Student Response to Teacher Feedback on Multiple-draft Compositions in Esl Classroom Shamshad Begham Othman1 and Faizah Mohamad

8/12/2019 Student Response to Teacher Feedback on Multiple-draft Compositions in Esl Classroom Shamshad Begham Othm

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INTRODUCTION

The problem in using the target language to express their ideas in writing is common among

ESL writers. Sometimes students have the ideas for their essays but owing to a lack of

proficiency in the language, they cannot produce content that is convincing. On the other

hand, there are students whose language is quite satisfactory but they lack ideas and the resultis that their essays do not have a positive effect on the readers So teachers feedback that

focuses on form and content should be given to the students so that their writing can be

improved. They are then able to substantially present the content using linguistically well-

formed structures. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of incorporating feedback in the revision

process can only be achieved when there is cooperation between the teacher in giving

feedback and the ESL writers in revising their essays. There is a need for both parties to

understand the feedback giving and receiving situation so that students can produce good

quality writing. Dheram (1995) says that teachers should assume the role of a consultant who

facilitates learners each revision process in order for these learners to create better texts and

learners on their part, should not treat the first draft as the final product but they have to

revise again and again so that they know how to write better. Dheram like other researchers

and practitioners, agrees that teachers should focus on content in giving their feedback ratherthan on form. He stresses that even though there is a need to shift the focus from language

use to content, teachers and learners must also arrive at a consensus on the function and

nature of teachers commentary so that students are able to incorporate these comments in

their revision process. This means that if teachers are aware of learners needs in revising

their work and at the same time learners are able to understand their teachers comments,

incorporating feedback in the revision process will prove successful. Cohen and Cavalcanti

(1990) as cited in Dheram (1995) suggest that teachers and learners should agree on the areas

to be commented upon because they note that there is a mismatch between what both parties

thought about the aspects of writing emphasized in feedback.

How students incorporate feedback when revising their work can be found in a study done by

Hedgcock and Lefkowitz (1996). In the second part of their study, 21 participants were drawn

from the sample of participants who contributed to study A. These participants were

interviewed to see how they used teachers feedback in their L2 composing. In this study,

they found that learners tried to rewrite their writing in response to teachers marks and

comments to eliminate ungrammaticality at the word and sentence level where in actual fact

they were aware that their teachers wanted them to add examples or elaborate on certain

points in their writing. The findings in this study suggested that ESL writers usually associate

revision processes with correcting their errors. Porte (1997: 61) contends that, Unskilled

writers have been seen to revise from a narrow outlook and make changes addressing the

surface grammatical structure of compositions, usually at the level of the word, rather than

deeper issues of content and organization.

The findings also showed that students found it difficult to interpret feedback and it became a

source of frustration on their part in not knowing precisely what their teachers expected them

to do with correction symbols and comments. Researchers (Ferris, 1995; Frantzen and Rissel,

1987; Leki, 1991 [cited in Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1996]) stress that in situations where

revision is the major component of the pedagogy, learners may remain uncertain about what

to do with experts response and how to incorporate it into their own revision process. The

situation whereby learners are unable to understand and use teachers feedback in their

revisions is bound to exist in a second language writing pedagogy classroom. Researchers


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(Zamel, 1983; Cohen, 1987; Raimes, 1987 [cited in Paulus, 1999]) attribute this problem in

part to writing teachers who focus primarily on form without addressing the actual ideas and

meaning conveyed in the text. In addition, other researchers (Leki, 1990; Susser, 1994; Reid,

1994; Winer, 1992 [cited in Paulus, 1999]) say that the problem is further highlighted when

writing teachers themselves are often uncertain of the best way to provide feedback to their

students. Thus it can be seen that students expectations of the types of teacher feedback mustbe in congruent with the types of feedback actually given by writing teachers. If this situation

can be made to exist in ESL classrooms, then learners are able to notice, understand and

utilize experts feedback in their writing and revision strategies.

Ferris (1995) also examines how students process feedback when revising their work. In her

study, the participants reported that in order to help them in responding to the feedback on

their essays, they got the help from instructors, tutors, friends, grammar books, and

dictionaries. They got the help from these outside sources in their early drafts. As for the final

drafts, most of these students tried to make the correction themselves and if they do not

understand the comments, they took the step of not responding to the feedback. Their way of

ignoring some of the feedback might be due to the fact that they do not need to rewrite the

final drafts. However, highly motivated students appreciate feedback on final drafts becausethey could use the comments to improve future essays.

Ferris also found out that most of the students reported that they did not have difficulty in

understanding teachers commentaries and this contradicted the findings of Hedgcock and

Lefkowitz (1996) which revealed that students found it difficult to interpret their teachers

feedback and they were frustrated because they did not know how to respond to the

correction symbols and comments found in their multiple-draft essays. However, few

students in Ferris study reported having problems in teachers feedback focusing on the

illegibility of teachers handwriting, problems related with grammar corrections and symbols

used to indicate grammatical errors as well as the way teachers posing questions about

content in their essays. The questions about content were too general and sometimes too

specific which resulted in students confusion in handling the feedback. In her study, we do

not know the feedback giving sequence used by the teacher, that is, whether the teacher

applied content-focused feedback first then followed by form-focused feedback on later

drafts or whether she applied both types of feedback simultaneously on all the drafts. If she

had both types of feedback on the drafts, students would find it difficult to respond to the

comments because Zamel (1985) as cited in Kepner (1991: 306) suggests that, Written

response which combines error corrections and positive comments regarding content or

organization can only be confusing and contradictory, as students are not likely to know

which type of response deserves higher priority.

Conrad and Goldstein (1999) also did a study on the issue of how learners incorporated

feedback in their essay drafts. The subjects were students taking an advanced ESLcomposition course at a large urban university in the United States and they were involved in

multiple-draft essays. The three students involved in this study had equivalent writing

proficiency and minor surface-level problems in their writing. The data collected were drafts

of student papers, written comments made by the teacher and transcripts of conferences

between teacher and student.


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The findings in this study showed that students were able to revise successfully in response to

feedback when they were asked to add examples, facts or details but few students were able

to utilize teacher commentary successfully, when they had to be more explicit in their

arguments or when they had to explain or analyze the issue that was raised in their papers.

We can see that students in this study were not able to incorporate all their teachers feedback

in their revision even though they were quite proficient in their writing. They were assumedto be quite proficient in their writing based on the fact that they made less grammatical errors.

Conrad and Goldstein (1999) suggest that the reasons for not being successful in

incorporating all the feedback were due to factors such as misinterpretation of teachers

comments, lack of content knowledge, effect of strongly-held beliefs, influence of classroom

instruction, level of self-motivation and pressure of other commitments. They were able to

derive the reasons from teacher-student conferences because through these conferences,

students were able to express what they thought of their teachers commentary and also how

they revised their essays.

Thus we can see that even though Dheram (1995) says that teachers and learners need to

come to a mutual agreement on the nature and function of feedback in order to secure

successful feedback utilization in students revision process, the above findings revealed thatteachers are now facing a challenging task in giving feedback. This is because teachers do not

only have to think of their students preference of the types of feedback but they also have to

take into consideration factors that affect students mentality, feelings, and attitude. Due to

these reasons, Conrad and Goldstein (1999: 173) conclude their findings by saying that,

Although we believe teachers should always critically assess their feedback, students

consistent lack of success of making certain kinds of revisions might not be a sign or failure

on the part of either the teacher or the student but it may be a signal to adopt a different

instructional strategy. The result of this study showed that for learners to incorporate

teachers commentary in their writing is not that easy because many factors will come into

play. Their interpretation of teachers feedback will always clash with their own experience,

amount of content knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes. All these factors will create stumbling

blocks to their success in employing their revision strategies in producing better quality

essays that can impress writing instructors. A study by Lee (2008) on the reactions of

students in two Hong Kong secondary classrooms to their teachers feedback also revealed

that students reactions and attitudes to teachers feedback are an intricate matter, intertwined

not only with student characteristics like proficiency level, but also with teacher factors, such

as teachers beliefs and practices and their interactions with students, as well as the

instructional context in which feedback is given.

THE PURPOSE OF STUDY

The researchers intended to examine how students are going to respond to teachers feedbackon their multiple-draft compositions in ESL classrooms. This study was guided by the

following research questions with regard to students responses and teachers feedback that

the researchers intended to investigate.

1. Are students able to incorporate teacher feedback into their own revision process?

2. Which revision strategy is considered as successful and commonly used by the students?


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METHODOLOGY

The study involved two ESL classrooms, which consisted of 52 students. They were

requested to write an essay and this essay underwent two revisions: first, on content and

second, on form. Teachers commentaries consisted of content-focused feedback and form-

focused feedback. These two types of comments were written on students essays content-focused feedback was found on the first draft and form-focused feedback was found on the

second draft.

After the first submission, the researchers asked the class teacher to give comments on the

content of the essays based on 7 categories, namely, Introduction, Thesis Statement, Topic

Sentence, Content 1, Content 2, Content 3 andConclusion. Then, the essays were returned to

the students for them to revise. After the revision, the essays were submitted again to the

teacher and again she was requested to mark the essays, but this time, she had to give her

comments based on form. The comments made on form were categorized as follows:

Table 1. Form-focused Categories

1. Tenses 2. Adverbs3. Word Choice 4. Prepositions5. Plural Nouns 6. Spelling7. Singular Nouns 8. Rephrase9. Count Nouns 10. Substitution11.Noncount Nouns 12. Do+Verb13. Articles 14. Pronouns15. Subject-Verb-Agreement 16. Insertion of words and phrases17.Nouns 18. To-infinitives19.

Adjectives 20.

Deletion of words and phrases

As for the revision strategies, the researchers classified the strategies based on Hylands study

(1998) which were closely followed, initial stimulus, and avoidance by deletion. The

researchers also added one more strategy, which was not related. Closely followedmeans the

students followed closely to the corrections or suggestions made by their teachers on their

essays when revising their work. Initial stimulus was seen by the students as an initial

stimulus that triggered them to rewrite in a number of ways and some of which, unfortunately

failed to respond to the real issue being presented in the teachers commentary. Avoidance by

deletionwas where the students avoided responding to their teachers comments by deleting

the problematic feature without substituting anything else in their revisions. Not related

meant that the students tried to utilize teachers feedback, but their ideas were irrelevant to

the teachers comments that resulted in their failure to revise their essays.

In determining the revision strategies used by the students, the researchers calculated the

number of each type of strategy after the students made their revisions based on content-

focused and form-focused feedback. These calculations were tabulated for the purpose of

analysis.


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FINDINGS

This research work was conducted to study students response to multiple-draft procedure in

writing. The researchers were interested to examine whether or not students incorporated

teachers commentary in their multiple-draft compositions. The students in this study had to

write three drafts of essays whereby the teachers provided content-focused feedback on thefirst draft and form focused-feedback on the second draft. The findings of the study were

presented based on the research questions posed.

RQ1: Are students able to incorporate teacher feedback into their own revision process?

The success and failure in incorporating the content-focused feedback and the form-focused

feedback were shown in Table 2 and Table 3.

Table 2. Content-focused Feedback and Revision Success

Revision Success

Content-focused feedback Successful%

Not successful%

Not attempted%

Introduction (N = 7) 71.4 14.3 14.3

Thesis Statement (N = 33) 66.7 33.3 0.0

Topic Sentence (N = 16) 62.5 31.3 6.3

Content 1: Extra time for revision (N = 34)) 44.1 55.9 0.0

Content 2: More opportunities for discussions

(N = 39)

66.7 30.8 2.6

Content 3: Availability of lecturers for

consultation (N = 42)

52.4 47.6 0.0

Conclusion (N = 40) 55.0 42.5 2.5

Table 2 shows that students were successful in revising most of the categories commented bythe teacher with the exception of content 1 (Extra time for revision). This category showed

that the percentage of failure was more than the percentage of success that were 55.9% and

44.1% respectively. This failure in incorporating the feedback on this category could be due

to the difficulty in understanding teacher commentary. The following was an example taken

from a students writing:

Excerpt from students first draft (S 3):

One-week study leave gives extra time for revision to students. This is because, during the

study leave week, students do not have to attend their classes. So, they do not have to think

about their classes. They can study and do revision about any subjects that they want without

have to follow their fix timetable.

Teachers comments:

You may explain how they can benefit from the revision they do during study week.


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Excerpt from students revision (second draft):

One-week study leave gives extra time for revision to students. This is because, during the

study leave week, students do not have to attend their classes. During the study week leave,

students can fill their time to do revision on their study. They also do not have any

assignments to do. So, this can help the students to prepare themselves for the coming finalexaminations.

From the example, it appeared that the student did not understand the meaning of the word

benefit as written in the teacher commentary. As a result, the student was less able to

incorporate the feedback in her revision.

The difference between the percentage of success and the percentage of failure was only

4.8% for content 3 (Availability of lecturers for consultation). This showed that students did

have difficulties in incorporating teachers comments on this point. In relation to this point,

the word availability seemed to pose a problem to the students. This could be seen from the

example taken from a students writing.

Excerpt from students first draft (S 25):

Students would have the ability of lecturers for consultation. Students can make discussions

with the lecturer about the topic that hard to understand. From the lecturers will give an

exercises to the students. Students must do the exercises given by the lecture. Next, students

would go to see the lecturer again to get the answer, and if there is a mistake discuss with the

lecturer about the mistake and try to do it again. As a result student become more

understands on the topic that they didnt understands at first.

Teachers comments:

Explain why they are available.

Excerpt from students revision (second draft):

Availability of lecture for consultation is also one of the way to help the students. Students

can make discussions with the lecturer about the topic that hard to understand. From that,

lecturers will give an exercises to the students. Students must do the exercise given by the

lecturer. Next, students would go to see the lecturer again to get the answer, and if there is a

mistake discuss with the lecturer about the mistake and try to do it again and again. As a

result, students become more understands on the topic that they didnt understand at first.

Having a one-week study leave before examinations also good for our health especiallystudents, because as we know many student feel tension when they study and they felt that

they didnt have enough time to make revision. One-week study leave will help the students to

relax their mind to make revision and pay more attention on topic that they didnt

understand.

When the teacher asked the student to explain why lecturers were available during the one-

week study leave, she repeated what she had in her first draft without responding to her

teachers comments. This could be due to the fact that she had not really understood the


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meaning of available and she might think the comment was asking her to explain how

lecturers can help the students during this week.

According to Williams (2003), the failure of students revisions on content might be due to

three reasons: the students may not read the comments at all, may read them but not

understand them, or may understand them but not know how to respond to them. Teacherscomments on content are less beneficial if students are clueless of what they mean or how to

use them productively to improve their skills as writers.

The study also intended to see how students incorporated form-focused feedback in their

revisions. It was found that most students were able to respond to this type of feedback. This

can be seen in Table 3.

Table 3. Form-focused Feedback and Revision Success

Revision Success

Form-focused feedback

Successful

(%)

Not Successful

(%)

Not Attempted

(%)Tenses (N = 130) 65.4 10.8 23.8

Word Choice (N = 104) 66.3 10.6 23.1

Plural Nouns (N = 272) 76.8 6.3 16.9

Singular Nouns (N = 51) 82.4 5.9 11.8

Count Nouns (N = 7) 71.4 0.0 28.6

Noncount Nouns (N = 32) 81.3 6.3 12.5

Articles (N = 137) 83.9 2.9 13.1

Subject-Verb-Agreement (N = 73) 63.0 15.1 21.9

Nouns (N = 14) 57.1 21.4 21.4

Adjectives (N = 27) 77.8 11.1 11.1

Adverbs (N = 4) 50.0 25.0 25.0

Prepositions (N = 120) 79.2 5.0 15.8

Spelling (N = 62) 77.4 11.3 11.3

Rephrasing (N = 72) 54.2 25.0 20.8

Substitution (N = 92) 76.1 8.8 15.1

Do + Verb (N = 36) 91.7 0.0 8.3

Pronouns (N = 41) 75.6 2.4 22.0

Insertion of words and phrases (N = 98) 72.4 5.1 22.4

To-infinitives (N = 16) 75.0 6.3 18.8

Deletion of words and phrases (N = 170) 81.8 1.8 16.5

Table 3 shows that most students were able to revise successfully for all categories foundunder form-focused feedback. The reason for this success could be due to the fact that

whenever the teacher commented on students errors, she usually provided the correct

response for the errors. This made it easy for the students to incorporate the comments in

their revisions. The outcome of this can be seen in Table 3, where the analysis showed a high

percentage of revision success for all categories as compared to the percentage of revision

failure for similar categories. Nevertheless, the findings also revealed that students had

difficulties in 6 out of 20 categories, namely, tenses, word choice, subject-verb-agreement,


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nouns, adverbs and rephrasing of sentences as the successful rate of the revision did not reach

70%. This low percentage of revision success infers that students generally found it hard to

grasp the rules embedded in these categories. This finding is supported by Ma (2006) who

reveals that explicit form-focused feedback might only be beneficial to specific error

categories.

The analysis showed that most students responded well to teachers feedback and they were

able to incorporate content and form-focused feedback into their revisions. The students did

welcome teachers commentary and they did think that these comments were helpful to them.

Those few students who could not incorporate the feedback in their revisions had other

factors that hindered their success.

RQ2: Which revision strategy is considered as successful and commonly used by the

students?

The revision strategies used by students in content-focused and form-focused feedback were

presented in the following Table 4 and Table 5.

Table 4 shows four types of revision strategies adopted by students when receiving content-

focused feedback. The students received 211 comments from the teacher and the effect of

these comments could be seen from the way they devised their revision strategies. The

findings showed that out of the 211 comments, 117 comments were closelyfollowed. This

type of revision strategy was most favoured by the students because they just followed

whatever comments given by the teacher without deviating from what had been asked for.

The least number of revision strategy used by the students was avoidance by deletion.

According to Garcia (1999: 100), text-based writing feedback has its limitations whereby in

her study she said that, New texts pose fresh problems to writers, so knowing what was

wrong with one text written in the past may not help a writer overcome the problems

encountered while writing a new one. She suggests that students need to be given real-time

feedback on the questions that they have in their minds at the time when they are struggling

to write their drafts. She further stresses the fact that text-based writing feedback leads

learners to resort to reduction strategies because they are unable to express their original

ideas. However, Hyland (1998) and Garcia (1999) both agree that when students exercise the

avoidance strategy, they believe that their texts are flawless and their quality has improved.

Table 4. Revision Strategies due to Content-Focused Feedback

No of

comments

No of

students

Total no of

comments

Closely

followed

Initial

stimulus

Avoidance

by deletion

Not

related

1 3 3 1 1 1

2 3 6 1 3 1 13 12 36 23 9 - 4

4 10 40 22 6 3 9

5 18 90 52 14 5 19

6 6 36 19 8 1 8

Total 52 211 117 41 11 42


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Table 5 shows that the students received a total of 1558 comments on form on their essays.

The effect of these comments could be seen in the revision strategies adopted by the students.

These revision strategies were similar with those adopted after receiving content-focused

feedback. The students utilized 1166 comments in the form of closelyfollowed revision

strategy as a result of teachers commentary. The students when revising their texts mostly

adopted this type of revision strategy. The least number of revision strategy used by thestudents in form-focused feedback was not relatedstrategy.

Table 5. Revision Strategies due to Form-Focused Feedback

No of

comments

No of

students

Total no of

comments

Closely

followed

Initial

stimulus

Avoidance

by deletion

Not

related

1-10 1 8 8

11-20 11 174 136 3 35

21-30 17 440 309 23 104 4

31-40 13 457 336 18 94 9

41-50 8 369 282 11 71 5>50 2 110 95 2 13

Total 52 1558 1166 57 317 18

In summary, the most successful and commonly used strategy used by students in both

content-focused and form-focused feedback was the closely followed strategy. When a

student used a closely followed revision strategy, it means two things. First, the student had

understood the teachers comments, and second, that she followed the comments closely

without really understanding why the teacher made such comments. The latter situations

could be found frequently occurring when students revised form-focused feedback on their

essays. This is parallel to Hylands (1998) view that states most of them followed closely the

feedback given without really understanding the rules of grammar that were needed whenrevising their essays.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY

The study has brought about certain realization to the researchers with regard to teaching

writing to ESL learners. Teachers find that teaching writing is not a task to be enjoyed but a

tedious one. Only those committed teachers could handle this time consuming task.

The researchers could see that giving written feedback to students is beneficial to their

improvement in L2 composing. However, written feedback should be complemented with

oral feedback so that the teacher would be able to get to the problems that students face whenrewriting their essays.

Giving feedback could be made easier if think-aloud protocol is introduced to ESL learners.

This is where the learners record whatever is on their mind while they are writing so that

when the teacher corrects their essays, she would be able to listen to the problems her

students encountered while writing or revising. This will result in a more effective teacher

commentary.


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When instituting a multiple-drafting procedure, the use of computers would help the students

a lot. The time spent on writing using pen and paper could be used to think of how to

interpret teachers feedback and to improve the content and language in their essays. Thus,

students will not find it burdensome to rewrite everything again and the use of computers will

improve their writing quality and help develop their thinking skills.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, if students do not respond positively to teachers feedback, it is not that the

feedback is not effective but there are many factors that interact with the students ability to

respond and incorporate the comments in their revision process. Hyland and Hyland (2006)

specify factors such as language proficiency, diverse cultural expectations, new teacher-

learner experiences and different writing processes can interact in significant ways with

students interpretation of teachers commentary and their negotiation of revisions. Students

use various strategies to respond to teachers commentary such as following closely the

corrections made by the teacher or avoiding the corrections altogether by not incorporating

them in their revision process. We can also see that students respond differently to differenttypes of feedback. Some students might respond positively to content-focused feedback

because they might possess some writing skills as well as the content knowledge of the topic.

On the other hand, there are students who respond positively to form-focused feedback due to

factors such as the instructional context itself and the perception of students themselves

towards the meaning of a good essay.

It can also be concluded that to respond to feedback is neither an easy task for students nor is

it any easier for teachers to give their feedback on students writing assignments. The

difference in the frame of reference between both parties makes it difficult for students and

tedious for teachers to handle this multiple-drafting procedure. However, if a positive

outcome is expected of this procedure, students and teachers should meet halfway in this

matter; students should be more alert towards teachers commentary and teachers on their

part should be more aware of the multifaceted problems faced by students. Despite variations

in response of students, we cannot deny the fact that teachers feedback have its crucial role

in determining how students respond to it in a process-oriented writing pedagogy specifically

in multiple-draft settings.


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Documents

Student Response to Teacher Feedback on Multiple-draft Compositions in Esl Classroom Shamshad Begham Othman1 and Faizah Mohamad