Students' perception on teacher's use of oral corrective feedback on speaking classes in Quy Nhon university = Nhận thức của học sinh về hình thức phản hồi lỗi của giáo viên trong lớp học nói tại trường Đại học Quy Nhơn

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI HOAI AN

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION

ON TEACHER’S USE OF ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

IN SPEAKING CLASSES IN QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 8140111

Supervisor: o P of D Ng ễn Thị Th Hiền

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN THỊ HOÀI AN

NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH

VỀ HÌNH THỨC PHẢN HỒI LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN

TRONG LỚP HỌC NÓI

TẠI TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

Chuyên ngành: Lý Luận và Phƣơng Pháp dạy học bộ môn Tiếng Anh

Mã số: 8140111

Ngƣời hƣớng dẫn PGS TS Ng ễn Thị Th Hiền

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON

TEACHER’S USE OF ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN

SPEAKING CLASSES IN QUY NHON UNIVERSITY” is the result of

my research for the Degree of Master of Art. This thesis has not been

submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution. To the

best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or

written by other people except where the references are made in the thesis

itself.

Author’s signature

Nguyễn Thị Hoài An

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study would not have taken its final shape without significant

support and efforts from many people who worked diligently to assist me,

believed in me and encouraged me to pursue the final goal. I would like to

take this opportunity to acknowledge my sincere gratitude to all those

concerned.

My wholehearted appreciation goes to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Nguyen Thi Thu Hien for her patience, invaluable guidance, support and

sincere advice throughout the years of academic work. Her thorough and

immediate feedback, profound insights, professional support, dedication and

devotion have given me admiration and motivation to complete my research.

I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to teachers, lecturers

and professors of Quy Nhon University for patiently and wholeheartedly

providing me with precious knowledge and guiding me through the process

required to complete my program of study.

I also gratefully acknowledge participant teachers and students at Quy

Nhon university for their helpful contribution and co-operation in this study.

A special mention goes to my best friends and colleagues whose

understanding, sympathy, and support were invaluable spiritual strength for

me during the process of completing this work.

Last but not least, I owe a great debt to my parents who give me advice,

unconditional love and support that have providing me with encouragement to

further my learning and fulfil my dual responsibility throughout my walks of

life.

iii

ABSTRACT

Oral corrective feedback (OCF) which is one of the central themes in

second language (L2) pedagogy and research in applied linguistics and L2

acquisition has received growing interest for the past two decades. However,

little research has been done with respect to students’ perception and teachers’

practice of providing OCF in the context of English as a Foreign Language

(EFL) teaching and learning in Vietnam. The current study extends this line

of research by investigating the tertiary Vietnamese EFL students’ perception

concerning the importance, types, timing and target of OCF and exploring

how the teachers practice giving OCF in speaking classes. The data consisted

of questionnaires with 127 students, interviews with 15 of those who

completed the questionnaires, and 17 classroom observations of 3 EFL

teachers at a university in Vietnam. The findings disclosed that students

endorsed the benefit of OCF and desire to be corrected when making errors.

Regarding feedback timing, the students preferred feedback delayed until they

finish speaking. In addition, frequency and seriousness are two factors that

need to be considered to decide which error should be treated. Explicit

feedback was the most favored technique, while paralinguistic was not highly

valued. With regard to teachers’ practice, explicit feedback was also the most

frequently used, followed by recast. Hopefully, the findings of the study have

provided an insightful understanding of how OCF is perceived by students

and teachers’ actual practices in the tertiary settings in Vietnam. From these

empirical findings, relevant implications are suggested for better OCF

provision to improve students’ speaking skill.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ...................................................................i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................................ii

ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................vi

LIST OF TABLES ..........................................................................................vii

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1

1.2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ................................................................... 3

1.2.1. Aims................................................................................................ 3

1.2.2. Objectives........................................................................................ 3

1.3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS.................................................................... 3

1.4. SCOPE OF THE STUDY...................................................................... 4

1.5. METHOD OF THE STUDY ...............Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY....................................................... 4

1.7. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.................................................... 4

CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 6

2.1. STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION................................................................. 6

2.2. LANGUAGE ERRORS......................................................................... 7

2.3. OVERVIEW OF ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK........................ 9

2.3.1. Definition of feedback .................................................................... 9

2.3.2. Oral corrective feedback ............................................................... 10

2.4. PREVIOUS STUDIES RELEVANT TO THE PRESENT STUDY .. 19

2.4.1. Studies on teachers’ practice of oral corrective feedback ............ 19

2.4.2. Studies on students’ perception of oral corrective feedback ........ 21

2.5. CHAPTER SUMMARY...................................................................... 25

v

CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 27

3.1. RESEARCH DESIGN ......................................................................... 27

3.2. RESEARCH SETTING ....................................................................... 28

3.3. RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS ........................................................... 29

3.4. RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS............................................................ 30

3.4.1. Observation ................................................................................... 31

3.4.2. Questionnaire ................................................................................ 32

3.4.3. Semi-structured interview............................................................. 33

3.5. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE................................................ 34

3.6. DATA ANALYSIS PROCEDURE..................................................... 36

3.7. RESEARCH RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY................................. 37

3.8. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS......................................................... 37

3.9. CHAPTER SUMMARY...................................................................... 38

CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................ 39

4.1. FINDINGS ........................................................................................... 39

4.1.1. Teachers’ uses of oral corrective feedback................................... 39

4.1.2. Students’ perception of oral corrective feedback ......................... 44

4.2. DISCUSSION ...................................................................................... 60

4.2.1. Teachers’ uses of oral corrective feedback................................... 60

4.2.2. Students’ perception of oral corrective feedback ......................... 63

4.3. SUMMARY......................................................................................... 67

CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION........................................................................ 68

5.1. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS ...................................................... 68

5.2.PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND

LEARNING PROCESS.............................................................................. 70

5.3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY....................................................... 70

5.4. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER WORK............................ 71

REFERENCES................................................................................................ 73

APPENDICES

vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CF Corrective Feedback

EFL English as a Foreign Language

L2 Second Language

OCF Oral Corrective Feedback

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Classifications of OCF ( Ranta and Lyster, 2007)......................... 14

Table 2.2. A taxonomy of OCF strategies (Sheen and Ellis, 2001, p. 594).... 18

Table 4.1. Number of observed OCF moves .................................................. 40

Table 4.2. Frequency of OCF types................................................................ 40

Table 4.3. Students’ perception of the role of OCF........................................ 45

Table 4.4. Students’ preferences for OCF timing ........................................... 48

Table 4.5. Preferences for the Frequency of Correction for Different Types of

Spoken Errors.................................................................................... 52

Table 4.6. Students’ preferences for types of OCF........................................ 54

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The present chapter provides the rationale of the study and describes

the major components of the thesis. At the beginning, the main reasons for

conducting the study are presented. The aims of the thesis then are stated, and

clarified by the research questions. The chapter also discusses the scope and

significance of the current study. It ends with a description of the organization

of the thesis.

1.1. RATIONALE

It is undeniable that speaking is a fundamental skill that needs to be

mastered for effective communication when studying a foreign language.

However, the ability of speaking fluently is not a gift that everyone was born

with. In fact, it is sharpened through the long process of instruction and

practice in which committing errors is a common and unavoidable part. The

past few decades have witnessed a polarization of thought in respect of

learners' errors. Some scholars and researchers regard errors as something

negative that need to be eradicated at any cost. For example, Touchie (1986)

considers errors committed by students to be “something undesirable which

they diligently sought to prevent from occurring” (p.75). In contrast, some

hold a positive attitude toward learners’ errors. According to Yule (2010), an

error is “not something which hinders a learner's progress, but is probably a

clue to the active learning progress behind made by a learner as he or she

tries out ways of communicating in the new language”(p. 191). By the same

token, Corder (1967) asserted that the errors committed by the language

learners are of great importance because “they provide to the researcher

evidence of how language is learned or acquired, what strategies or

2

procedures the learner is employing in the discovery of the language” (as

cited in Phuket and Othman, 2015, p. 1).

Alongside the considerable attention paid to errors, there has been a wave

of research interest surrounding the provision of corrective feedback (CF) in

classrooms. The last twenty years have observed an increasing number of

findings which support the effectiveness of CF. For example, scholars such as

Brooks, Schraw, and Crippen (2005) and Manson and Bruning (2000) hold the

view that feedback plays a beneficial role in L2 learner’s linguistic development.

Yet despite the widely accepted importance of CF and its vital part in EFL

learning, it is suggested that the effectiveness of CF in language learning is

influenced by an essential variable which is teachers and students’ perception

(Chen et al., 2016; Evans et al., 2010). As proposed by Chen et al. (2016), there

are two possible reasons why the perception of teachers and learners become an

important factor influencing CF's role. First, discrepancies in how students and

teachers perceive this strategy may hamper learning effectiveness. On the other

hand, students’ positive attitudes regarding teachers’ CF practice can advise

teachers about “instructional best practices” (Chen et al., 2016, p. 2). In addition,

many language teachers and researchers agree on the fact that mismatch between

student evaluations of instructional effectiveness and teachers’ perception may

debilitate learning (Green, 1993; Mc Cargar, 1993, Schulz, 2001). Accordingly,

it seems worthwhile to have an investigation into students’ perception

concerning teachers’ practice of giving CF. Such investigation can help teachers

realize to what extent their practice matches students’ preference, which, in turn,

enhances the efficacy of their CF provision. While the research on students'

beliefs about CF in EFL contexts has gained prominence in foreign countries

(Oladejo, 1993; Plonsky & Mills, 2006; Brown, 2009; Jean and Simard, 2011;

Kaivanpanah, Alavi, & Sepehrinia, 2015), there is a paucity of research on this

topic in Vietnam (Huong, 2020; Ha et al, 2021).