Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Motivation for the Study
Byrne states that writing transforms our thoughts intolanguage. He also points out that writing is complex, thus it requires writers’ physicaland mental activity. Since the Process Writing theory appeared, some scholars andteachers realize that writing is a complex process and it contains five stages basically.Respond is one of them, and it is of great importance. While giving response, theadoption of teacher feedback or peer feedback is very vital. Thus, they begin to payattention to writing feedback and regarded it as a useful tool of improving students’writing ability. And then, many studies on writing feedback have been conducted overthe past years.However, there still exist some problems. Firstly, most of the studies are onteacher written feedback. Secondly, there are only a few studies on peer feedback,especially in Chinese EFL research field. Thirdly, the distinction of these twofeedback forms on improving students’ writing ability is not discussed verysystematically and clearly. Lastly, most of the studies on writing feedback are aboutcollege students or university students. From these studies, a freak phenomenoncomes out: Most students rely on teacher feedback and regard it as something withabsolutely authority, they do not chose to believe in peer feedback or even to givepeer feedback. Thus, students lost the choice of cooperative learning which will begained by giving peer feedback. Some scholars deny peer feedback because they thinkit does not suitable for middle school students without any experiment. They state thatpeer feedback cannot improve students’ writing skills, and then give up adopting itwhen teaching writing. Perhaps peer feedback does not have the effect of improvingmiddle school students’ writing ability remarkably, but it can arouse students’ writingmotivation and interest, also promote cooperative learning.
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1.2 Significances of the Research
As writing is one of the four language skills and it is an important way to showEnglish language learners’ language ability. Improving students’ writing ability isnecessary. When considering writing as a process, writing feedback is one of the basicwriting steps. Only when both teachers and students use feedback appropriately, canstudents finish their writing successfully. Although there are several types of writingfeedback, teacher feedback and peer feedback are the most usual ways, and there is arelationship between them.From the theoretical perspective, this research is devoted to elaborating on thecurrent situation of the usability of teachers’ writing feedback on middle schoolstudents’ English writing and analyzing it from students’ perspectives. Although therequirements for high school students writing ability are seemingly easy, a lot ofjunior students find it hard to reach the standard. Through the study of English writingfeedback given by teacher and peers, this thesis will tell how these two kinds ofwriting feedback help students to improve their writing ability.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
As the Process Writing Approach appeared and adopted widely in the 1970s,feedback giving receives more and more attention as one of the revising tools. It is anecessary element in writing process (Keh, 1990). In writing process, feedback refersthat reader supports writer with suggestions when revising. Many scholars have donehuge studies about writing feedback from different aspects. They do studies from theperspective of feedback itself: the content of it, the form of it, and the effectiveness ofit; they do studies from the perspective of feedback supporter: teachers, peers; theyalso do studies from the perspective of students: students’ attitudes towards feedback,students action on received feedback. This chapter will discuss how these scholarsdoing studies on writing feedback.
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2.2 Studies about Teacher Feedback
Some scholars did researches about the essence of it (Connors & Lunsford 1993;Feeris 1997; Zamel 1985), the effectiveness of feedback forms (Ferris & Roberts2001; Kepner 1991), influences of error correction. Some others made comparativestudies. They compared teacher feedback with converse feedback (Beason 1993,Chaudron 1984), teacher feedback with peer feedback mostly. Still, others madestudies by finding teachers’ reaction and action towards students’ errors in writing andstudents’ attitudes towards feedback. When considering students’ errors, teachers hadbetter mark them. Cardelle and Corn (1981) thought that marking errors will makethem outstanding which attracts students’ attention and make reactions positively, thus,it makes students be aware of the material which is not be grasped totally. In the studyof Robb, Ross and Shortreed in 1986, the study about the influence of marking errorson revised version had stated that marking errors is good to some degree. They notedthat writer can only accept and use a part of error-correction feedback which has adirect relationship with their second language ability. Fathman and Whalley (1990)also agreed that marking the place of errors helps students to correct errors form.After several scholars’ consistent studies on error-correction feedback, they madesuch a conclusion: Marking errors which is on the equal level with students’ presentlanguage level will be useful, but marking errors which is above students’ presentlanguage level will be less useful, sometimes be useless. This conclusion has beenproved in coming studies. The acquisition of Language goes through several stagesand students should suffer all these stages one by one without surpassing (Krashen &Terrell, 1983; Pienemann, 1989).
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Framework .......... 10
3.1 Introduction....... 10
3.2 Theories..... 10
3.3 Using of Related Theory in this Study ...... 16
3.3.1 The Connection of Process Writing with this Study....... 16
3.3.2 Connection of Cooperative Learning with this Study .... 16
3.3.3 Connection of Writing Feedback with this Study........... 17
Chapter 4 Research Design ..... 19
4.1 Objectives ......... 19
4.2 Subjects ..... 19
4.3 Instruments........ 20
4.4 Procedures......... 21
4.4.1 Preparation of Writing Experiment ........ 21
4.4.2 Procedure of Each Writing Practice ....... 21
4.4.3 Procedure of the Whole Writing Practice....... 22
4.5 Data Collection ......... 23
Chapter 5 Data Analysis and Discussion ........ 24
5.1 Introduction....... 24
5.2 Data Analysis .... 24
5.3 Discussion ......... 35
Chapter 5 Data Analysis and Discussion
5.1 Introduction
This chapter consists of two parts. First, it is going to analyze the data of threeaspects: questionnaires, interview and writing exercises. After analyzing the data, it isgoing to do discussion. In discussion part, there are answers to research questions,effect of peer feedback with teacher feedback, effect of combining written forms withoral forms when giving peer feedback, constraints of peer feedback with teacherfeedback. The research lasted 3 months and it was implemented carefully and smoothly.During it, the researcher adopted two questionnaires, an interview and five writingpractices in order to testify whether peer feedback with teacher feedback can stimulatestudents’ writing interest, motivation and help students arouse the awareness ofcooperative learning and thus form the habit of it. In this chapter, the results ofquestionnaire, interview and writing practices will be introduced one by one firstlyand then be analyzed.
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Conclusion
Writing feedback giving is a necessary procedure of process writing and also animportant one. In traditional L2 writing class, teacher feedback is the most popularfeedback form. Teacher used to give students feedback on their compositions afterclass, and the feedback is always in written feedback. Although this kind of feedbackhelps students revising composition indeed and domains the field of writing feedbackfor many years, many other feedback forms appears as supplement. Peer feedbackappeared in 1980s and has gained much attention. More and more teachers tend toadopt peer feedback to discover students’ initial ability. With regard to theparticularity of subjects, the researcher combines peer feedback with teacher feedback,but peer feedback is the main one. By doing this research, the researcher wants to findwhether peer feedback can arouse students’ writing interest and how do peer feedbackinfluence students’ writing.
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Reference (omitted)