1
LAC HONG UNIVERSITY
FOREIGN LANGUAGES FACULTY
RESEARCH REPORT
TITLE:
AN EXPLORATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF
PEER-EDITING TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING
ESSAY WRITING AT FOREIGN LANGUAGES
FACULTY, LHU
Le Thi Bich Vy & Ngo Thi Thu Ha
2
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
YZ
To each of these following people, we would like to express our deepest gratitude
for what they have done for the completion of our research.
First of all, we are deeply grateful to the Administration Board of the Foreign
Languages Faculty, especially to Associate Professor Tran Thi Hong- the Dean, for their
consistent support and encouragement as well as for their invaluable professional
consultancy, without all of which we would not be able to finish our study on time.
Secondly, we also wish to express our great gratitude to the four colleagues who,
in spite of their very busy schedule, were very willingly to participate in and to provide us
with much useful ideas for our study.
Thirdly, we would like to thank all of 120 senior students of batch 2007 for their
very enthusiastic co-operation during our research.
Last but not least, our big thanks are hoped to be sent to all of the other
colleagues of the Foreign Languages Faculty for their precious comments that enabled
us right-time adjustment in the way we carried out the research.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................... 1-5
1.1. Statement of the problem .......................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Justification of the study .......................................................................................................... 3
1.3. Research questions .................................................................................................................... 4
1.4. Hypotheses ............................................................................................................................... 4
1.5. Significance of the study
1.6. Definition of the key terms
........................................................................................................ 4
...................................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................... 6-11
2.1. The rationales for using peer-feedback in ESL (English as Second Language) and EFL (English as Foreign
Language) classrooms
6
2.2. Review of the prior studies on the use of peer-editing technique ............................................. 7
2.3. Summary and the scope of the current study ............................................................................ 10
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES................................................................ 12-21
3.1. Aims and Objectives ............................................................................................................... 12
3.2. Methodology
......................................................................................................................... 12
3.2.1. Population and sampling ............................................................................................... 12
3.2.2. Data collection ............................................................................................................. 15
3.2.2.1. Tests
.................................................................................................................. 15
3.2.2.2. Questionnaires .................................................................................................... 15
3.2.2.3. Interviews ........................................................................................................... 16
3.2.2.4. Classroom observation ........................................................................................ 16
3.3. Procedure
............................................................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................................................. 22-36
4.1. Peer-editing has a positive influence on students’ writing skill in terms of accuracy and fluency
22
4.2. Peer-editing enhances students’ participation in the study........................................................ 31
4.3. The use of Peer-editing technique in the classroom creates a positive atmosphere, necessary for language
learners
........................................................................................................................... 33
4.4. Peer-editing technique is a welcoming tool to be employed in a writing classroom................. 35
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ........................................................ 37-39
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY ..................................................................................................... 37
RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................. 38
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 40-42
4
APPENDICE ................................................................................................................................. 43-60
LIST OF TABLES
List
Table 3.1
Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 4.3
Table 4.4
Table 4.5
Table 4.6
Table 4.7
Table 4.8
Table 4.9
Table 4.10
Table 4.11
Label
Chapter
Page
The detailed information of the research
procedure
Results of the pre-test & post-test of two
groups
T-Test on the EG’s results of two tests
T-test on the posttest results of two groups
T-test on the CG’s results of two tests
Report on the kind and number of errors
students of both groups made in the pre-&
post-test.
Report on the change in level of accuracy
within EG and CG
Report on the change in level of accuracy
between EG and CG
Report on two groups’ scores of fluency
T-test results on the comparison of posttest
scores between EG &CG
3
18-19
4
22
4
4
4
4
24
24
25
26
4
28
4
28
4
4
30
31
4
31
4
35
Appendix 2
Appendix 2
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 3
45
46
46-47
48
49
Appendix 3
Appendix 11
Appendix 11
49-50
57
57
Appendix 11
58
T-test results on the comparison of posttest
scores within EG
Report on the analyzed data of results from
post-questionnaires
Table of Raw data of pre-questionnaire
Table of statistics
Table of frequency
Table of Raw data
Table of Descriptive Statistics
Table of frequency
Table of Final Scores of Two Groups
Table of the Number of Errors of Two
Groups
Table of Scores of Fluency
5
Table of Scores of Accuracy
Appendix 11
58
6
LIST OF FIGURES
List
Label
Chapter
Page
Figure 3.1
Figure 4.1
Figure 4.2
Figure 4.3
Chart of the Sampling Process
Change in the scores of CG
Change in the scores of EG
Report on the proportion of each error
type in students’ writings
Comparison of the number of errors
made by 2 groups in the pre. & posttest.
Standard deviation values of the
analyzed data.
3
4
4
4
14-15
23
23
27
4
28
4
35
Figure 4.4
Figure 4.5
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ABSTRACT
YZ
Many studies were done on the use of peer-editing technique and all shared the
same conclusion that it is a useful teaching tool to be employed in EFL/ ESL classrooms.
In this study, peer-editing technique was tried in a 14-week experimental course in which
30 senior English majors of the Foreign Languages Faculty were designated to learn
essay writing with this technique. During the experiment, students were asked to
exchange and to edit each other’s finished essays with the teacher’s guidance and the use
of peer-editing checklist. The results of the study show that the employment of peerediting activities in large and multilevel classes of writing can benefit both teaching and
learning: students’ participation in their study is highly promoted; their writing ability is
improved in terms of the level of accuracy and fluency and also a stimulating atmosphere
is created in the classroom.
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Feedback is widely seen in education as crucial for both encouraging and
consolidating learning (Anderson, 1982; Brophy, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978) (as cited in
Hyland, K& Hyland, F(2005) and it is also regarded as a fundamental factor in the
writing context. Supporting this view, Williams (2003) states that written feedback is an
essential part of any language course that involves a writing element, and this has also
been recognized by those working in the field of second language writing. Virtually, for
a long time, product-approach has dominated writing pedagogy and teacher feedback is
used as the only way to respond to student writing. “Surveys of students’ references
indicate that ESL students greatly value teachers’ written feedback, and those coming
from cultures where teachers are highly directive generally welcome and expect teachers
to notice and comment on their errors and may feel resentful if their teachers do not do so
.“ (Hyland, K& Hyland, F, 2005: 4). While teacher feedback has been indicated to be
desirable for the development of student writing, there are still many debates on whether
it should be provided as it is often neglected and misunderstood by students. This is also
a great concern to teachers teaching writing including the researchers at Lac Hong
University (LHU).
1.1.
Statement of the problem
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It is true in nearly all the teaching and learning contexts of the Foreign Languages
Faculty (FLF) of LHU that teacher feedback is the dominant and the most preferable
mode. According to the results of the researchers’ survey on 120 English majors of batch
2007 conducted on May 15, 2010(see appendix 2), a majority of these English majors
prefer teacher’s feedback to their peers’. Up to 70.8% of the surveyed students just
trusted and appreciated teacher feedback. 65% of them said that they had used peers’
feedback, but they rarely did it. Thus, students tend to write only when they know that
their writings would be read and evaluated by their teachers, as the confession of 75.8%
of the respondents. Since students depend so much on the teachers, their practice
opportunity has been restricted. Concerning it, 60% of the students revealed in the
questionnaire that two is the average number of writings they usually produce for a
writing course and just a very small portion of the respondents (12.51%) have more than
2, which has been confirmed by the information obtained from the interviews with 4
writing teachers(see appendix 6). According to those students, they were demotivated
from practicing writing due to four main reasons: The first and also the leading reason is
that they have no one to read and comment their writings (41.7% of the respondents); the
second one is due to the difficulties they have in writing in terms of grammar and
structure (31.7%); the third one is due to their occupied timetable at school(19.2%) and
the last one is that they do not feel it imperative to write(7.5%). What is worse,
according to the survey, is students’ lack of practice, which is one of the causes of their
failure in learning writing. In fact, many teachers of writing have been trying their best to
help students, but very little success has been achieved due to the giant sizes of the
classes there. Regarding it, 3 out of 4 teacher-interviewees clarified that the big size of
the writing class usually discouraged them from giving their students lots of chances to
write because correction work always took them much time to do. Because of the lack of
systematic practice, English students including high-level ones cannot write (Baskoff,
1990). While students said they were badly in need of teachers’ feedback, in reality, few
of them take it properly. When being asked about their responses to kinds of teacher
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feedback, a majority of students admitted that marks were what they expected or were
eager to see first when getting the writing assignments back from the teacher; only about
26.7% of the students paid attention to the teachers’ comments and corrections, but they
did no follow-up based on the teachers’ remarks in the returned writings; and just 5%
made a good use of teacher feedback. This fact explains why many students usually make
the same errors over and over again although those mistakes have been explained to them
for many times. Obviously, once students do not want to revise their writing based on
feedback, teachers’ feedback is useless (Chandler, 2003).
In short, teachers teaching writing in general and essay writing in particular at FLF
of LHU are now sharing the same fiasco in enabling their students to practice sufficiently
and in drawing students’ attention to their feedback, all of which have negatively affected
the results of both teaching and learning. Thus, being teachers of writing, we have been
strongly urged by the long-lasting wish to find out an effective way to help ourselves as
well as our colleagues positively modify our teaching contexts for the sake of students’
progress.
1.2. Justification of the study
With the development of writing pedagogy, in addition to teacher feedback, new
feedback modes are burgeoning and varied feedback techniques are explored. Among the
feedback techniques have been studied, peer-editing proves to be advantageous to some
extent. Particularly, in our research we decided upon it for some primary reasons, which
have been carefully considered in relation to the specific context of FLF. First, peerediting is an interactive technique for stimulating students to actively work with their
peers through the exchange of their first drafts of the text. Second, it helps students
realize the changes they need (e.g. for better organization, paragraph divisions, sentence
variety, and vocabulary choice). Third, it is suitable for big classes with multi-levels like
those at LHU, where teachers have big difficulties maintaining their role as the primary
communicator with the students via one-on- one interaction. This creates ground for the
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hope that the workload teachers usually take individually would be shared, saving them
more time to develop their own teaching instead of spending most of the time editing
students ‘writing, and that students would get used to sources of feedback other than
teachers’, so they would be motivated to write more outside the classroom. Moreover,
with group work in the classroom, teachers could avoid the” homework syndrome” that
usually results in the situation in which writing lessons are quiet [thus de-motivated] so
that the teacher can easily maintain the classroom control (Hadfield and Hadfield, 1990).
Last but not least, peer-editing, according to Johnson, J.H.(1983), can promote students’
confidence which is vital to language learning. In brief, the technique of peer-editing was
chosen to discuss in this paper because of its potential advantages and its suitability to the
specific features of the learning and teaching conditions at LHU.
1.3. Research questions
From the above rationales, two questions were expected to be addressed in the research.
1. To what extent can peer-editing technique help better the context of teaching and
learning essay-writing at the Foreign Languages Department of LHU?
2. What are students’ responses to the use of this technique?
1.4. Hypotheses
It was hypothesized that peer-editing technique with its own advantages would be
a technique suitable for being applied to the teaching of essay-writing at the Foreign
Languages Faculty, LHU and the application would bring about significant changes in
students’ learning of this subject in terms of their improvement in the writing ability and
their enhanced level of participation in the classroom activities.
1.5. Significance of the study
Writing is one of the four basic skills in the curriculum of English major, which is
taught from the first to the third year. Moreover it is fundamental in relation to other
subjects in that students could be asked to produce either sentence, or a short paragraph
or even an essay when they learn reading, translation, listening, or even speaking…and
especially, essay writing is a compulsory part of the graduation exam or of any entrance
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exams for a post-graduate course. However, essay writing has not ever been taught and
learnt satisfactorily, for which students’ insufficient participation in their study is the
main reason. In order to be more actively involved in the learning, students need to be
independent. It means that they should get rid of the habit of relying on their teachers as
the only source of knowledge or of feedback in the context of learning writing. In respect
to the indicated potential effectiveness of peer-feedback, the researchers believe that the
success of the experiment on the use of peer-editing technique in teaching essay writing
would bring numerous benefits to both teachers and students of FLF. Particularly,
students would be trained to be more dynamic and more self-reliant in their study, which
is one of the leading requirements, that LHU’s current curriculum plays a very strong
emphasis on. Similarly, correction work load would not be a challenge to teachers of
writing and thus teaching writing will be more appealing to teachers of languages than is
it now.
1.6. Definition of the key terms
• Feedback: information given in response to a product, a person's performance of a
task, etc., used as a basis for improvement (Oxford English Dictionary, 2004)
• “Peer” is someone equal to the learner such as his/ her classmate or fellow student
(Oxford English Dictionary, 2004).
• “Peer editing (or peer reviewing)” is an instructional strategy in which a student
evaluates another student’s work and provides feedback. This is a standard
strategy used in writing courses across the curriculum.(Achieved from
en.wikitionary.org)
• “Peer responses” refer to student’ s comments and correction on his/ her peer’s
writing in terms of organization, tone, flow, grammar, punctuation, and even
content.( Achieved from en.wikitionary.org)
• “Editing” is the process of preparing a written material for publication by
correcting, condensing, or modifying it. ( Achieved from en.wikitionary.org)
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• Writing process is seen as consisting of 5 stages: prewriting, drafting, editing,
revising and publishing. ( Achieved from en.wikitionary.org)
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. The rationales for using peer-feedback in ESL (English as a Second Language)
and EFL(English as a Foreign Language) classrooms
The use of peer feedback is justified by numerous concepts in education such as
the process approach to the teaching of writing. Proponents of peer responses have a long
history of theory and research to support their beliefs. Hansen and Liu (2005)report that
peer response is supported by several theoretical framework, including process writing,
collaborative learning theory, and interaction and second language acquisition(SLA). It
also matches well with the five basic principles of cooperative learning proposed by
Johnson (1983), which are positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-toface interaction, interpersonal and small group skills, and group processing. In addition,
De Guerrero & Villamil (2000)’s further exploration on the previous work by
Wertsch(1979) determines that guidance provided by another assists an individual in his/
her development and awareness. According to those researchers, in the transition from
inter-psychological functioning, the learner moves from stages of other regulation to
complete self-regulation, the stage when he or she is capable of independent problem-
14
solving. This is needed for learners of today’s language classrooms because if “language
is ‘part of social interaction and behavior,’ we are compelled to consider the
communicative value of language and introduce the process of interaction into the
classroom” (Swan 1985:9). In the process approach, the focus of attention has moved
from the finished product to the whole process of writing: experience and question,
previewing preparation, draft writing, editing and rewriting, publication or sharing, and
response and feedback from the readers. In this way, teachers will not be the exclusive
source of feedback as it usually takes places in traditional classrooms. Peer-feedback
should be encouraged. As the peer editors can compensate for one’s strong points and
deficiencies, it helps the writer as well as the editors overcome their “private way of
thinking, their habits and their biases and preconceptions”(Bruffee 1980:103). Vital peerfeedback will also provide students with a chance to see their essay from another’s
perspective and thus to be able to improve their work. In short, whatever the method is,
the benefit of peer-feedback is endless, as Rollinson pointed out:
Peer feedback, with its potentially high level of response and interaction between reader
and writer can encourage a collaborative dialogue in which two-way feedback is
established and meaning is negotiated between the two parties. It also fosters highly
complex socio- cognitive interactions involving arguing, explaining, clarifying and
justifying.
(2005: 25)
2.2. Review of the prior studies on the use of peer-editing technique
The widely- adopted technique of peer- response in language 1(L1), language
2(L2) and foreign language (Fl) classes has enriched the teaching of writing in many
ways. A great number of earlier studies carried out by L1 and L2 researchers have dealt
with the implementation of peer- editing and its ability to improve students ‘drafts. In L1
studies, Nystrand and Brabdt(1989) and Gere and Stevens (1995) found the oral
discussion in peer response to be very beneficial to young and adult learners. L2 studies
looked into the social interaction of peers in term of types of students’ talk(Lockhart &
Ng, 1995; Mendonca & Johnson, 1994; Nelson & Murphy, 1992; Villamil & De
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Guerrero, 1996) together with the attitudes of students to peer feedback in terms of their
perceptions of its effectiveness (Mangelsdorf, 1992). Researchers of L2 writing have
marked a variety of behaviors, interaction styles, and reactions among peer group
members during peer response sessions. Mendonca and Johnson (1994) realized that
students use different functions during negotiations: asking questions, offering
explanations, making suggestions, restating what their peers have written, and correcting
grammar mistakes. And as Guerrero and Villamil (1996) reported, in peer groups,
activities consisted of reading, assessing, dealing with trouble sources, and discussing
task procedures. In a writing classroom, during a cooperative learning process, students
review and comment on each other’s writing as peers who collaborate in order to give
insight and knowledge to each other, thus, peer- reviewing can be seen as powerful
learning tool incorporating reading and writing practice and such a view summarizing the
contemporary social constructivist theory of learning (Gousseva, 1998). Moreover,
“reviewing and evaluation are greatly enhanced by having more than one person working
on it, and the generation of ideas is frequently more lively with two or more people
involved than it is when writers work on their own” (Harmer, 2001: 260). Engaging
students in the feedback process, meaningful interaction increases—interaction with
peers and interaction with the content of the discussion postings—which subsequently
promotes students' satisfaction with the course (Swan, 1985). Rollison (2005) mentioned
other effective advantages of peer-editing technique including the perception that the
peers are less threatening, less authoritative, friendlier and more supportive than the
instructor and that by giving the students practice in becoming critical readers, we are at
the same time helping them towards becoming more self-reliant writers who are both
self-critical and have the skills to self-edit and revise their writing. Once students have
been familiar to editing skill, the burden for dealing with errors thus shifts from the
teacher to students. Besides, peer-editing has also proven a welcoming activity when
used in any ESL and EFL classrooms of writing. In the study on 38 first-year Turkish
university students about the value of reflection in writing, Arden Arikan(2006) reported
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that” the positive points that the students found in peer viewing were that it made them
get opinion of many different individuals and this helped them improve their work”(p.7).
Zheng Chunxian, Zh( 2007) in his study on Peer Error Feedback gained a conclusion that
peer error feedback is a good choice in the EFL teaching context in which the work of
teachers’ error feedback is a “tedious chore”. Finally, after researching adopting varied
feedback modes in the EFL writing class, Li Mi-mi (2009) stated that peer feedback
could help train students to be a critical reader as well as a confident writer.
Not all the studies of peer reaction show unqualified positive effects on revision,
however. Some studies suggest negative consequences as well. The first disadvantage of
this technique is that not all students take peer feedback seriously and also their
feedbacks are just overall comments like “ good” or” well-written”, from which their
peers benefit very little. In relation to this fact, Zheng Chunxian, Zh( 2007) explained
that students errors are various and sometimes those errors are out of the range of
students’ language proficiency. Adding to this point, LI Mi-mi (2009:2) clarified “peerresponse cannot achieve fruitful results because students are not knowledgeable enough
to detect and correct errors or students tend to withhold critical comments so as to
maintain group harmony”. And once students cannot review their peers’ writings
appropriately, they are likely not to trust their peers reviews (Nelson & Carson, 1998). In
short, those studies pointed out that there were differences between L1 and L2 and
claimed that a lack of language proficiency in L2 affects peer-review. Gere and Stevens
(1985) looked at a fifth-grade writing class to determine if the oral responses provided by
groups to individual writers shaped the subsequent revisions in what they were writing.
The study found both positive and negative results. Student writers were challenged by
their peers "to clarify, to provide more detail" (p. 95) as the peer reacters asked questions
when they were confused, and suggested ways to improve the writing. Some student
writers integrated their peers' suggestions into subsequent revisions. Yet there were
incidents of unproductive, even hostile, verbal exchange, and in some groups students
hurried through the group work in a "robotlike monotone." A case study of four children
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with low, average, and high abilities in writing (Russell, 1985) examined the relationship
between peer conferencing and revision. The results indicated that in revising, poor
writers were dependent on the questions of other students, whereas average and good
writers tended to become their own audience and revise on their own. Another case study
conducted with freshmen (Berkenkotter, 1983) sought to find out how students interact in
their writing groups and whether writers improve their texts as a result of the interactions.
The research revealed that the students' attitudes toward assistance from their peers varied
considerably, as did the writers' approaches toward revision. One student, Stan, was too
immature to heed his audience. Because of her sensitivity to audience, another student,
Joann, became vulnerable to unwarranted criticism. Although a third student, Pat, felt
responsible to his audience, he felt a greater obligation to his emerging text and revised
independently of peer suggestions. The study concluded that students writing for an
audience of peers as well as their teacher do not necessarily benefit from their
peers'suggestions. An experimental study (Rijlaarsdam, 1987) looked at peer feedback
among 11 classes of eighth-grade students in eight Dutch schools. The control group
received teacher feedback; the experimental group received peer feedback. Although the
study had hypothesized that there would be more frequent evaluation and revision in the
experimental group, the results showed no differences between the two.
2.3. Summary in relation to the scope of the current study
In short, 16 studies of researchers from Western and Eastern Countries have
proved peer-editing technique an effective tool to be used not only in EFL but also ESL
classrooms, especially in teaching writing; however, those researchers have also pointed
out that this technique still has some limitations. They are students’low trust in peer
responses and the possibility of error spread among students, all of which are due to
learners restricted level of language proficiency. Therefore, the researchers considered
peer-editing technique as the subject of their research for two main aims: First, the
researchers would like to know if peer-editing would work at its best in the contexts of
writing classes of LHU, where most classes are composed of at least 40 students with
18
mixed levels, so as to be an effective teaching aid to teachers of writing here; second, the
researcher would like to see if they could deal with the disadvantages of the technique.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Aims and Objectives
This research was done for two primary goals. First, it aimed to measure how
effective peer-editing technique is in teaching essay-writing so as to be implemented in
the real context of FLD of LHU with regard to the benefits it could bring to students of
the experiment. Then, it intended to explore students’ attitudes toward the employment of
the novel method.
3.2. Methodology
Considering the aims and objectives of the study, a combination of qualitative and
quantitative approaches was used to carry out the research.
3.2.1. Population and sampling
The population of this study is defined as all the junior English majors of LHU.
They have been learning writing in 6 successive terms (2 for sentence, 2 for paragraph
and 2 for essay writing). In this study, the researchers chose on students of batch 2007,
who have just finished the third year, instead of those of batch 2008, who start the third
year, for 3 main reasons. First, the target of the study is to find out if peer-editing
technique can help students be more independent in their practice chance. In order to do
it, students need to write a lot and to do much editing, all of which requires students
19
certain knowledge of essay writing; thus, the choice on batch 2007 of which students
have just finished two courses of essay-writing enabled the researchers more time to
focus on their experiment. In addition, these students have learnt essay writing and also
they are in third year of school, so they know more clearly than anyone else how difficult
and important this subject is; thus, reliable data would be ensured.
The participants were chosen and used as follow: All of 120 English majors from
4 classes of batch 2007 were to respond to a questionnaire which was administered at the
beginning of the study to help the researchers look further into the problem that English
majors cannot learn essay-writing effectively and that they are not actively engaged in
their learning. Out of these 120 students, 110 students of three day-time classes (07av111,
112 and 113) were focused to select the subjects for the experiment. Students of evening
class- 07AV101 were excluded from the experiment due to the reason of convenience. In
particular, from those 110 students, 60 were chosen by systematic random sampling. The
sampling was proceeded in three phase as described in fig. 3.1.
11
Class
07av111:
44
students
Grouped
Into 4
11
Randomly chosen:
6 from each 11
24
11
11
8
Class
07av111:
32
students
Grouped
Into 4
8
Randomly chosen:
6 from each 8
24
Randomly chosen:
6from each 8 and 9
24
8
8
8
Class
07av111:
34
students
8
Grouped
Into 4
9
9
Layer 1:72 samples
20
12
12
Grouped
into 6
72
12
Randomly chosen:
10 from each 12
Layer 2: 60 samples
12
12
12
10
10
10
60
Grouped
into 6
30
Randomly chosen
Layer 3: 2 groups of 30
10
30
10
10
Figure. 3.1 Chart of the Sampling Process
Those 60 samples were then divided into 2 groups: control group (CG) and experimental
group (EG) with equal number. Each group stands for a class with mixed sex and levels
for the reliability. After the experiment, 30 students of EG were planned to answer a
questionnaire about their attitudes toward the use of new teaching technique. Also, some
students of this group who had the striking results in the posttest- both highest and lowest
scores- were interviewed for further insights into their achievements or their
unsuccessfulness.
In addition to students, the participants of the study also include 4 teachers- 2
males and 2 females- who have been teaching English at FLF for at least 5 years and
have over- 2-year experience in teaching writing. These teachers were interviewed for
deeper thoughts in to the researchers’ identified problem. Also, two of them were asked
to help the researchers with marking the tests.
3.2.2. Data collection
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In order to collect data, tests, questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation
were employed as the main instruments.
3.2.2.1. Tests
“Tests may be used to access achievement, mastery, to diagnose weaknesses and so
on” (Kemmis & Taggart, 1992: 105), so pretest and posttest were employed in this study.
The tests took the form of two writing assignments. Students were particularly asked to
compose a 5-paragraph argumentative essay within 90 minutes. To reduce their
difficulty with vocabulary as well as ideas, the topics were chosen in such a way that they
were realistic and familiar to their schemata (see appendix 9). Students’ finished essays
were then marked by two teacher- participants with the use of the same specific marking
scheme (see appendix 10) for the objectivity and the reliability of the data and finally
analyzed for students’ change of the level of accuracy and fluency by the researchers
themselves.
3.2.2.2. Questionnaires
Questionnaires were used in the study because they were adaptable to
qualification, cheap and easy to answer (Cohen & Manion, 1989; Weir & Robert, 1994).
In this study, the researchers used questionnaires at two different points of time-before
and after the experiment- for different purposes. The two questionnaires are all written in
English. To make the questions comprehensible to all respondents, jargon is avoided.
These questionnaires were administered to the participants directly and were collected
right after having been filled in. This helped ensure that none of the items were missed
and, as Brown (1988) said, enabled the researcher to explain any ambiguities as they
arose.
The pre-questionnaire (see appendix 1) was designed to look into the problem of
the study, namely the students’ attitudes toward essay writing, their learning habit as well
as the reasons for their insufficient practice. Thus, it was delivered to students at the
beginning of the study. The questionnaire is composed of 8 close-ended questions which
the respondents were supposed to choose the answer that is closest to their opinion.
22
The post-questionnaire (see appendix 3) was composed to explore students’
attitude toward the new method, so it was sent to students of EG only right after the
experiment finished. The post-questionnaire includes 8 statements to which the
respondents were expected to express the level of their agreement.
3.2.2.3. Interviews
Interviews were also conducted at two different phases of the study for the
purposes of investigating the problem and confirming the information achieved from the
questionnaire. Specifically, to check if the other teachers share the same ideas on the
observed problems in the context of teaching essay-writing, the researchers conducted an
interview with 4 teachers who are now teaching at FLF of LHU. Also, to acquire a deeper
understanding and stronger confirmation of what the researchers found from the
experiment, interviews were done with some special individuals of the EG, at the same
time with the post-questionnaire. 15 students were interviewed. They included 7 with
remarkable progress in the post-test and 4 showing no change or even backwardness in
the post-test. The two interviews were semi-structured, according to which during the
process of interviewing, some would be added to the scheduled questions when there was
a need for clarification of the opinion. In fact, for the pre-interview, each teacher was
asked 7 questions, but during the interview 3 more questions were added when the
researchers would like to get clearer view from their opinions, so 10 in all were asked
(see appendix 5). For the post-interview to students, the total number of questions to be
asked is 7 including 5 scheduled ones and 2 added ones (see appendix 7). All the
interviewing questions are open-ended and in Vietnamese for the comfort of both the
interviewers and interviewees.
3.2.2.4 Classroom observation
In the study, observation is employed to help the researchers have a clear view of
how students worked with the introduced technique and it takes the form: participant as
observer. In detail, one of two researchers took the role of the teacher in the experimental
class and also during the class she did the observation. All that were worth considering
23
for the findings such as the way students worked with the new technique, how they
behaved when taking the peer-editing activities, or what they remarked on the editing
activities would be taken into account for later discussion and those pieces of information
were recorded in the form of teaching diary (see appendix 14) that the researcher wrote
after every class meeting. At the end of the course, information from the diary was
synthesized and analyzed to support other findings, which were found out from tests,
questionnaires and interviews for final conclusions to be described in the report.
3.3. Procedure
This research had been carried out for about 1 year (from August. 19 to Nov. 05) and in
five main phases as follows:
Phase 1: Problem Identification
After the researchers had noticed the problem students faced in their own writing
classes, a survey with the participation of 120 students and 4 teachers teaching writing at
FLF was conducted to get deeper insights into the observed problem. The survey was
carried out on May 15, 2010 with the use of two instruments: questionnaire (to students)
and interview (with teachers), all of which had been prepared beforehand. In detail, the
questionnaire and the interviewing questions were all designed at the beginning of May
and were then piloted on a small portion of the aimed population for necessary
improvement. After the problem to be researched had been clearly identified, the
researchers got down to making a plan for the research.
Phase 2: Plan
After the problem identification, the researchers looked for the solution by
intensively reading professional books and journals together with consulting experienced
colleagues. It took the researchers about 3 and a half months – from August 30 to
November 11, 2010- to get in the agreement with deciding upon trying out peer-editing
technique. After that, the researchers worked together on the research plan. In this phase,
some things were decided and done. First of all, the experiment was designed. In this
research the experiment took the simplest form of the pretest-posttest control group, in
24
which the results of two groups: CG and EG were compared for the final results. The
subjects of the experiment were 60 samples got from the population of 120 senior English
majors, who had joined the survey in May. The researchers would be in charge of the
teaching of the experimental course. Ms.Vy, for more experience in dealing with group
work in writing classes, was assigned to teach EG and Ms. Ha, because of less experience
in using group work in writing classes, was to teach CG. Second, the detailed schedule
for the teaching and the data-collecting was set up, about which more specific
information can be seen in table 3.1
Table 3.1: The detailed information of the research procedure
Duration
What to be done
What for
Who to do
Whom to
contact
19/08 to 25/08/10
-
Meeting the
-
research subjects
Preparing
-
students for
Ms. Vy &
-
Ms.Ha
Students of
EG&CG
course
23/08 to 28/08/10
-
Supervising the
-
Getting data
-
pre-test
Ms.Ha-
-
CG
Students of
EG&CG
Ms.VyEG
30/08 to 19/11/10
-
(time for the course)
Conducting the
-
Getting data
-
teaching
Ms.Ha-
-
CG
Students of
EG &CG
Ms.VyEG
22/11 to 26/11/10
-
Supervising the
-
Getting data
-
post-test
-
Marking the preand post-tests
Ms.Ha-
-
EG
-
Getting data
Ms.Vy-
and preparing
CG
ideas for the
-
Students of
EG &CG
-
Participant
teachers
2
post-
participant
questionnaire
-teachers
and
-
Discussing on the
interviewing
-
The
25
observing notes
-
questions
researchers
Getting ideas
themselves
for the
-
questionnaire
Ms. Vy &
Ms.Ha
and interview
29/11 to 03/12
-
Building the post-
-
questionnaire and
Ms. Vy &
-
Ms.Ha
The
researchers
composing the
themselves
interviewing
questions
-
Piloting the
newly-designed
-
instruments
06/12 to 11/12
-
Ms. Vy &
-
Ms.Ha
Administering the
-
post-
Collecting
-
Ms. Vy
Students of
EG
-
data
Students of
EG
questionnaire
-
Conducting the
-
interview
12/12/10 to 08/02/11
&Ms.Ha
Stop for final examination & Tet holiday
10/02 to 14/03
Analyzing the
collected data
-
-
Getting the
-
-
findings
Writing the
research report
The
researchers
themselves
-
data
-
Ms. Vy
Discussing on the
analysis of the
15/03/11 to 15/05
Ms.Vy
Ms. Vy &
Ms. Ha
-
Ms. Vy &
Ms. Ha
-
The
researchers
themselves
Finally, the necessary items for the experimental course- writing topics (see appendix
12), editing checklist (see appendix 13) and for the data collection – tests, marking
26
scheme, post-questionnaire and post-interviewing questions were composed or
constructed.
Phase 3: Action
The experimental course lasted within 14 weeks (table 3.1). Because of the
differences in students’ timetable of the curricular classes, the experimental classes were
held after school hour- usually at 5p.m and it lasted within 4 periods. To the CG, teacher
first helped students review the theoretical knowledge of essay- writing as well as
provided them with more techniques to write good essays of different genres. Then,
students were supposed to write on the given topics either individually at home or in
groups in class. Some of the finished writings were then asked to be presented on the
board for teacher’s feedback. To the EG, group work was employed for both the writing
and the editing process. The first two of the fourteen weeks were saved for teacher’s
instruction on how to use the peer-checklist sheet. The checklist is the form students
based on when they offering feedback on their peers’ writings during the course. This
checklist design was based on the one introduced by Alice Oshima & Ann
Hogue(1998:120). The teacher modeled the editing process for students to observe. The
period from the 3rd to the 14th week was for further lessons about essay writing and also
for practice. In detail, on each topic (6 in all) given by the teacher, there was a discussion
with the participation of the whole class in order to generate the main ideas for the essay.
Then, basing on the generated ideas, each group- 5 in all, made their general outline.
Once the outline had been built, each member would develop it into a complete essay. As
soon as he/ she finished the essay, it would be exchanged with that of a certain peer.
Students were allowed to choose their partners, but changing the partners was encouraged
during the course. For any difficulties the writer and the peer-editor might face during
their editing process, they were advised to share with their group or class members. The
best writing of the group would be chosen to report to the whole class at the following
class contact. Each time, 5 representative writings would be read carefully for comments
and revision and all the errors that could not be corrected in the group’s editing activities
27
would be presented so as to seek help first from the other groups and finally from the
teacher. Moreover, in this group, the theory of easy writing was introduced and explained
during the editing process through discussions. During the course- except the first two
weeks, the teacher worked mainly as a facilitator and observer.
She went around
observing how students worked with the new technique so as to give help in the right
time.
Phase 4: Data analysis
From the tests, the scores students got for the pre- and post-test were analyzed by
Excel statistics tool for the findings on students general achievement. Also, the mistakes
they made in two tests were identified, sorted out and then computed for frequencies and
percentages which were used for the discussion about students’ specific changes in terms
of their level of accuracy and fluency. Besides, responses to the questionnaires were
counted for percentages which were then analyzed and described when the problem was
discussed.
Phase 5: Reflection and report
After all the results from single instruments had been collected and analyzed, the
researcher began to synthesize them for the findings. These findings were then shared
with teacher- participants for more discussions. Finally, the researcher got down to
writing the report on the study once they had gained clear conclusions on the findings.
In short, after a long time conducting the study with the employment of different
methods, the researchers gained a great amount of data which are both qualitative and
quantitative. From those sources of data, four main findings about the use of Peer-editing
in teaching essay writing were achieved. Each of them was described and discussed in the
following section.
28
29
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
From the analyzed data, the following findings were obtained.
4.1. Peer-editing has a positive influence on students’ writing skill in terms of
accuracy and fluency
Table 4.1: results of the pre-test & post-test of two groups
CONTROL GROUP(CG)
POSTTEST
Students PRETEST
5
4.5
1
EXPERIMENTAL GROUP(EG)
PRETEST
POSTTEST
5
7
2
4
4.5
4.5
7
3
4.5
4.5
6.5
6.75
4
5
6
5
6.5
5
5.5
5
4
4.5
6
5.5
6.5
5.5
7
7
7
8
5
6.5
8
6
6.5
6
6.75
9
4
3
7
7
10
5
5.5
6.5
7
11
6
6.5
6
6.5
12
7
6.5
3.5
6
13
8
8.5
6
5.5
14
6
6.5
6
7.25
15
6.5
6
6.75
8.5
16
6
6.5
4
4.5
17
6
7
5
7.5
18
4.5
4
7.25
8
19
6
5
6.25
7
20
5.5
6.5
5.5
6.75
21
7.5
8
6.25
7
22
5.5
6
6.5
8
23
5.5
5
6
6.75
24
5
5
6
6.5
25
6
7
7.5
8.25
26
7
7
7.25
7.25
27
5.5
6.5
4.25
4.5
28
4.5
5
6
6.5
29
7.5
8
6.25
6.75
30
SUM
MEAN
MODE
MEDIAN
RANGE
STDEV
5.75
6
6
6.5
172.75
180.5
173.25
201.5
5.76
6
5.63
6.02
6.5
6.25
5.78
6
6
6.72
7
6.75
4
1.022343769
5.5
1.289769649
4
1.02416913
4
0.975416209
30
Figure 4.1: change in the scores of CG
Figure 4.2: change in the scores of EG
It can be seen from table 4.1 that after the experimental course there has appeared
a significant difference between the two groups in terms of their competence in writing
essays. Specifically, at the beginning of the study, the writing ability of two groups was
nearly the same, which is reflected by their results in the pre-test. For this test, the mean
scores the two groups got is approximately equal to each other: 5.76 (CG) in comparison
to 5.78 (EG) and 6 is what most students of both groups were given. In addition, the
distribution of scores within each group was roughly unequal, referring to the fact that
31
students of the two groups did the test with their own ability and that students of each
group were of different levels: from poor to excellent. However, at the end of the study, a
big gap between the two groups can be noticed. Evidently, after 14 weeks’ learning
intensively with the employment of peer-editing activities in the classroom, students of
EG can write essays much better than they did before the experiment and also than the
students of CG do. Their improvement is shown clearly through their results in the posttest. In particular, their mean score for the posttest is 0.9 point higher than it was for the
pre-test; 7 is the common score of the group; and especially many students scored from
5.76 to 7.68, which is only 0.92 point from the mean score. Statistically, the difference in
the achievement students of EG could obtain in the posttest is estimated to be significant
by the t-test results (Table 4.2 & 4.3)
Table 4.2: t-test on the EG’s
results of the two tests
Within EG
Mean
Observations
df
t Stat
P(T<=t) t Critical posttest
6.716666667
30
58
3.64673186
0.00056978
2.001717484
pretest
5.775
30
Table 4.3: t-test on the posttest
results of the two groups
Comparison b/w EG&CG
Mean
Observations
t Stat
P(T<=t) t Critical posttest(EG)
6.716666667
30
2.370978376
0.021084088
2.001717484
posttest(CG)
6.016666667
30
It can be noticed from the two score comparisons- one of the scores within the EG and
the other of those between students of EG and of CG- that the obtained t-test values are
bigger than the critical t-test: 2.0017. This means the difference observed from the two
comparisons is important and meaningful. Moreover, with the two values of probation
gained in the two t-tests: p<0.0005 (Table 4.2) and p<0.02 (Table 4.3), there is about
80% of possibility that the noticed difference of EG is real, not by chance. In the CG,
although there is an increase in the mean scores (6.02 against 5.76), it does not mean a
significant difference of the group as proven by the comparative t-test results on EG’
mean scores of the two trial tests (Table 4.4). In fact, the change of CG’s mean scores
32
was only resulted from some individuals of the group who are of high competence in
writing themselves. Concerning this fact, it can be seen from the score record of CG(table
4.1) that strong students could get higher marks, while many weak students got the same
or even lower marks, making the range between the highest and the lowest score in the
post-test results larger than it was in the pre-test. To a certain extent, the fact about the
change of CG has strongly confirmed the role of practice in improving the language
skills- listening, reading, and writing as Harmer, J (2001) makes “practice makes
perfect”. Obviously, although students of CG did not learn essay-writing with any new
technique, during 14 weeks they were asked to write a lot. Specifically, in addition to 7
essays students produced together with their group, each student was supposed to write 7
ones on 7 different topics at home and also in class. Thus, it proved why many students
of this group got higher scores in the posttest (Fig.4.1)
Table 4.4: t-test on the CG’s results of the two tests
CG
Mean
Variance
Observations
t Stat
P(T<=t)
t Critical Posttest(CG)
6.016666667
1.663505747
30
0.859728295
0.39347851
2.001717484
Pretest(CG)
5.758333333
1.045186782
30
In short, the results from students’ work in the pre- and post-test have shown that
after the experiment students of EG can achieved a real progress in their ability to write
essays and the teacher’s effective implementation of peer-editing technique plays an
important role in their impressive pace. Also, it is evident that the impressive
improvement in the ability to compose an essay of most students of EG is related to the
increase in their level of accuracy and fluency in writing, among which accuracy is much
clearer.
Accuracy
33
In this study, the level of accuracy means student’ ability to use standard English
concerning grammar, sentence structure and mechanics and it was mainly measured by
the average number of mistakes a student made in his/ her trial writing. From students’
work on the two tests, many interesting findings about their language competence were
found. In particular, though most of the students were in the third year of university, they
still made lots of sentence errors in their writings (Table 4.5). The researchers had
identified many different kinds of errors from students’ writings, which were classified
into 4 main groups according to what elements of the sentence they affect:
-
Grammar errors refer to those of word forms, verb tenses, verb moods, comparison
and so on
-
Sentence Structure errors are those related to word order or sentence elements
such as dangling modifiers, misplaced modifiers, or sentence fragment, faulty
parallelism
-
Vocabulary errors are those concerning the use of words.
-
Mechanics errors: are those of capitalization, punctuation or spelling.
Table 4.5: report on the kind and number of errors students of both groups
made in the pre-& post-test.
34
Students
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
SUM
MEAN
MODE
STDEV
EG
CG
GRAMMAR
STRUCTURE
VOCABULARY
MECHANICS
GRAMMAR
STRUCTURE
VOCABULARY
MECHANICS
PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST
11
10
9
7
9
8
7
8
16
9
9
12
6
4
7
9
8
15
12
14
7
6
4
7
9
6
10
4
5
9
7
6
7
6
8
9
4
7
14
6
7
9
7
6
6
8
6
11
8
9
6
4
5
4
4
4
9
3
5
8
4
5
3
3
4
3
3
3
4
3
3
5
5
3
4
2
4
5
4
6
4
4
2
3
3
4
7
3
3
4
4
3
2
3
3
2
3
3
3
2
4
3
4
2
3
3
4
2
3
5
3
4
3
4
2
2
5
2
3
3
3
2
2
2
4
2
2
3
4
2
3
6
2
2
3
3
3
4
3
2
3
2
2
3
4
3
3
2
2
1
2
1
1
3
3
3
0
1
2
3
2
4
3
3
2
1
2
3
3
3
3
3
1
1
2
2
3
1
3
2
6
4
8
5
7
3
6
4
3
4
4
5
3
6
5
6
5
3
4
5
6
4
8
3
5
3
6
5
5
7
5
2
4
2
2
2
3
2
3
2
2
4
2
3
2
4
4
3
3
3
3
3
4
3
2
2
4
3
3
5
10
8
7
10
15
8
8
8
6
4
6
9
6
7
8
10
6
5
4
7
8
6
12
7
7
8
8
9
7
12
5
5
4
5
6
4
4
5
3
3
3
7
4
4
6
5
4
3
3
4
4
3
5
4
4
5
4
5
5
5
5
3
5
4
6
5
4
3
4
3
5
5
3
5
6
6
4
3
3
5
5
4
6
3
4
3
5
4
5
4
4
3
3
3
4
3
2
2
5
2
2
3
3
2
4
3
2
1
2
3
3
2
4
2
2
2
3
2
3
2
4
3
3
2
3
2
2
1
3
2
3
5
4
3
1
3
2
3
2
3
4
3
3
2
3
2
3
5
3
5
2
2
2
1
4
1
1
0
1
0
2
4
3
2
0
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
1
2
2
2
2
8
4
8
5
7
3
6
4
3
4
4
3
3
4
5
5
6
3
4
4
6
4
7
3
4
5
6
5
5
5
3
2
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
2
1
1
1
2
4
3
2
2
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
257
203
113
92
82
66
148
89
236
131
130
81
87
48
143
60
8.57
6.77
3.77
3.07
2.73
2.20
4.93
2.97
7.87
4.37
4.33
2.70
2.90
1.60
4.77
2.00
9
6
3
3
2
3
5
2
8
4
5
2
3
2
4
2
3.047705 2.344227 1.104328 0.868345 0.980265 0.961321 1.460593 0.927857 2.359622 0.999425 1.028334 0.876907 1.028893 0.968468 1.454679 0.643268
Comparing
the
number
of
errors
students of both groups made in the two
trial tests, the researchers found that
among the four kinds of errors, those of
22.38%
42.07%
GRAMMAR
STRUCTURE
14.39%
21.16%
VOCABULARY
MECHANICS
Grammar takes the biggest proportion
of all and those of mechanics are
smallest in the number (Fig.4.3).
Figure 4.3: report on the proportion
of each error type in students’
writings.
As seen, grammatical errors which appear most frequently in the writings of students of
both groups take the biggest proportion of all- 42.07%. This might surprise any teachers
of FLF because of the fact that Grammar is not only taught as an independent subject in
two successive terms of the first year, but it is also often reminded of in the teaching of
35
other skills like writing, reading, and even speaking. However, when it came for the
students of those groups to compose their essays; they still made a lot of grammatical
errors. The second most common errors (22.38%) are those of Mechanics, which require
students’ only mechanic utilization of the language; thus, naturally errors of mechanics
are not too difficult to avoid, but students still make lots of them in their writings. The
third group of common errors in students’ writings includes those involved in students’
use of sentence structures (21.16%). Structural errors are not as many as those of
grammar and mechanics, but they are considered much more serious in that they are
usually difficult to be corrected and that they usually obstruct the conveyance of the
meanings. And those with the smallest proportion (14.39%) are the mistakes of
vocabulary use. They are related to students’ choice of words to express their ideas in the
essay. Despite being small in the number, like structural errors, those of word use will not
easy to avoid unless students acquire a good vocabulary source.
It is evident that the level of
accuracy of most students in EG has
increased considerably after the
experimental course. It is proven by
the drastic reduction in the amount of
errors they made in the post-test
(Table 4.4)
Figure 4.4: comparison of the number of errors
made by the 2 groups in the pre &posttest.
36
Table 4.6: Report on the change in level of
accuracy within EG and CG
GROUPS
DIFFERENCE
CG
EG
value percentage
ITEMS
Average errors of Grammar
8.57
7.87 ‐0.7
‐8.17%
Average errors of Structure
3.77
4.33 0.56
14.85%
PRETEST
Average errors ofVocabulary
2.73
2.9 0.17
6.23%
Average errors of Mechanics
4.93
4.77 ‐0.16
‐3.25%
Average errors of Grammar
6.77
4.37 ‐2.4
‐35.45%
Average errors of Structure
3.07
2.7 ‐0.37
‐12.05%
POSTTEST
Average errors ofVocabulary
2.2
1.6 ‐0.6
‐27.27%
Average errors of Mechanics
2.97
2 ‐0.97
‐32.66%
TESTS
Table 4.7: Report on the change in level of
accuracy between EG and CG
GROUPS
CG
EG
TESTS
DIFFERENCE
pretest posttest value percentage
ITEMS
Average errors of Grammar
8.57
6.77 ‐1.8
‐21.00%
Average errors of Structure
3.77
3.07 ‐0.7
‐18.57%
Average errors ofVocabulary
2.73
2.2 ‐0.53
‐19.41%
Average errors of Mechanics
4.93
2.97 ‐1.96
‐39.76%
Average errors of Grammar
7.87
4.37 ‐3.5
‐44.47%
Average errors of Structure
4.33
2.7 ‐1.63
‐37.64%
Average errors of Vocabulary
2.9
1.6 ‐1.3
‐44.83%
Average errors of Mechanics
4.77
2 ‐2.77
‐58.07%
From figure 4.4 as well as the two tables above, we can see that in the pre-test, students
of both groups made lots of errors of the mentioned 4 groups: CG exceeded EG in the
number of errors of Grammar and Mechanics; meanwhile, EG got much more errors of
Structure and Vocabulary than CG did. However, a clear change could be noticed from
EG’s work in the posttest. Within this group, students show to have written their essay
with much higher level of accuracy than they had done in the pre-test. In particular, they
could reduce the number of Mechanics errors down to 58.07%; Grammar and
Vocabulary, to about 45% and Structure, to 37.64%, in comparison to that in the pretest. Compared with the errors produced by students in CG, those of EG are more
effectively lessened, especially in regard to grammatical (35.5% of reduction) and
mechanics errors (32.66%). This difference in the better ability of using language of EG
has been proven confident by the results the researchers obtained from the survey.
Specifically, this improvement was then explained by the students’ responses in the
interviews as: when trying to correct their peers’ errors, they were forced to usually
review their grammar; as a result, their grammar use was improved gradually (22%);
and regular editing peers’ writings made them highly aware of the mistakes, so they
formed for themselves the habit of thinking carefully when putting things down in their
own essays (44%) (see appendix 8 for more details).
37
In short, while editing their peers’ writings, students have to detect problems in a
text, diagnose them (deciding what’s wrong), and correct them (Flower, Haydes, Carey,
Shriver, &Stratman, 1986). This has certainly increased their level of error awareness and
therefore enhances their engagement in the study. Meanwhile, when errors are just
corrected by the teacher, students often pay little attention to them (Lalander, 1982).
Therefore, it is implied in teaching that in writing classes students should be exposed to
as many kinds of errors as possible since being aware of the errors and the way to correct
them will help students carry out the proofreading in their own writing process
effectively.
Fluency
Fluency is “the ability to generate one’s ideas in writing intelligibly and with
relative ease” (MacGowan-Gilhooly, 1991: 79). In this study, the level of student’s
fluency was measured by the quality of students’ ideas and their ability to organize the
ideas in their essays, which were evaluated by the scores they got for the two trial tests.
Table 4.8: report on two groups’ scores of fluency
CG
Students'
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
SUM
MEAN
MODE
MEDIAN
STDEV
PRETEST
3
2.5
3
3.25
3
3
3.75
3
2.5
2
3.5
3.25
4
3.5
4
3
4
3
3
2.75
3.5
3
2.75
3
4
3
3
3
3.25
2.5
94
3.13
3
3
0.49
POSTTEST
2.5
2.25
3.25
3.5
2.5
3.5
4
3
2.75
3
3.5
3
3.75
4
3.5
3.6
4
2.5
3
3.75
3.5
2.75
2
2.5
2.75
3.25
3.5
3.25
3.75
3.25
95.35
3.18
3.5
3.25
0.54
EG
PRETEST
POSTTEST
2
2.75
3
3.5
2.75
3.5
2.5
2.75
2.5
4
2.75
3.75
2
4
3.5
4
3.5
3.5
4
4.25
2.5
3
2.5
2.75
3
3.75
2.75
3.25
4
4.5
3.5
3.75
3.25
3.5
3.25
3
3.5
4
3.25
3.75
3.5
3.75
3.75
4.25
3
3
3.5
3.75
3.25
3.75
3.25
3.25
3.25
3.75
3
3.5
3.25
3.5
3.25
3.25
93
107
3.10
3.57
3.25
3.75
3.25
3.625
0.51
0.46
38
As shown in Table 4.8, before the experiment, the ability to generate and organize ideas
of students in the two groups is nearly the same, not to say that of CG is a little bit better
than EG’ s. However, after the experiment, there is a clear difference in their level of
fluency, resulted from the increase in the mean score of EG. This score goes up 0.47
point in comparison to it was in the pre-test and 0.39 point compared with that of CG.
Concerning this difference, there is more than 95% of confidence that it is significant and
true (Table 4.8& 4.9). In fact, the scores of fluency of CG increase too, but this increase
is too slight to be counted for their true improvement.
Table 4.9: t-test results on the
comparison of posttest scores between
EG&CG
Mean
Observations
t Stat
P(T<=t) t Critical Posttest(EG)
Posttest(CG)
3.57
3.18
30
30
2.9534
0.0045
2.0017
Table 4.10: t-test results on the
comparison of posttest scores within EG
EG
Mean
Observations
t Stat
P(T<=t) t Critical
Posttest
3.57
30
3.7371
0.0004
2.0017
Prettest
3.1
30
In summary, from the findings gained by the analysis of students’ trial writings,
concerning how students constructed their sentences, how they chose and organized ideas
in the essays, the researchers come to the conclusion that letting students work as editors
in a writing class can help them not only obtain a good language use- accuracy- but also
know how to express their ideas efficiently in the essay- fluency, all of which would
bring about a thorough improvement in students’ writing ability. True it is, because
according to Hadfield (1990), writing should be something that is nurtured and developed
in the language classroom, resulting in the difficulties experienced by learners being
comprehended and dealt with.
4.2. Peer-editing enhances students’ participation in the study.
39
It is true to any language learners that “practice makes perfect”, so what almost all
teachers of writing at FLF of LHU concern now are how to encourage students to
actively engage in their study and how to offer them enough chance to practice.
Regarding this concern, students’ dependent learning style and the big sizes of the classes
are always the main reasons for students’ insufficient involvement in the study and for
teachers’ inability to manage enough practice opportunity for students. Hence, in order to
help students be more active in their learning, the teachers need to deal with those
problems and in respect to this, during 14 weeks’ teaching and observing the experiment
class, the researchers had noticed some intriguing findings about the efficient role of
peer-editing technique.
First of all, students are helped to be more engaged in their learning when taking
peer-editing activities in the classroom, about which a noticeable difference could be seen
in the experimental course. Particularly, in the first three weeks, when being asked to
share their compositions with peers, many students showed their hesitance and some even
refused to do it. And in the commenting session of the class, many neither dared to give
comments nor suggested ideas on error corrections. This reluctance was, as the students
revealed in the post interviews, due to some reasons. First, their language competence,
namely grammar and sentence structure, is not good (as majority of the respondents in
the post survey- see appendix 4 & 8), leading to their fear that they might give inaccurate
comments and thus be criticized. Second, many students tend to think that the others
write better than they do, so they usually do not feel confident enough to contribute their
ideas. Thus, in the post survey, up to 80% of the respondents acknowledge that reading
their peers’ writings could bring them confidence. Obviously, once one can see that
errors are inevitable to all learners, he will gain more faith in himself. Finally, they are
afraid of hurting their friends (20% of the interviewees). Such reaction is quite normal
because for a long time students have been used to the way in which their teachers are the
only person to comment their writings; as a result, they are likely to have much difficulty
working as an editor. Nevertheless, things changed in the following weeks: students, even
40
the “quiet” ones became more active in finding the partners to exchange their writings as
well as in contributing their opinions. Especially, they were no longer afraid of arguing
on a certain point being corrected. This difference in their behaviors was, as explained by
the student interviewees, resulted from the fact that they usually had to do more study at
home in order not to give incorrect comments or corrections (22%) and that they know
that mistakes are inevitable to all learners (25%). No matters what the reasons are, a
positive change of the learning attitude could be observed in EG. That is students become
more confident and more independent in their learning, which is quite contrary to they
were before the experiment. It is this change that has successfully convinced the students
of the effectiveness of peer feedback. So though most students consider edition a difficult
thing to do, they still expressed the expectation that they would be able to continue to
learn with this technique (73% of interviewees and up to 80% of questionnaire
respondents).
In addition to its effectiveness in increasing students’ involvement in their study,
the use of peer-editing technique also makes it possible for the teacher to enable their
students much practice opportunity. Evidently, students of EG were given such
considerable chances for their practice in writing skill. Specifically, for each of the given
topic, each student had to both compose one essay of his or her own and to revise one
essay of a peer; and for the whole course, they were asked to take 7 writing tasks on 5
types of essays. This means the number of chances for students to involve in writing skill
is 14 times. This is really an impressive number in comparison to that the teachers,
including the researchers, used to give their students. Concerning the practice chance, in
the post –survey, 83% of the respondents agreed that the employment of peer-feedback
brought them more chance for practice. It is thanks to the chance for practice that peerediting technique could arouse students’ interest and that many students of EG could get
big pace after the experiment.
In brief, peer-editing technique, with its principle of encouraging students to think
critically by working as an editor, has sufficiently motivated students- even those with
41
quiet nature- to voice. Obviously, when doing the editing, students are forced to do more
self-study and thus they gain much in return; moreover, once students have been used to
independent learning, they will be able to create the practice chance for themselves and
for their peers.
4.3. The use of Peer-editing technique creates a supportive atmosphere in the
classroom.
Learning a language can be sometimes difficult for learners, so it is very
necessary for any teachers of languages to arouse their learners’ interest in the study. To
do it, classroom environment is one of the primary factors for the teachers to take into
account. Supporting this view, MacIntyre & Young(1999) has reasoned that a strained
classroom climate can undermine learning and demotivate learners and that they will be
motivated at most in a safe classroom climate in which they can express their opinions
and feel that they do not risk being ridiculed. So, “it is important that learning occurs
within a relaxed and supportive atmosphere” (Good and Brophy, 1994:215)
Evidently, when learners feel at home in class, they would enjoy learning and thus want
to keep staying there, learning the language. This has been proven true in this research.
According to the researcher’ notice, the more students of EG got used to peer-editing
activities, the more interested they showed to be in the writing tasks as well as other
activities in the classroom. For example, within 4 periods in the classroom, there was
usually seen the view that students in pairs or groups cheerfully discussed or shared their
ideas on a certain points of the essay; talking and laughing could be heard all the time.
Enforcing the researcher’s observation, 17% of the interviewees acknowledged that the
classroom environment was relaxing. Clarifying this point, 25% of them said that peerediting enabled them to work with their friends. Moreover, in response to the post
questionnaire, up to 83.33% of the respondents disclosed that they enjoyed working with
peers and also 86.67% of them stated that they were much encouraged to write when
working with their classmates. It is obvious that students prefer peers’ feedbacks in that
42
they are less threatening, less authoritative, but friendlier (Rollison, 2005). It is clear that
thanks to the supportive atmosphere students can enjoy when working among classmates,
they are much encouraged to write –as 83.33% of the respondents revealed. In
conclusion, the use of peer-editing activities can make it possible for the cooperation
among learners, building up in the classroom a relaxing and supportive atmosphere, one
of essential conditions for learners’ motivation (Dornyei, Zoltan (2001).
4.4. Peer-editing technique is a welcoming tool to be employed in a writing
classroom.
Table 4.11: report on the analyzed data of
results from post-questionnaires
Level of Agreement
strongly disagree(1) Disgree(2)
Undecided(3)
Agree(4)
Strongly Agree(5)
Statements
Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Frequency Percent
1. You like all the peer-editing activities you took in the experimental course.
1
3.3
2
6.7
5
16.7
17 56.7
5
16.7
0
0
2
6.7
3
10
16 53.3
9
30
2. You enjoyed working with your peers during the class.
0
0
2
6.7
3
10
16 53.3
9
30
3. You were much encouraged to write when working with your peers.
4. You perceive that your writing skill has been improved in comparison to it
was at the beginning of the course.
0
0
3
10
3
10
19 63.3
5
16.7
5. You have become more confident in your writing by regularly reading and
commenting your peers' writings.
0
0
0
0
3
10
21
70
6
20
0
0
1
3.3
1
3.3
21
70
7
23.3
6. You had to deal with much writing during the course.
7. You believe peer feedbacks can be a good source to take in addition to that
from teachers.
0
0
2
6.7
5
16.7
15
50
8
26.7
8.You wish to continue learning with peer-editing technique.
1
3.3
0
0
5
16.7
15
50
9
30
Figure 4.5: standard deviation values
of the analyzed data.
43
From the results of the post questionnaire on students’ opinions about peer-editing
technique, it can be concluded that a majority of students are interested in learning essaywriting with this technique, which is reflected from their perception of benefits it has
brought to them. Specifically, majority of the respondents acknowledge that they like
peer-editing activities they took during the course, which is supported by an
approximately the same number of interviewees expressing the similar idea (80%).
Concerning their positive responses to the use of the new technique, students gave many
good reasons. First, learning with this technique can help them improve their writing
ability effectively. 80% of the respondents admitted that they could perceive the progress
in their writing ability at the end of the course, which is demonstrated by the number of
students who achieved higher scores in the post-trial test- 24 out of 30 students got
progressed and among them 9 could obtain a striking pace. Second, students can become
more confident in their own writing ability through peer-activities mentioned in the
previous section, which is agreed by up to 90% of the respondents. Finally, the
employment of peer-editing technique in a writing class gives students much chance for
practice. In particular, 83.34% of the respondents stated that they were more involved in
their writing, which is what a second biggest number of students in the post interview
mentioned as the reason for their progress after the course. It is the perception of the
benefits students have got from peer-editing technique that most of them share the wish
to continue learning with peer-editing technique (80% of the questionnaire respondents
and 73% of the interviewees) despite the difficulties they have to encounter when getting
used to the new technique. In addition to the positive attitudes toward the use of peerediting technique, in fact, there is still a small proportion of respondents who have
negative or vague responses to the use of peer-editing technique (about 20% of the
respondents to both questionnaire and interview). As far as the researchers know from the
test results, these might belong to the group of students who get no or little progress in
the course. And in explanation to their attitudes, the low level of their language
44
competence, especially in writing skill, and their introvert, are the two primary mentioned
in the interviews.
In brief, the results the researchers got from the post questionnaire has proven that
peer-editing technique with its effectiveness in motivating students to learn writing and in
bettering their writing skill is such a welcoming tool to be employed in any writing
classes.
45
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION
5.1. Conclusions
It is evident that after the 14-week experiment, the researcher gained some
remarkable findings concerning the use of peer-editing. First of all, enabling students
work as an editor to read and give corrective feedbacks on peers’ writing can help them
fully improve their writing ability. Particularly, at the end of the course, students could
make a more effective use of language in terms of grammar, sentence structure, word use
and mechanics thanks to their high awareness of errors as well as of the ways to avoid the
errors. They could also produce better essays that performed their purpose of writing
more efficiently thanks to clearer organization and sufficient content. Furthermore,
editing technique can help students fully involve in their study in that it increases their
confidence in their own writing ability by making them get used to facing errors and thus
motivate them to write. Last but not least, the employment of peer-editing activities
creates a relaxing and supportive classroom climate, for it can bring students the feeling
of camaraderie, so it increases their trust on peers’ feedbacks. From those findings and
with reference to the two research questions we aimed to answer, the following
conclusions were made: The use of Peer-editing can help better the teaching and
learning essay writing and also peer-editing technique is suitable to be employed in the
specific context of Foreign Languages Faculty, LHU.
5.2. Limitation of the study
46
Despite the achieved aims, the study still has some weaknesses. Specifically, in
this study the researcher carried out the experiment on only senior students who have
already learnt essays, so it would be easier for them to adopt the new technique which
plays the emphasis on practice only. Hence, there is still left a concern whether students
of other batches will equally welcome this technique or not. This means the findings
might not be able to address bigger population. Besides, the subjects of the experiment
were taken mainly by their willingness, so there is a question about the reliability of the
data. Finally, this is an action research whose success was evaluated mainly by students’
progress in the course, so the duration of 14 weeks might not be long enough to see all
the changes of the experimental subjects exactly. In short, since the research was done on
a small number of subjects and within a limited time, possibly some other positive
changes had not been fully observed and it might restrict the significance of the findings.
In short, the limited samples and time are the two disadvantages of this research, which
might affect the reliability and generalizability of the gained data and thus the
conclusions.
5.2. Recommendations
5.2.1. To interested teachers:
From the real experience in using peer-editing in teaching essay writing, following
are the recommendations to any teachers who might be interested in applying this
technique.
First, getting students to start with peer-editing is challenging to teachers, so it is
recommended that teachers should have an opening dialogue about their previous
experiences, both negative and positive, with peer work. This will alert the teacher to
students’ attitudes that may help or hinder their upcoming peer interaction and also create
for students a feeling of trust and camaraderie (Hansen & Liu, 2005).
Second, since peer-editing is part of the writing process in which “the students do
not write on a given topic in a restricted time and hand in the composition for the teacher
to “correct”, but “they explore a topic through writing, showing the teacher and each
47
other their drafts, and using what they write to read over, think about, and move them on
to new ideas.” (Raimes, 1983: 10), it is recommended that process approach be used in
teaching writing. During the process, the teacher should be the facilitator who do not
interfere into students’ work on their own writing, but give students help or consultancy
with the language use or with the included ideas as their request.
Third, editing someone’s essay is not an easy thing to do, especially in connection
with the editor’s language competence. Thus, in order to motivate students’ interest in
editing activities, teachers need to free students from the worry about language use. In
this way, two things are suggested to be done: First, the teachers should help gradually
familiarize students with editing activities, which needs to be done from the early stage of
their writing learning- writing sentences- by designing activities from simple to
complicated tasks. For example, students can first get used to peer-editing through simple
and specific tasks like recognizing and correcting errors in sentences. As they have been
used to it, they will be exposed to more difficult requirements: commenting someone’s
work on language use, ideas and style and suggesting revising ways. Second, a clear
editing checklist and a short training on how to use it should also be introduced to
students before they practice it.
Fourth, during the peer-editing process, it is necessary that teachers should ask
students to explain their comments to peers and also encourage them to rewrite their
compositions, incorporating the suggestions made.
Finally, big groups should be employed for editing activities because they are better
than small ones for class environment. It has been proven in the study that the bigger the
groups are, the more sources of feedbacks students can achieve. There also requires a
leader for each group. The leader should be the most able student who is, to a certain
degree, high in the language competence and also is active in their personality so as to
facilitate their peers and thus the teacher will be able to control the class more efficiently.
5.2.2. To interested researchers
48
With regard to the limitation of the study, there are also some recommendations to
anyone who would like to continue this study.
First of all, in order to acquire the reliability and generalizability of the data, it is
recommended that the study be conducted with a larger sample. Particularly, the
researchers should implement peer-editing in writing classes of different batches- from
sentence to essay writing) and also in at least 2 terms. This is believed to make it more
possible to see if peer-editing technique can be really a useful tool to be employed in all
classes of writing and also if it is welcomed by all students.
Moreover, it is advisable that more observation should be carried out for deeper
insights into the link between peer-editing activities and students’ motivation or between
editing work and students’ development in their language competence in terms of
generating and organizing ideas.
49
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53
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1: Form of the Pre-Questionnaire
QUESTIONNAIRE
Dear students.
We are teachers of writing at the Foreign Languages Faculty, Lac Hong University. Now we are carrying out a
research on the effectiveness of peer-editing technique in teaching writing, which we hope to later introduce to
classes of essay writing at our faculty. For the study, we need to know the fact about how you have learnt the essay
writing together with what you think of written feedback. In general, this questionnaire is developed for the sake of
the progress in your language learning, so your true responses to the questions are very necessary and valuable to
us.
For each question, please tick at the box by the response that best describes your opinion.
1. How much of time do you spend a day on practicing
your writing skill out of the classroom?
not at all
half an hour
an hour
more than an hour and a half
2. What is the average number of essays you can write for
each course of writing?
0
1
2
>=3
3.
You are de-motivated from practicing writing
because………..
You usually have much difficulty in writing alone in terms of
grammar and structure.
You are so busy with other subjects.
You have no one to read and give comments on your work.
You do not feel it imperative to write.
4. You are not motivated to write unless you know it will
be read by your teachers, are you?
yes
no
5.
You think trustful and supportive source of written
feedbacks can be got from your teachers only.
yes
no
54
6.
What are you eager to see most when getting the
writings from teachers?
marks
praises
corrections
others( please specify)
7.
What do you usually do when you get your alreadysubmitted writings back from the teacher?
just pay attention to the marks
read the teacher’s correction and comments but with little attention
read the teacher’s correction and comments carefully
rewrite the writing basing on the teachers’ feedback
8.
Have you ever asked your classmates to read and edit
your writings?
yes, often
yes, occasionally
never
APPENDIX 2: Results of the pre-questionnaire
Table of Raw data of pre-questionnaire
55
Re s ponde nts
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
TOTAL:
Q1
2
2
1
2
1
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
3
1
2
1
4
1
3
1
2
1
2
1
2
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
2
3
2
2
1
2
1
2
1
3
1
4
1
2
1
3
1
3
1
3
1
3
1
3
1
1
3
1
2
1
3
1
4
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
4
2
2
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
2
4
1
2
4
1
2
1
4
3
4
1
4
1
4
1
2
120
Q2
3
3
1
3
2
3
4
1
3
2
3
3
1
3
3
3
3
4
3
4
3
2
3
1
3
3
4
2
3
2
3
3
3
3
3
2
3
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
3
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
3
2
3
2
3
3
3
1
3
2
3
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
1
3
3
3
2
3
3
3
3
3
2
3
3
2
4
3
3
3
3
4
2
3
2
2
4
2
3
3
3
3
4
3
4
3
2
4
3
4
2
4
2
3
3
3
120
Q3
1
1
1
4
1
3
2
3
3
1
3
3
2
1
3
1
3
2
2
3
1
3
1
1
3
1
1
3
1
3
1
1
3
1
2
1
1
1
3
3
3
1
1
3
1
1
3
3
3
1
2
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
3
1
3
2
1
3
2
3
2
3
1
1
3
3
3
2
3
3
4
2
3
3
1
2
3
3
2
2
2
2
4
2
3
2
4
2
3
2
4
2
1
4
2
2
4
3
3
3
3
3
4
3
3
3
3
4
3
3
3
120
Q4
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
120
Q5
2
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
2
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
120
Q6
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
3
2
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
3
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
3
1
1
1
3
3
1
1
3
1
1
3
1
3
1
1
3
1
3
1
1
1
3
1
1
1
120
Q7
3
3
3
1
1
2
1
2
3
2
2
1
1
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
2
3
2
1
1
1
2
3
3
3
2
2
1
1
1
2
3
2
1
3
2
1
2
2
2
1
2
2
1
1
2
1
1
2
1
2
1
1
1
2
1
2
2
1
1
1
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
2
2
1
1
3
3
1
1
1
2
1
3
1
1
3
1
3
1
1
3
3
1
1
3
3
1
4
3
1
1
3
1
3
3
1
4
4
4
1
1
4
3
4
4
4
120
Q8
1
1
1
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
1
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
1
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
3
3
1
1
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
120
56
Table of statistics
Statistics
N Valid
Missing
Std. Deviation
1. How
much of time
do you spend
a day on
practicing
your writing
skill out of
the
classroom?
120
0
.936
2. What
is the
average
number
of
essays
you can
write for
each
course
of
writing?
120
0
.694
3. You are
de-motivated
from
practicing
writing
because……
…..
120
0
.989
4. You are
not
motivated
to write
unless you
know it
will be read
by your
teachers,
are you?
120
0
.430
5. You think
trustful and
supportive
source of
written
feedbacks
can be got
from your
teachers
only.
120
0
.456
6.What are
you eager
to see most
when
getting the
writings
from
teachers?
120
0
.755
7.What do
you usually
do when you
get your
alreadysubmitted
writings back
from the
teacher?
120
0
.961
8.Have you
ever asked
your
classmates to
read and edit
your
writings?
120
0
.615
Table of frequency
1. How much of time do you spend a day on practicing your writing skill out of the classroom?
Cumulative
Percent
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Valid
not at all
58
48.3
48.3
48.3
half an hour
40
33.3
33.3
81.7
an hour
12
10.0
10.0
91.7
more than an hour and a half
10
8.3
8.3
100.0
Total
120
100.0
100.0
2. What is the average number of essays you can write for each course of writing?
Frequency
Valid
0
1
2
>=2
Total
6
21
78
15
120
Percent
5.0
17.5
65.0
12.5
100.0
Valid Percent
5.0
17.5
65.0
12.5
100.0
Cumulative Percent
5.0
22.5
87.5
100.0
3. You are de-motivated from practicing writing because………..
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Valid
You usually have much difficulty in
38
31.7
31.7
writing alone in terms of grammar
and structure.
You are so busy with other subjects.
23
19.2
19.2
You have no one to read and give
50
41.7
41.7
comments on your work.
You do not feel it imperative to write.
9
7.5
7.5
Total
120
100.0
100.0
4. You are not motivated to write unless you know it will be read by your teachers, are you?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
yes
91
75.8
75.8
75.8
no
29
24.2
24.2
100.0
Total
120
100.0
100.0
Cumulative Percent
31.7
5. You think trustful and supportive source of written feedbacks can be got from your teachers
only.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
yes
85
70.8
70.8
70.8
no
35
29.2
29.2
100.0
Total
120
100.0
100.0
6.What are you eager to see most when getting the writings from teachers?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Valid
marks
96
80.0
80.0
praises
4
3.3
3.3
corrections
20
16.7
16.7
Cumulative Percent
80.0
83.3
100.0
50.8
92.5
100.0
57
6.What are you eager to see most when getting the writings from teachers?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
marks
96
80.0
80.0
praises
4
3.3
3.3
corrections
20
16.7
16.7
Total
120
100.0
100.0
Cumulative Percent
80.0
83.3
100.0
7.What do you usually do when you get your already-submitted writings back from the teacher?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Valid
just pay attention to the marks
56
46.7
46.7
read the teacher’s correction and
32
26.7
26.7
comments but with little attention
read the teacher’s correction and
24
20.0
20.0
comments carefully
rewrite the writing basing the
8
6.7
6.7
teachers’ feedback
Total
120
100.0
100.0
Valid
Cumulative Percent
46.7
73.3
93.3
100.0
8.Have you ever asked your classmates to read and edit your writings?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
yes, often
11
9.2
9.2
9.2
yes, occasionally
67
55.8
55.8
65.0
no
42
35.0
35.0
100.0
Total
120
100.0
100.0
APPENDIX 3: Form of the Post Questionnaire
QUESTIONNAIRE
Dear students.
This questionnaire is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of peer-editing technique so that we can know to what
extent our hypothesis about it can be met; thus, your honest opinions are highly appreciated.
The responses are divided into 5 ranks, equivalent to how much you agree with the stated ideas.
1.
Strongly disagree
2.
Disagree
3.
Undecided
4.
Agree
5.
Strongly agree
For each of the statement, please choose the level of agreement which is closest to your opinion!
Responses
number
Statements
1
2
3
4
5
58
1
You like all the peer-editing activities you took
in the experimental course.
2
You enjoyed working with your peers during
the class.
3.
You were much encouraged to write when
working with your peers.
4.
You perceive that your writing skill has been
improved considerably in comparison to it was
at the beginning of the course.
5.
You have become more confident in your
writing by regularly reading and commenting
your peers' writings.
6.
You had to deal with much writing during the
course.
7.
You believe peer feedback can be a good
source to take in addition to that from teachers.
8.
You wish to continue learning with peerediting technique.
APPENDIX 4: Results of the Post Questionnaires
Table of raw data
Resondents Statement 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
TOTAL
Table of
Descriptive Statistics
Statement 2
5
4
2
3
4
5
4
1
3
2
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
3
5
3
4
4
4
4
5
4
3
4
5
4
30
Statement 3
4
4
3
4
2
4
2
4
5
3
5
5
3
5
4
5
4
5
4
4
5
4
4
4
4
4
5
4
5
4
30
3
4
4
3
4
4
4
2
4
3
4
4
4
4
3
4
5
2
5
3
5
5
4
5
4
4
4
4
4
4
30
Statement 4 Statement 5 Statement 6 Statement 7 Statement 8
4
3
4
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
3
4
3
3
3
2
4
2
2
1
3
4
4
3
3
4
4
4
2
4
4
5
4
4
4
2
3
4
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
2
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
4
4
4
5
5
5
4
4
5
5
5
5
4
4
5
4
4
4
4
5
4
5
4
4
5
4
5
4
4
4
4
4
3
3
4
3
3
5
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
4
5
5
5
5
4
4
4
5
5
4
4
4
5
4
5
4
4
5
4
5
4
5
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
4
4
5
4
4
4
4
5
5
4
4
4
5
4
4
4
4
5
5
30
30
30
30
30
59
Statistics
N
Valid
Missing
Std. Deviation
1. You like
all the peerediting
activities
you took in
the
experiment
al course.
30
0
.935
2. You
enjoyed
working
with your
peers
during the
class.
30
0
.828
4. You
perceive that
your writing
skill has been
improved
3. You were
considerably
much
in
encouraged
comparison
to write when
to it was at
working with the beginning
of the course.
your peers.
30
30
0
0
.776
.819
5. You
have
become
more
confident
in your
writing by
regularly
reading
and
commenti
ng your
peers'
writings.
30
0
.548
6. You had
to deal with
much
writing
during the
course.
30
0
.629
7. You believe
peer feedback
can be a good
source to take
in addition to
that from
teachers.
30
0
.850
Table of frequency
Valid
Valid
Valid
1. You like all the peer-editing activities you took in the experimental course.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Strongly disagree
1
3.3
3.3
3.3
Disagree
2
6.7
6.7
10.0
Undecided
5
16.7
16.7
26.7
Agree
17
56.7
56.7
83.3
Strongly agree
5
16.7
16.7
100.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
2. You enjoyed working with your peers during the class.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Disagree
2
6.7
6.7
Undecided
3
10.0
10.0
Agree
16
53.3
53.3
Strongly agree
9
30.0
30.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
Cumulative Percent
6.7
16.7
70.0
100.0
3. You were much encouraged to write when working with your peers.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Disagree
2
6.7
6.7
6.7
Undecided
5
16.7
16.7
23.3
Agree
18
60.0
60.0
83.3
Strongly agree
5
16.7
16.7
100.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
4. You perceive that your writing skill has been improved considerably in comparison to it was at the
beginning of the course.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Disagree
3
10.0
10.0
10.0
Undecided
3
10.0
10.0
20.0
Agree
19
63.3
63.3
83.3
Strongly agree
5
16.7
16.7
100.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
8. You wish to
continue
learning with
peer-editing
technique.
30
0
.890
60
5. You have become more confident in your writing by regularly reading and commenting your peers'
writings.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
Undecided
3
10.0
10.0
10.0
Agree
21
70.0
70.0
80.0
Strongly agree
6
20.0
20.0
100.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
Valid
Valid
Valid
6. You had to deal with much writing during the course.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Disagree
1
3.3
3.3
Undecided
1
3.3
3.3
Agree
21
70.0
70.0
Strongly agree
7
23.3
23.3
Total
30
100.0
100.0
Cumulative Percent
3.3
6.7
76.7
100.0
8. You wish to continue learning with peer-editing technique.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Strongly disagree
1
3.3
3.3
Undecided
5
16.7
16.7
Agree
15
50.0
50.0
Strongly agree
9
30.0
30.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
Cumulative Percent
3.3
20.0
70.0
100.0
8. You wish to continue learning with peer-editing technique.
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Strongly disagree
1
3.3
3.3
Undecided
5
16.7
16.7
Agree
15
50.0
50.0
Strongly agree
9
30.0
30.0
Total
30
100.0
100.0
Cumulative Percent
3.3
20.0
70.0
100.0
APPENDIX 5: Interviewing Questions of the Pre-interview( with teachers)
1.
Thầy/ Cô đã tham gia giảng dạy kỹ năng viết được bao lâu rồi?
How long have you been teaching the subject of writing?
2.
Cụ thể Thầy / Cô dạy nội dung gì trong môn viết?
What section of the writing syllabus have you been in charge of?
3.
Theo Thầy/ Cô điều gì là trở ngại lớn nhất đối với việc giảng dạy kỹ năng viết?
What do you think is the biggest difficulty in teaching Writing?
61
4.
Trung bình Thầy/ Cô cho sinh viên viết khoảng bao nhiêu bài, không tính bài giữa kỳ?
What is the average number of the writing tasks, excluding the mid-term test, do you assign your students
during a course?
5.
Thầy/ Cô thường đánh giá bài viết của sinh viên bằng cách nào?
What kinds of feedback do you give on students’ writing?
6.
Việc đọc và sửa bài của sinh viên có chiếm nhiều thời gian của Thầy/ Cô không?
Does reading and correcting students’ works take you much time?
7.
Thầy/ Cô có giúp cho sinh viên làm quen với cách tự sửa bài cho nhau không?
Have you ever helped students get familiar with peer feedback?
8.
Thầy/ Cô nghĩ gì về việc cho sinh viên tự sửa bài cho nhau?
What is your opinion about letting students edit each other’ writings?
Extra questions:
9.
Thầy/ Cô có thể vui lòng giải thích rõ ý kiến của mình?( supporting question 3)
Could you please clarify your opinion?
10. Để sửa một bài viết essay khoảng 300 từ Thầy/ Cô thường mất bao nhiêu thời gian?
How much of time do you usually spend on an about-300- word essay?
APPENDIX 6: Results of the Pre-interview
The total number of the interviewing questions: 10
Interviewing Questions
Revised Responses
Number of
respondents
N=4
1.
2.
How long have you been teaching
More than 10 years
1
Writing subject?
7 years
1
2 years
1
1 year
1
I ‘ve been taught writing sentences,
paragraphs and essays
1
I have been teaching paragraph and essay
writing.
1
What section of the writing curricular
have you been in charge of?
62
3.
I teach essay writing only.
1
I am mainly in charge of business writing
1
What do you think is the biggest
It is the big size of the class.
3
difficulty in teaching Writing?
ÎAccording to them, the big size of the
class usually makes it very difficult for them
to give students sufficient chance to practice
and thus their students cannot learn
effectively.
Extra Question:
Could you please clarify your opinion?
It is students’ learning attitudes.
1
ÎIn this teacher’s opinion, students usually
consider Writing a boring or tough subject
and they tend to neglect it during the
course. Also students are not really engaged
in their study, which is shown through their
little attention to practice both in class and
at home.
4.
5.
6.
What is the average number of the
writing tasks, excluding the mid-term
test, do you assign your students
during a course?
What kinds of feedback do you give
on students’ writing?
Does the reading and correcting
2 tasks
3
3 tasks
1
I usually give comments together with
locate the errors in their writings for their
self-correction.
1
I give comments and also correct the
mistakes in their writing, so that they can
have more study at home.
2
I mark and comment their writings. Also, I
localize the area in their writings where
there are many serious errors for their selfrecognition and correction.
1
Yes. A lot!
4
1.5 hour
2
1 hour
2
students’ works take you much time?
Extra Question:
How much time do you spend on an
about-300-word essay?
63
7.
8.
Have you ever helped students get
Not ever
familiar with peer feedback?
ÎAccording to those teachers, peerfeedbacks are not effective because students
are likely to learn their peers’ mistakes and
also students can make noise when they
group together.
What is your opinions about letting
students edit each other’ writings?
Yes
3
1
ÎThis teacher sometimes lets his students
in group comment and corrects the writings
of other groups. In his opinion, peer-editing
activity is interesting, but time-consuming.
APPENDIX 7: Interviewing Questions of the Post- Interview (with students)
1.
Các em có thích hoạt động sửa bài cho nhau không?
Do you like peer-editing activity?
2.
-
Những lý do nào khiến cho các em thích hoạt động tự biên tập bài cho nhau?
Why do you like peer-editing activities?
-
Tại sao em không thích hoạt động tự sửa bài cho nhau?
Why don’t you like peer-editing activities?
3.
-
Em đã tiến bộ rất nhiều trong khóa học vừa rồi, các em có thể cho biết vì sao các em đã đạt được
kết quả tốt như thế?
You have obtained a very striking progress in your study, so could you please reveal what are the
reasons for such pace?
-
Sau khóa học, có vẻ như em không tiến bộ so với lúc bắt đầu, em có thể cho biết lý do vì sao?
You did not progress in the course, what you think might be the causes of it?
4.
Em có nghĩ rằng hoạt động tự sửa bài cho nhau khó đối với các em?
Do you think peer-editing activities are hard for you to do?
Extra question
4.1.Tại sao em lại cho rằng hoạt động này là khó?
Why do you think so?
4.1. Tại sao em lại không nghĩ là chúng khó?
Why do you think they are not difficult?
64
5.
Em có muốn tiếp tục học theo cách này không?
Would you like to continue learning with this technique?
Extra question
5.1. Tại sao em muốn?
Why?
5.1.Tại sao em không muốn?
Why not?
APPENDIX 8: Results of the Post Interviews
The number of students to be interviewed is 15, including
-
9 students with striking pace after the experiment: 1,2,12,14,15,17,22,28,29
-
3 students with no change in their results: 9,13,26
-
3 students in the failing groups: 5,16,27
65
Question
Order
Questions
Yes
No
Why do you like peer-editing activities?
It is an interesting activity because I and
my friends can work with each other
to better our writings.
The editing activities make me regularly
improve my knowledge of grammar,
sentence structur and essay organization
so as not to give wrong comments on
the others' writings, so my writing skill
becomes better.
I can write a lot because I can have my
class mates read and comment my writings
The classroom atmosphere is always relaxing
because we are allowed to work with friends
freely.
By reading my classmates' writings I know that
not only I make mistakes, so I feel
easiser to share my ideas and more confident
in writing.
Why don't you like peer-editing activities?
My writing skill is not good.
I don't like noise.
I think it is time-consuming.
You have obtained a progress in your study,
I wrote a lot during the course.
could you let me know what are the reasons
When editing my classmates' errors, I had to
for such pace?
review and enrich my knowledge.
Being aware of the errors all the time make me
more careful when writing my own essays
and help me know how to void and correct them.
You did not progress in the course, what do you think might be I did not have many ideas on the topic to write.
the causes of it?
I do not know how to express my ideas
in English correctly.
Writing is always so difficult to me.
Do you think peer-editing activities are hard to do?
Yes
No
Why do you think they are hard?
My grammar is not good.
I am not good at sentence structures, so I
sometimes cannot identify the errors in my friends'
essays
I do not know how to give comments.
I am not confident with my ideas.
I am afraid that I would hurt my friends' feelings.
Why don't you think they are hard?
I can ask my friends for help.
I only follow the form the teacher gave.
Would you like to continue learning with this technique?
Yes
No
No idea
Why?
I think it is interesting.
I think it makes it possible for me to do a lot of
writing.
I think I can learn a lot from my friends' essays.
Why not?
It is so hard to do.
It takes me a lot of time.
N= 15
Do you like peer-editing activity?
1
2
2
3
3
4
4.1
4.1
5
5.1
5.1
Responses
Frequencies Percentage
Total
Respondents
Respondents
3
80%
20%
25%
2
17%
2
17%
29,15,
2
17%
17,13
3
25%
22,5, 26
1
1
1
3
2
33%
33%
33%
33%
22%
12
3
1,2,12,14,22,28,29,15,9,13,26,5
15
17,16,27
1,12,14,
2,28
12
16
3
9
27
1,2, 12
14,15
9
4
44%
2
3
33%
50%
1
10
5
4
2
17%
67%
33%
40%
20%
17,22,28,29
13,27
6
9, 26,5
16
15
9,13,26, 5,16,27, 12,14, 28,29
1,2,15,17,22
9,26,5,16
14,29
10
1
1
2
4
1
11
3
1
5
4
10%
10%
20%
80%
20%
73%
20%
7%
45%
36%
3
2
1
27%
67%
33%
13
27
28, 12
5
1,15,17,22
2
1,2,12,14,15,17,22,29, 28, 26, 5
15 16,9,27
13
1,2,17,22,28
11 14,26
5,15, 29
16, 9
3 27
APPENDIX 9: Writing Topics for the Trial Tests(Pre-test& Posttest)
WRITING TOPICS FOR TRIAL TESTS
TESTS
PRETEST
POSTTEST
TOPICS
Write a five-paragraph essay on the following topic:
Where do you prefer to live – in the countryside or in a big city? State the reasons
for your choice.
Write a five-paragraph essay on the following topic:
Transport systems are extremely important to the development of an economy and
the quality of life. In your opinion, should the Vietnamese government spend more
money on improving roads and highways, or should they spend more money on
public transportation (buses, trains, coaches...)? Why? Use specific reasons and
66
details to support your ideas.
APPENDIX 10: The Marking Scheme
Criteria
Fluency
(5 marks)
Ideas
(2.5 marks)
Suggested rating
Introduction: 0.5
The hook: 0.2
States the topic clearly
and impressively: 0.2 mark
States the topic, but in a
very little impressive way: 0.15 mark
Fails to address the topic:
0 mark
The middle sentences: 0.15
Give sufficient and
relevant background information about the topic as well as logically lead to
the thesis statement: 0.15 mark
Give certain background
information about the topic, but does not logically introduce the thesis
statement or vice versus: 0.05 mark
Provide irrelevant
information and do not introduce the thesis statement:0 mark
Thesis statement: 0.15
clearly states the main
idea and the controlling idea: 0.15 mark
does not state the
controlling ideas: 0.1 mark
fail to identify the main
idea and the controlling ideas: 0 mark
Body paragraph 1, 2 and 3: 0.5 x 3
Topic sentence: 0.2
clear: 0.2 mark
not included in the
paragraph or ambiguous: 0 mark
Supporting sentences: 0.3
Include at least 2 ideas
which are relevant to the topic and obtain a good coherence: 0.3 mark
Include relevant ideas,
but have poor coherence: 0.15 mark
Include irrelevant ideas
only: 0 mark
Body paragraph 2: 0.5
Conclusion paragraph: 0.5
Summarizes the
discussed points or restate the main idea and give certain further comment on
the addressed topic: 0.5 mark
Summarize the discussed
points and restate the main idea: 0.25 mark
Fails to do the above
functions: 0 mark
67
- 90 % to 100% ideas are relevant to the topic, tightly linked with each other
and organized logically in the whole paragraphs: 2.5 marks
- 60% to less than 90% ideas are relevant to the topic, tightly linked with each
other and organized logically in the whole paragraphs:1 to less than 2.5 marks
- From 50% to less than 60% of the ideas are relevant to the topic, tightly
linked with each other and organized logically within the paragraphs and the
essay: 0.1 to less than 1 mark
- Nearly 70% of ideas are irrelevant to the topic: 0 mark
Organization
(2.5 marks)
Grammar and
mechanicsspelling,
capitalization and
punctuation
(2 marks)
-
The number of
mechanics mistakes are from 20% down to 0% of the sentences: 1.5-2 marks
The number of
mechanics mistakes are from 30% down to 20% of the sentences: 1-less than
1.5 marks
The number of
mechanics mistakes are from 50 % down to 40% of the sentences: 0.75-less
than 1 marks
The number of mistakes
is from more than 40% down to 60% of the sentences: 0.25 to less than 0.75
he number of mistakes is more than 50% of the sentences:0 mark
-
Structure use
(1,5 marks)
-
Accuracy
(5 marks)
rom 70 to100% of the sentence structures are chosen effectively:0.75 to 1.5
marks
From 50 to less than
70% of the structure use is effective: 0.1 to less than 0.75 mark
Less than 50 % of
sentence structures are used correctly, obstructing the meaning of the
sentence: 0 mark
-
Word use
(1.5 marks)
-
rom 70 to100% of the used vocabulary is relevant to the topic and proper to
the essay type: 0.75 to 1.5 marks
From 50 to less than
70% of the vocabulary is relevant to the topic and proper to the essay type:
0.1 to less than 0.75
ore than 50 % of the used vocabulary improper for the text type and fails to
address the topic: 0 mark
APPENDIX 11: Results of the Tests
Table of Final Scores of Two Groups
68
Stude nts
1
CONTROL G ROUP(CG )
PRETEST
POSTTEST
5
4.5
EXPERIMENTAL G ROUP(EG )
PRETEST
POSTTEST
5
7
2
4
4.5
4.5
7
3
4.5
4.5
6.5
6.75
4
5
6
5
6.5
5
5.5
5
4
6
5.5
6.5
5.5
7
7
7
8
5
6.5
8
6
6.5
6
6.75
4.5
9
4
3
7
10
5
5.5
6.5
7
11
6
6.5
6
6.5
7
12
7
6.5
3.5
13
8
8.5
6
5.5
14
6
6.5
6
7.25
15
6.5
6
6.75
8.5
16
6
6.5
4
4.5
17
6
7
5
7.5
18
4.5
4
7.25
6
8
19
6
5
6.25
7
20
5.5
6.5
5.5
6.75
21
7.5
8
6.25
7
22
5.5
6
6.5
8
23
5.5
5
6
6.75
24
5
5
6
6.5
7.5
8.25
26
7
7
7.25
7.25
27
5.5
6
6.5
4.25
28
4.5
5
6
6.5
29
7.5
8
6.25
6.75
30
5.75
6
6
6.5
1 7 2 .7 5
1 8 0 .5
1 7 3 .2 5
2 0 1 .5
25
SUM
MEAN
MODE
MEDIAN
RANG E
STDEV
7
4.5
5.76
6
5.63
6.02
6.5
6.25
5.78
6
6
6.72
7
6.75
4
1.022343769
5.5
1.289769649
4
1.02416913
4
0.975416209
Table of the Number of Errors of Two Groups
CG
Students
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
SUM
MEAN
MODE
STDEV
EG
ITEMS
ITEMS
GRAMMAR
STRUCTURE
VOCABULARY
MECHANICS
VOCABULARY
MECHANICS
GRAMMAR
STRUCTURE
Students
PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST
POSTTEST PRETEST POSTTEST
PRETEST POSTTES PRETEST POSTTEST PRETEST
11
10
9
7
9
8
7
8
16
9
9
12
6
4
7
9
8
15
12
14
7
6
4
7
7
6
10
4
5
9
8
9
7
6
8
9
4
7
14
6
7
9
7
6
6
8
6
11
8
9
4
7
6
3
4
3
9
3
5
8
5
5
3
3
4
3
2
3
4
3
3
5
5
3
4
2
4
5
4
6
4
5
2
3
3
4
7
3
6
3
4
3
2
3
3
2
3
3
3
2
4
3
4
2
3
3
4
2
3
5
3
4
3
4
2
2
5
2
3
3
255
207
116
8.50
6.90
3.87
9
6
3
3.05975 2.45441 1.252125
92
3.07
3
0.868345
Table of Scores of Fluency
3
2
2
2
4
2
2
3
4
2
3
6
2
2
3
3
3
4
3
2
3
2
2
3
4
3
3
2
2
1
2
1
1
3
3
3
0
1
2
3
2
4
3
3
2
1
2
3
3
3
3
3
0
1
1
0
3
1
3
2
8
4
8
5
7
3
6
4
3
4
4
5
3
6
5
5
5
3
4
5
6
4
8
3
4
3
7
5
5
4
5
3
4
1
2
2
3
2
2
2
2
4
2
1
2
4
4
2
3
3
3
2
2
3
2
1
4
4
2
3
82
62
146
79
2.73
2.07
4.87
2.63
2
3
4
2
0.98026504 1.112107 1.547709 1.033352
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
SUM
MEAN
MODE
STDEV
10
8
7
10
15
8
8
8
6
4
6
9
6
7
8
10
6
5
4
7
8
6
12
7
7
8
8
9
7
12
5
5
4
5
6
4
4
5
3
3
3
7
4
4
6
5
4
3
3
4
4
3
5
4
4
5
4
5
5
5
5
3
5
4
6
5
4
3
4
3
5
5
3
5
6
6
4
3
3
5
5
4
6
3
4
3
5
4
5
4
4
3
3
3
4
3
2
2
5
2
2
3
3
2
4
3
2
1
2
3
3
2
4
2
2
2
3
2
3
2
4
3
3
2
3
2
2
1
3
2
3
5
4
3
1
3
2
3
2
3
4
3
3
2
3
2
3
5
3
5
2
2
2
1
4
1
1
0
1
0
2
4
3
2
0
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
1
2
1
2
2
2
2
8
4
8
5
7
3
6
4
3
4
4
3
3
6
5
5
7
3
4
5
6
6
9
3
4
5
7
5
5
4
3
2
3
1
2
0
2
1
2
1
2
0
0
1
2
4
1
0
1
1
2
1
2
1
2
1
2
2
2
1
236
131
130
81
87
48
151
45
7.87
4.37
4.33
2.70
2.90
1.60
5.03
1.50
8
4
5
2
3
2
4
2
2.359622 0.999425 1.028334 0.876907 1.028893 0.968468 1.670914 0.937715
69
Students'
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
SUM
MEAN
MODE
MEDIAN
STDEV
CG
EG
PRETEST
POSTTEST
PRETEST
POSTTEST
IDEAS( 3)
ORGANIZATI IDEAS(3)
ORGANIZAIDEAS( 3) ORGANIZATION OF IDEAS(2) IDEAS(3) ORGANIZATION OF IDEAS(2)
1.5
1.5
2.25
1.5
1
1
1.75
1.5
1
1.5
2.25
1.25
2
1
2.25
2
2
1
2
1.25
1
1.25
2
1.5
1
1.5
2.5
1.5
1.25
1.25
1.75
1
2
1
1
1.5
1.75
0.75
2.5
1.5
2
1
1.75
1.75
1.5
1.25
2
1.75
2
1.5
2.5
1.5
0.5
1.5
2.25
1.75
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
2
2.75
1.25
1.25
1.25
1.5
0.5
2
1.5
1.5
2
1
1
1.5
1.5
2
2
2.5
1.75
2.25
1.25
2
1.5
1.5
1
1.5
2
1.5
1.75
1.5
1.5
1.25
1.25
1.75
2
2.5
1.5
2.5
1.25
2
1
2.25
1.5
1.5
1.5
2.5
1.5
1.5
1.25
2.25
2.5
2
2
2
1.5
2.5
1.5
2.5
2
1.75
1.25
2
1.5
2.25
1
2.25
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
2.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
2
1.5
1.25
1.5
1
2
1.25
1.75
1.5
2
1.5
1
2
2
1.5
2
2
1.5
1.5
2
1.75
1.25
2
1.75
2
2
1.25
2.25
1.25
1.5
1.5
1.75
2.5
1.5
1.5
1.75
1
2
1
2.25
2
1.75
1
1.25
0.75
1.75
1.5
2.75
2
1.25
1.75
1
1.5
2
1.5
2.25
1.75
2.5
1.5
1.5
1.25
2
1.25
2
1.75
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
2
1.5
1.5
1.75
1.5
1.5
2
1.25
1
0.5
2.25
1.5
1.25
1
1.5
1.25
1.5
1.25
2.5
2
1.75
1.5
2
1.75
1.5
1
2
1.5
1.5
2
1.25
1.25
1
2
1.25
48.25
41.75
54
42.5
48.75
38.75
62
53
1.66
1.39
1.80
1.42
1.63
1.29
2.07
1.77
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
2
1.5
2.25
2
1.5
1.5
1.875
1.5
1.5
1.25
2
1.75
0.407933939
0.2515755
0.452007 0.3615897 0.4440701
0.347920753 0.365148
0.340722694
Table of Scores of Accuracy
EG
CG
POSTTEST
PRETEST
POST‐TEST
PRETEST
Students' STRUCTUREWORD USE GRAMMAR &MECHANICS TOTAL STRUCTURE WORD USE GRAMMAR &MECHANIC TOTAL STRUCTURE WORD USE GRAMMAR &MECHANICS
TOTAL STRUCTURWORD USEGRAMMAR &MECHANICS TOTAL
1
0.5
0.5
0.5
1.5
0.75
0.75
0.75
2.25
0.5
0.75
0.25
1.5
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
2
0.75
0.5
0.75
2
0.75
1
0.5
2.25
0.5
0.5
0.5
1.5
0.75
0.5
0.25
1.5
3
1
0.75
0.75
2.5
1
0.75
1.5
3.25
0.25
0.5
0.25
1
0.25
0.25
0
0.5
4
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
1
0.75
1.25
3
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
0.75
1
0.75
2.5
5
0.25
0.5
0.25
1
0.5
0.75
0.5
1.75
1.25
1
0.5
2.5
1
0.75
0.25
2
6
0.75
0.75
1
2.5
1.25
1
1
3.25
1
0.5
1
2.5
1
0.75
0.5
2.5
7
0.75
1
0.5 2.25
1
0.75
0.5
2.25
0.5
0.5
0.5
2.5
1
0.75
1.25
3
8
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
0.5
1
1
2.5
1
1
1
3
1
0.75
1.25
3
9
0.5
1
1
2.5
0.75
0.5
1.25
2.5
0.5
0.5
0
1
0.25
0.5
0.25
1
10
0.75
1
0.75
2.5
0.75
0.75
1.5
3
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
0.75
1
0.25
2
11
1.25
0.75
1
3
1
0.75
0.75
2.5
1
0.5
0.5
2
1
0.5
1.5
3
12
0
0.5
0
0.5
0.5
0.25
0.75
1.5
0.75
0.75
1
2.5
1.25
0.75
1
3
0.75
0.25
1
2
0.5
0.75
1.25
2.5
1
1
1.5
3.5
13
0.75
0.5
0.75
2
14
1.5
1
0.75 3.25
1.25
0.75
0.75
2.75
0.75
0.75
0.75
2.5
0.5
0.5
1
2
15
1
0.75
1.25
3
1
1
1.75
3.75
0.75
0.75
1
2.5
0.5
0.75
0.75
2
16
0.25
0.75
0
1
0.5
0.75
0.5
1.75
0.5
0.75
0.75
2
0.75
1
0.75
2.5
17
1
0.5
1
2.5
1
0.75
1.25
3
0.75
0.75
1
2.5
0.5
0.75
1.25
2.5
18
1.25
1.25
0.75 3.25
1.25
1
1
3.25
0
0.25
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
0.5
1.5
19
1
1
1
3
1.25
0.75
1.5
3.5
1
0.5
0.75
2.25
0.5
0.75
0.25
1.5
20
1
0.75
1 2.75
1.25
1
1.25
3.25
0.5
0.75
0.75
2
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
21
0.75
1
1.25
3
0.5
0.75
0.5
1.75
1
0.75
1.25
3
1
1
1
3
22
1
0.75
0.75
2.5
1.25
1.5
0.75
3.25
0.5
0.75
1.25
2.5
0.75
0.75
1
2.5
23
0.75
0.5
1 2.25
1.25
0.75
0.75
2.75
0.25
0.5
0.25
1
0.75
0.75
0.5
2
24
1
1
1
3
1
1
1.5
3.5
0.25
0.5
0.5
1.25
0.5
0.5
1
2
25
1
0.75
1.5 3.25
1
0.75
1.25
3
1
0.5
0.5
2
0.75
1
1.25
3
26
0.75
1
1.25
3
1.25
0.75
1
3
1
1
1
3
0.5
0.75
1.25
2.5
27
0
0.5
0
0.5
0.25
0.75
0
1
0.25
0.75
0.5
1.5
1
0.75
1
2.75
28
1.25
0.75
0.25 2.25
1
0.75
1.25
3
0.25
0.5
0.25
1
0.5
0.75
0.25
1.5
29
1.25
1
1.25
3.5
1.25
0.75
1
3
0.5
1
1
2.5
1
1.25
0.75
3
30
0.5
0.75
0.75
2
1
0.5
0.75
2.25
0.75
1
0.75
2.5
0.5
1
0.5
2
70
APPENDIX 12: The Writing Topics for the Experimental Course
N
Topics
Describing your favorite fruit or an admirable person
Telling a story about an unforgettable trip you have had
Genre
Descriptive Essays
Narrative Essays
3
4
Giving instructions on how to cook an excellent fried egg
Making an argument: choose one
- Should governments spend more on improving roads and high ways, or
should governments spend more money on improving public
transportation (buses, trains, subways)? Why?
- If you could change one important thing about your hometown,what
would you change?
Process Essays
5
Stating a preference: choose one
- Some people prefer to live in a small town. Others prefer to live in a big
city. Which place would you prefer to live in?
1
2
-
6
7
Some people spend their entire lives in one place. Others move a number
of times throughout their lives, looking for a better job, house,
community, or even climate. Which do you prefer: staying in one place or
moving in search of another place?
Agreeing and Disagreeing: choose one
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the
best teachers.
- It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city.
Do you agree or disagree?
Choose one
-
In general, people are living longer now. Discuss the causes of this
phenomenon.
-
Neighbors are the people who live near us. In your opinion, what are the
qualities of a good neighbor?
Opinion Essays
Explanation Essays
APPENDIX 13: The Peer-Editing Checklist
CRITERIA
PEER EDITOR’S COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS or
CORRECTION
General
What do you like best about the essay?
Paragraph format
Is the format correct?
71
Organization and content
Introduction
1. Is there an impressive hook?
2. Does the background information
explain the introduced topic?
3. Is the thesis statement clear?
4. Is there a smooth movement one to
another part of the introduction?
Body paragraphs
5. Is it easy to catch the main idea of each
paragraph? Why / why not?
6. Are the supporting sentences are
organized in a logical order?
7. Do all the supporting sentences develop
or focus on the controlling idea?
8. Is there a clear connection from one
point to another and a smooth transition
between the sentences?
Concluding paragraph
9. Does the conclusion restate the main
idea or summarize the main points?
10. Does the conclusion lead to any more
thought beyond what has been
mentioned in the essay?
Sentence structure
Are there any unclear sentences?
Suggest the way to improve them
Grammar and Mechanics(spelling, punctuation, and capitalization)
Are there any errors in mechanics?
Identify and Correct them
APPENDIX 14: Teaching Diary
Class
What to do
meetings
1
Tell students the benefits of
editing activities and the
requirements of the activities.
Introduce students the plan of
the course and the editing
checklist.
Discuss on the formation of
groups and the working process.
Observing notes
2
Students wrote very slowly and they did
Remind students of Descriptive
They were happy to attend the class, but
show no trust in the success of the
course.
Some thought they could not edit.
Many said it would be very hard to do
the editing.
Remarks
Little hope for the
success
72
essays.
Model the editing process- only
1 essay
not work well in the groups due to
different ideas.
Most of students paid attention to the
way I did on their writing.
10 students could not realize the errors
of structures.
7 students kept asking me explaining my
corrections.
No one could give comments on the
content and text organization.
Students argued more in the groups, on
the ideas to include.
4 students could not finish the essays.
Finding the partners took 15 minutes.
5 students did not want to do it and I had
to ask them to.
Only 3 pairs worked seriously.
More signs of attention
Lack of structures- a big
hurdle
Vietnamese comments
on content and
organization is ok?
3
Remind of Narrative essays
Hesitance in exchanging
writingsÎfear of being
criticized? Arguments
mean activeness?
4
Supervise the groups’ report
and edition- 2 groups( 3&5)
2 writing were not good.
Edition was not taken seriously- just
some mistakes were found and most of
the comments were positive.
Students seemed to avoid commenting.
Fear of hurting friends or
Lack of knowledge?
Lots of errors of
grammar and
mechanicsÎcarelessness
5
Remind of Process essays
Supervise group and pair work
Time for outlining was 15 minutes less
than it had been.
Only 2 could not finish the essays on
time.
Majority of students worked with the old
partner, only 5 changed.
More discussions and arguments on the
corrected points.
More smooth
cooperation
More confident
More straightforward
6
Supervise the groups’ report
and edition- 2 groups( 1&4)
Effective use of mother
tongue
7
Remind of Opinion Essays:
Making arguments
Supervise group and pair work
Group 1 argued to defend their points.
12 students voiced.
The edition was done more carefully in
groups.
Students contributed much to improving
the content of the writing.
Group worked noisily, but cheerfully.
Group 1&5 had very good outlines.
All students finished the essays- they
liked the topic.
6 pair changed partners.
Some pairs sough helps from others.
Students showed to be interested in their
editing work.
8
Supervise the groups’ report
and edition- 3 groups( 5,2, 3)
All groups defended their essays.
Errors of simple grammar – tenses,
agreement, nouns,… and mechanics
reduced.
Nearly all students had ideas to
Letting students use the
role of a reader motives
them to speak up.
Good topic- a motivation
Structure- still a hurdle
73
contribute to the improvement of the
essay content.
Students seemed to like the revising
work.
9
Remind of Opinion Essays
Stating a preference
2 good outlines
3 students could not finish the essays.
All pairs were the same.
Topic out of students’
knowledgeÎdemotivate
them
10
Supervise the groups’ report
and edition- 2 groups( 1,4)
Most problems were of content –
choosing the ideas.
Majority joined the discussion on the
improvement of the groups’ essays.
7 students suggested good ideas to help
revise the ideas.
Error identification and correction in
sentences seemed to attract most
students.
Students’ feedback are
rich and valuable.
11
Remind of Opinion Essays
Agreeing & Disagreeing
1 very good outline, and 4 alright ones
All students finished their essays.
2 groups changed partners.
In 3 pairs there took place serious
arguments on the corrective feedback
and they had attracted the attention of
some members of other pairs.
More students sough helps from friends,
not me.
More trust in peer
feedback
12
Supervise the groups’ report
and edition- 2 groups( 5,3)
Two interesting essays
No defense
Very few errors of grammar and
structure.
No errors of mechanics
All errors were identified by the counter
groups, among which 6 needed my help
to be corrected.
error
awarenessÎcarelessness
doing much error
correctionÎeffectively
avoid errors
13
Remind of Opinion Essays
Making an explanation
5 alright outlines
4 pairs changed.
Only 5 students asked me for my
judgments on their suggested revision.
More trust in peer
feedback
14
Supervise the groups’ report
and edition- 2 groups( 5,3)
Good essays
A considerable reduction of errors
Quite direct and serious comments on
the contents
Good suggestions on revision
A positive change of
students’ writing ability
74