 Research Procedure 18

3.5 Data Analysis 19

3.6 Chapter Summary 20

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4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.0 Introduction 21

4.1 Teachers’ Practices of type of feedback given to

Students’ Writing 21

4.1.1 Teacher A Type of feedback Preferences 22

4.1.2 Teacher B Type of feedback Preferences 24

4.1.3 Actual Type of feedback Practice by Teacher A 26

4.1.4 Actual Type of feedback Practice by Teacher A 30

4.1.5 Conclusion 33

4.2 Teachers’ Educational Background in Relation to Type of

Feedback Given to Students’ Writings 33

4.2.1 Discussion 34

4.2.2 Conclusion 36

4.3 Chapter Summary 37

5 CONCLUSION

5.0 Introduction 38

5.2 Limitations of the Study 39

5.3 Summary of Findings 39

5.4 Implications of the Research Findings 40

5.4.1 Teachers Practice of Giving Feedback 40

5.4.2 Teacher Educational Background vs. Type of

Type of Feedback given to Students’ Writings 41

5.5 Recommendations for Future Research 42

5.6 Conclusions 42

REFERENCES 43

APPENDIXES A - F

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LIST OF FIGURES

NO TITLE PAGE

Figure 1. Total number of Direct and

Indirect form-focused feedback

given to students’ writing by

Teacher A. 27

Figure 2 Total of Direct form-focused

feedback given by Teacher A to

Class 3 Smart Writing 28

Figure 3 Indirect Form-Focused Feedback

given to Class 3 Smart Writing 29

Figure 4 Differences in number between

direct form-focused feedback

and indirect form-focused

feedback given by Teacher B

to students’ writing. 30

Figure 5 Total Direct Form-Focused Feedback

given to Class 3 Intelligent Writing 31

Figure 6 Total indirect form-focused feedback

given to Class 3 Intelligent Writing 32

Figure 7 Differences in Giving Direct

Form-Focus Feedback between

Teacher A & B 34

Figure 8 Differences of giving indirect

form-focused feedback between

Teacher A & B 35

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LIST OF TABLES

NO TITLE PAGE

Table 1. Sample checklist for Form-focused

Feedback 18

Table 2. Sample checklist for content-focused 18

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L2 Second Language

L1 First Language

Int Interview

ESL English as a Second Language

TESL Teaching English as Second Language

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LIST OF APPENDIXES

APPENDIXES TITLE PAGE

A Sample of Checklist 46

B Interview Questions 47

C Transcription of Interview with Teacher A 48-49

D Transcription of Interview with Teacher B 50-51

E Sample of Writing that has been Given Feedback

by Teacher A 52-55

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This section will include discussion on the background, problem statement,

objectives, research question, significance and scope of the study and outline and

chapter summary.

1.1 Background of the Study

Students who learn English as their second language often have difficulties

mastering the language. Whether it is reading, writing, speaking or listening,

many students face a lot of problem because they are not proficient.

In writing, students usually make various degree of errors. Although the students

have the idea, they are often not proficient to express what they want to say in a

comprehensible way. Therefore, the errors existed in students’ writing should be

corrected to help them to be more proficient in the language. Goa (2009) stated

that ‘mistakes can only be corrected by the author if their deviance is pointed out

to him or her’. From the statement above, it can be said that students would be

able to correct their own errors provided the errors were pointed out to them by

the teacher. It is teacher responsibility to help the students to recognize the errors

made the writing. Nevertheless, the type of feedback given will also play a

significance role in helping students to improve their writing skills. In addition,

the focus of the feedback will also influence the improvement in students’ writing

as Bitchener (2005) concluded in his study that combination of direct written

feedback with oral feedback has greater effect than direct written feedback only.

Hence, in this study, the researcher would like to investigate the type of feedback

English teachers often give to the students’ writing.

1.2 Problem statement

As stated by Goa (2009), students of the L2 need to get feedback on their writing

in order for them to improve and be more proficient in the second language.

However, a teacher’s style in giving feedback might differ from one another as

some teachers prefer to focus on the content feedback while others prefer to

comment on grammatical aspects of the language, i.e giving. form feedback.

There are no clear guidelines on which area to be focused on when commenting

on student’s mistakes. As a result, teachers often use their own techniques and

focus in providing the feedback which sometimes is not standardized. When this

occurs, the marks students get for the particular writing would not be the same

from one class to another. Hence, this somehow affect students’ performance in

producing a quality writing.

The differences of focus in giving feedback will degrade the quality of writing.

The marks given to students will not have the same quality because if the focus of

the feedback is different, it will affect the quality of students’ writing and the

marks students’ obtained for their writing.

1.3 Purpose/Objective of the Study

The objectives of this research are:

1.3.1 To find out the type of feedback teachers give to students’ writing.

1.3.2 To find out if there is any significance difference in giving feedback

between TESL major teachers and Non-TESL major teachers.

1.4 Research Questions

Based on the objective, the following are research questions will guide the

process of this research:

1.5.1. What type of feedback do teachers give to students’ writing?

1.5.2. Does teachers’ background education influence teachers’ choice of

feedback to students’ writing.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The findings for this study could help teachers to discuss on the standardized

feedback to students’ writing. Other than that, a study by Weigle (1994) has

shown that training has the effect to erase the differences and biases caused by

differences in background. Hence, teachers might want to consider undergo a

training in order to have a standardized feedback provided to students’ writing.

This study could also help the school to look over the importance of having a

standardized writing in order for the students to produce a writing that has quality.

1.6 Scope of Study

The focus of the study was on teachers’ style of giving feedback; i.e. form

focused or content focused. The two teachers that had been selected have different

educational background where teacher A has a Diploma in TESL and Teacher B

has no TESL background.

1.7 Chapter Summary

This chapter covered the background of the study for this research. The problem

statements were discussed. The objectives and research questions were also stated

as the pillar of this study. Next, the significance of the study was presented and

finally the scope of the study is stated.