Literature Review
Literature Review
Literature Review
Students
Abstract
Written corrective feedback (WCF) has long been considered
effective in improving students’ writing accuracy. However, it is still
uncommon in writing classes in secondary schools in Hong Kong (Lee,
2011, 2013). In this study, a Planning, Experimentation and Reflection
(PER) model of change was adopted to investigate the individual
responses to the focused feedback and the peer feedback as well
as the individual factors affecting their responses. Findings of the
study show that the numbers of mistakes students had made reduced
while the numbers of errors corrected increased. More able students
were also able to mark their peers’ writing. It was found that language
abilities might be a factor affecting students’ uptake of WCF.
Introduction
Two types of WCF namely selective marking and peer feedback,
have long been promoted in the Curriculum Guide since 1999 (CDC,
1999) and believed to be effective in improving students’ writing
accuracy. However, they are still uncommon in writing classes in
secondary schools in Hong Kong (Lee, 2011, 2013). Teachers usually
have to mark all aspects of students’ writing and students sometimes
find it uneasy to make improvements in all these aspects. In fact, a lot
of research has revealed that selective marking and peer feedback are
more effective than their traditional counterparts (which are unfocused
marking and teacher feedback) in improving students’ accuracy as
well as their long-term language development in the western contexts
and even the local context (Ferris, 1999, 2006; Lee, 2005, 2013).
Focused marking may help learners pay attention to fewer types
of error so that they can understand the errors more (Ellis et al.,
2008). Peer feedback can let students understand more about their
strengths and weaknesses (CDC, 2002). Overall, it is worth trying out
these WCF in the secondary writing class. This study aims at helping
students improve their writing accuracy through the use of these WCF.
In this study, a Planning, Experimentation and Reflection (PER) model
of change was adopted to investigate the individual responses to the
focused feedback and the peer feedback as well as the individual
factors affecting their responses.
Literature Review
Theoretical Perspectives of Written Corrective Feedback
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WCF can be categorised into three types. The first type is about
who should give feedback, i.e. teacher feedback or peer feedback.
The second type is related to how to give feedback, i.e. indirect
feedback or direct feedback. The third type is about the extent to
which feedback is given, i.e. focused feedback or unfocused feedback
as well as treatable or untreatable errors. Teacher feedback means
that teachers are responsible for providing WCF to students in L2
writing classes while peer feedback refers to the comments provided
by learners’ peers. Direct WCF is defined as that “provides some form
of explicit correction of linguistic form or structure above or near the
linguistic error. It may consist of the crossing out of an unnecessary
Methodology
Background of the Study
Research Questions
The study aims to investigate the following questions,
1. How do Form 1 students respond to focused marking and peer
feedback and how do the two types of WCF affect students’ writing
accuracy?
2. What are the individual factors affecting students’ responses of
these feedback?
Research Design
The three-stage PER model of change was adopted in this
study (Taylor et al., 2005). During the planning stage, the aim was to
identify goals and design strategies for improving students’ writing
accuracy. Students were expected to use the target grammar items
to write personal letters and descriptive texts. The experimentation
stage consisted of implementation, observation and evaluation. The
use of WCF strategies and target grammar items was emphasized
during the pre-writing lessons while students were asked to finish their
work during the writing lesson. They were required to revise their texts
within the class time during the post-writing lesson. The reflection
stage was about reviewing the actions and planning for future actions
by asking students to respond to a questionnaire and conducting
semi-structural interviews with them. According to Law et al. (2010),
there were advantages of using the PER model in action research. By
using a problem-solving and critical approach in learning and teaching,
changes in pedagogy, which become an open venture, can be located
and shared. It is expected that focused WCF and/or peer WCF can
become part of the regular curriculum in our junior form English
Language classes after this study.
Planning
Data were collected with two tense tests, four texts with focused
marking and revisions, bilingual student questionnaires as well as
semi-structural interviews. A pre-tense test and a post-tense test were
used to see if there was any improvement in the acquisition of the
target linguistic items (see Appendix 1). The four writing cycles were
all videotaped and conducted in timed settings. Two writing cycles
focused on the present tense (pre-present tense assessment and post-
present tense assessment) while the other two focused on the past
tense (pre-past tense assessment and post-past tense assessment).
Four writing topics with which students were familiar were used as
prompts for students to write up to the word limit (150 words). As the
simple present tense and the simple past tense are the key grammar
items in the Form one English Language Curriculum and the major
verb forms used in different text types, they would be set as the target
grammar items in all the writing cycles. Indirect feedback was given
since tenses were the linguistic items that occurred in a systemic way
and students were able to use the set of rules to handle their tense
errors. Only the errors relating to the main verb would be marked
as students were used to making grammatical mistakes relating to
sentence structures and other grammatical rules which made their
writing difficult to understand. In addition, the main researcher would
use direct WCF to correct a few of their major errors to make their
writing comprehensible.
Each cycle consisted of three steps. The first step was to explain
the target grammar items explicitly. Students were given a focused
marking sample and the main researcher explained what focused
marking was and how they could correct the underlined errors
(Appendix 2). They were asked to write the topic in about 30 minutes
(Appendix 3) with relevant key words given as an aid. The researcher
then underlined their errors selectively. The second step was to ask
students to revise their texts within 20 minutes. They had to correct
the underlined errors by themselves. The third step was to ask them
to fill out a questionnaire to express how far they could understand the
focus of the tasks, the type of teacher feedback they preferred and
their views on the focused WCF (see Appendix 4). The third writing
cycle, which was about peer assessment, had a different second
step. The main researcher allocated copies of students’ writings to
their classmates and asked them to underline the errors regarding
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the past tense in the main verbs. Students then corrected their errors
based on their peers’ marking and their own judgment. Later on, the
main researcher marked the photocopies of the writing and asked
students to correct their own work once more. The two sets of text
plus revisions were compared. Students had to fill out a questionnaire
about how far they could understand the focus of the tasks, what they
could learn from their peer assessment, and what they could learn
from assessing their peers’ writing (see Appendix 5). At the end of
the four writing cycles, six students participated in the semi-structural
interviews (Appendix 6) about how far they had understood focused
WCF and peer feedback when compared with the normal marking
practice of the teacher and how they felt about these. A post-tense test
was administered after the study to investigate their performances of
using the present tense and past tense (Appendix 7).
Experimentation
A pre-tense test was given to students before the start of the
project to assess their ability to use the correct verb forms. The results
showed that students’ performance in using the simple present tense
was more stable while that in using the simple past tense varied.
Also, their pre-tense test results generally aligned with their First Term
English Language Examination results, except for Peter and Lucy (see
Table 2).
No. of errors
Name No. of words No. of mistakes % corrected
corrected
Mary 99 4 2 50%
Ann 104 4 1 25%
Peter 146 6 5 83%
Lucy 94 4 0 0%
Paul 113 6 6 100%
Kate 53 7 5 71%
Data from the first questionnaire revealed that all students except
Kate realised the focus of the task was on present tense. The majority
of them wanted the English teacher to highlight some of their errors.
Only Lucy preferred comprehensive marking. All of them believed that
selective marking was useful because they knew their errors about the
present tense.
The second writing cycle focused on the simple past tense the
task required asking students to write a descriptive text of a trip to
Ocean Park in 150 words. After delivering the past tense lesson,
students were given some key words about the park to prompt them
to write more (e.g. names of the places). Three of them could reach
the word limit. The number of mistakes regarding the past tense
ranged from one to six. Mary and Ann, who were more able students,
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corrected nearly all the past tense errors and realized that they
needed to use the past tense. However, Mary made mistakes in the
verb forms (i.e. spelling) whereas Ann failed to locate the main verbs.
Kate was willing to do the corrections but could not correct most of her
errors (see Table 4).
No. of errors
Name No. of words No. of mistakes % corrected
corrected
Mary 152 6 5 83%
Ann 130 5 5 100%
Peter 143 2 1 50%
Lucy 75 5 1 20%
Paul 97 1 1 100%
Kate 65 6 1 17%
The third writing cycle was about peer assessment (the past
tense). Students were asked to write a personal letter about teenage
problems using. The main researcher then distributed their writings
and to their peers based on their abilities. Two pieces of writing were
marked by more able students. Two were marked by average students
while the other two were marked by less able students. As the topic
was something new, none of them were able to write up to 150
words. Results indicated that average and more able peers tended
to identify and correct more corrected mistakes while the less able
students failed to locate them. Also, the percentages of the number
of errors corrected based on teacher assessment were higher than
those based on peer assessment. From the perspective of post-past
tense assessment, the percentages of errors corrected were obviously
higher than that in pre-past tense assessment, especially for the
weaker ones namely Peter, Lucy and Kate (Table 5).
No. of errors
Name No. of words No. of mistakes % corrected
corrected
Mary 141 5 4 80%
Ann 103 2 2 100%
Peter 81 4 4 100%
Lucy 85 6 0 0%
Paul 60 2 2 100%
Kate 70 6 4 67%
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Reflections
Despite the growth of WCF research studies showing its
effectiveness, the adoption of WCF strategies in Hong Kong is still
under-investigated. The present study provides empirical evidence
on how students responded to the focused and peer feedback and
how WCF strategies affected their writing accuracy. The majority of
students responded to focused WCF on the present tense positively.
They understood the focus of the task and claimed that they liked
focused marking. When the pre-present tense assessment was
compared with the post-present tense assessment, students showed
improvements in reducing the numbers of mistakes made and also
increasing the numbers of errors corrected. Students,except Kate and
Lucy, performed obviously better in the post-tense test than the pre-
tense test. Kate was a very weak student and tended to misunderstand
the focus of the task. Lucy, who was weak in writing, failed to benefit
from focused WCF in terms of accuracy. She still made a lot of present
tense mistakes in her writing and could not correct them. However,
she had shown some improvements in tense tests.
that their peers might not be able to mark their errors. Their worry was
in line with Harmer’ findings (2004) that peers had to be trained in
order to provide useful feedback. Nevertheless, most of the students
claimed that peer assessment was useful because it could help them
check their writing one more time.
There are some limitations in the present study. All the writing
tasks in this study were low-stakes. Students knew that these were
for research purpose only so they became less and less motivated
towards the end of the study. They were not very willing to respond
to the indirect WCF because it required problem-solving and was
different from their feedback they received in regular lessons. In terms
of research design, the levels of difficulty of the two tense tests were
different and so it might slightly affect the reliability of the study. Due
to time-frame limitations, peer assessment and the post-past tense
assessment needed to be done in one writing cycle. Training can be
provided to students on how to use selective mark before the study.
Conclusion
This study has adopted a PER model of change to examine
students’ responses to the focused and peer WCF and the individual
factors affecting the responses. Students found focused WCF useful in
helping them acquiring the present and past tenses. The weaker ones
had also benefitted from focused and indirect feedback as they could
focus on a few errors and use the grammar rules to handle errors. The
more able students could mark their peers’ writing selectively, but the
weaker students did not believe in their peers’ feedback. Learners’
language abilities and students’ beliefs might be the factors affecting
the uptake of WCF. It is obvious that students overall responded to the
focused WCF and peer assessment positively.
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References
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The old man 18. ________________(smile) and said, ‘Yes, you 19.
_____________(be) right. You can draw an egg quickly, but it 20.
__________________(take) you many years to draw on very well.’
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She like sports and she always get good marks in exam. She likes tell
jokes. We think she is always funny.
She is sporty. She hobby are dancing. She in many place join dance
club. She joins many competitions and was won many prizes. She
teach me how to dance.
play ( )
She have other hobby. She like play guitar. Every Sunday, I shows the
guitar with her.
3. Do you think selective marking (e.g. only marking the tense in your
compositions) can help you learn tense better? Why or why not?
你認為選擇性改修改文章 ( 例如只修改文章中的時態 ) 能幫你學習時
態學得更好嗎?為什麼?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
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2. Do you think you can learn tense better through peer assessment
(e.g. helping your classmates mark their writing) Why or why not?
透過學生互評 ( 例如幫助同學改文 ),你認為你能從中學習時態學得
更好嗎?為什麼?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
3. Do you think you can learn tense better from your classmates’
feedback (e.g. letting your classmates mark your writing) Why or
why not?
你認為你是否能從同學的反饋中 ( 例如讓同學改你的文章 ) 能幫你學
習時態學得更好嗎?為什麼?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
1. 你知道選擇性修改文章和綜合性修改文章 ( 即平時老師的改文方式 )
的分別嗎 ?
2. 就第一篇作文而言,這是一篇個人檔案,要形容一個人,你知道要用
什麼時態嗎 ?
3. 你知道為什麼要把某些字劃下橫線嗎 ?
4. 你認為這種方法能提點你用正確的時態嗎 ?
5. 就第二篇作文而言,這是一篇記叙文,你知道要用什麼時態嗎 ?
6. 就第三篇作文而言,你認為如果同學先幫你修改文章,你能更容易發
現自己的錯誤嗎 ?
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Complete each blank using the correct form of the given verb. The first
one has been done for you as an example.
Sasha’s Blog
I (e.g.) am (be) really nervous about the more difficult work for this
year. I (1)_____________________(not do) very well last year, but I
(2)_________________(hope) I can (3)______________________
(do) better this year.
(Item 10 is excluded)