Lợi ích từ việc giảng viên nhận xét tương tác vào bài viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên

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LỢI ÍCH TỪ VIỆC GIẢNG VIÊN NHẬN XÉT 
TƯƠNG TÁC VÀO BÀI VIẾT TIẾNG ANH 
CỦA SINH VIÊN
1. INTRODUCTION
Teachers’ responses to student writing has been 
acknowledged as central to teaching composition 
(Freedman, Greenleaf, & Sperling, 1987). In 
fact, since the early twentieth century, Carpenter 
et al (1913) considered the role of response or 
“criticism” to the teaching and learning of writing 
as “one of the most important in the whole problem 
of teaching English, upon which the value of the 
criticism success in teaching composition finally 
depends” (Carpenter, Baker, & Scott, 1913, p. 142). 
Responding to students’ writing is arguably 
a most widely adopted method; yet it is time 
consuming and “the least understood” (Sommers, 
1982, p. 170). The questions of how to write helpful 
comments, to what extent teacher written response 
is supportive to student revision, and whether 
student successful revision is the result of teacher 
comments, are never simple to answer. 
A growing body of research has attempted to 
answer these tricky questions. Teacher written 
response has been examined in both first language 
TÓM TẮT
Trong quá trình dạy và học viết tiếng Anh, giáo viên thường phản hồi trực tiếp vào bài viết của 
sinh viên, làm cơ sở để người học chỉnh sửa trước khi hoàn thiện bài viết. Việc này được coi là 
tốn thời gian, công sức của giáo viên, nhưng giới nghiên cứu vẫn đang tranh luận về hiệu quả của 
nó đối với chất lượng bài viết. Trong nghiên cứu này, chúng tôi phân tích tác động của phản hồi 
tương tác của giảng viên đối với chất lượng bài viết tiếng Anh của sinh viên Việt Nam học tiếng 
Anh như một ngôn ngữ thứ 2. Chúng tôi thu thập trên 30 bài viết về 15 chủ đề của 03 sinh viên 
đại học người Việt trong 24 tuần. Tác động của phản hồi tương tác được phân tích theo chuẩn 
của Ferris, chất lượng bài viết được phân tích định tính theo chuẩn Viết Phân tích của Hoa Kỳ, so 
sánh kết quả sử dụng phương pháp ANOVA (định lượng). Kết quả cho thấy, người học tiếp thu, 
sử dụng gần 70% góp ý nhận xét của giảng viên, và có cơ sở thống kê để nhận định chất lượng 
bài viết lần cuối cao hơn lần đầu, đặc biệt về nội dung, bố cục, văn phong (không cải thiện về sử 
dụng từ và ngữ pháp). Kết quả nghiên cứu giúp cải thiện quy trình dạy và học viết tiếng Anh trình 
độ đại học tại Việt Nam.
Từ khóa: nhận xét của giáo viên, phản hồi, phản hồi tương tác, viết tiếng Anh.
TRƯƠNG ANH TUẤN*; LANNIN AMY**; NGÔ QUÝ CHUNG***
*Trung tâm gìn giữ hòa bình Việt Nam - BQP, ✉ tuanpkc@yahoo.com
**Đại học Tổng hợp Missouri, Hoa Kỳ
***Học viện Khoa học Quân sự, ✉ cuaquychung@yahoo.com
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(L1) and second language (L2) writing classes. 
Teacher response, as agreed upon by most teachers 
and researchers, has evolved into more than just 
written marginal or end comments. Responses may 
include all types of interaction with student drafts. 
They could be formal, informal, in written, or oral 
forms to a series of drafts, or to one polished final 
paper. Responses may be used in formal mainstream 
classrooms, or in an informal, casual interaction 
between teacher and student (Freedman et al., 1987).
Teacher response might be explicit, implicit, or 
a combination of both. A teacher might comment 
as explicitly as “I’m interested in your idea here,” 
“I like your voice in this paragraph,” or “I think 
this sentence needs a verb.” Teachers might also 
engage indirectly, such as “What do you think this 
paragraph lacks?” or “I’m lost here!” Reflective 
response might also be used, such as “I’m just 
curious to see what is happening here,” or “as a 
reader, I like to see more details in this scene.” 
In this study, we attempted to explore the effects 
of reflective response on student revision as defined 
by Anson (Anson, 1989). The study was a pilot 
study for a future research with greater sample. We 
examined 15 papers, including 30 drafts produced 
by three college students who studied English as 
a second language over a period of two academic 
semesters (24 weeks). These papers were written as 
an additional writing exercise, out of the students’ 
normal class time, and not for credit or grading. No 
pressure was placed on the students with regard to 
what they wrote, when they wrote, and where. By 
doing this, we intended to give more freedom to 
the students, and avoid imposing the concepts of 
teacherly “ideal text” on the students (Sommers, 
1982). The students would revise their drafts only 
because they wanted to do so, not because of 
meeting any requirements by the teacher for the 
purpose of grading. 
The effects of reflective response were analyzed 
using a rating scale developed by Ferris (1997). We 
assessed if the students’ subsequent revisions were 
the result of the teacher response, and if the changes 
in drafts improved the overall writing quality as 
evaluated using a version of the National Writing 
Project’s analytical writing continuum (NWP, 
2009). Improvement in a student’s paper was 
determined by two procedures: (a) holistic scoring 
of the first and final drafts on a six-point scale, and 
(b) analytical scoring centered on six traits: content, 
structure, stance, sentence fluency, word choice, 
and conventions. 
2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1. L1 response research and theory
Written teacher response has been a topic 
drawing concern from a large number of researchers 
and educators, resulting in a growing body of 
research in the field. As early as 1913, Walter 
Barnes wrote: 
I believe that children in the grades live, so 
far as the composition work is concerned, in an 
absolute monarchy, in which they are the subjects, 
the teacher the king (more often, the queen), and the 
red-ink pen the royal scepter...In our efforts to train 
our children, we turn martinets and discipline the 
recruits into a company of stupid, stolid soldierkins- 
prompt to obey orders, it may be, but utterly devoid 
of initiative (Barnes, 1913, pp. 158-159).
Similarly, a teacher who emphasizes 
mechanical errors, or “[a teacher] ferrets out the 
buried grammatical blunder, who scents from afar 
a colloquialism or a bit of slang” (Barnes, 1913) 
was not an effective composition teacher, to use the 
words by A. Lunsford & Connors (1993).
Research in written teacher response was 
blooming during the 1970s when there was a shift 
from focusing on a final, polished paper submitted 
for grade to emphasizing the multiple draft process. 
A number of studies have addressed the issue 
of whether teacher response is supportive to the 
improvement of student writing (e.g. Anson, 1989; 
Connors & Lunsford, 1988; Freedman et al., 1987; 
Knoblauch & Brannon, 1981; A. A. Lunsford & 
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Lunsford, 2008; A. Lunsford & Connors, 1993; 
R. Lunsford & Straub, 1995, 2006; Moxley, 1989; 
Sperling & Freedman, 1987; Straub, 2000) among 
many others. Though written comment was the most 
widely used method, also the most time-consuming 
(Sommers, 1982), the influence of written teacher 
response on student writing improvement is still 
controversial. Earlier researchers showed their 
skeptical view on the effectiveness of teacher 
response while more recent researchers have 
expressed milder, more balanced arguments over 
the influence of written teacher response on student 
writing revision and quality (Bitchener & Ferris, 
2012; Ferris, 2003, 2004).
2.2. Earlier skepticism
Researchers (such as Hairston, 1986; 
Knoblauch & Brannon, 1981; Sommers, 1982; 
Sperling & Freedman, 1987) tended to draw 
a bleak picture of the effectiveness of written 
response to the improvement of student drafts. For 
example, in Knoblauch & Brannon’s (1981) review, 
teacher comments showed minimum influence on 
student writing, students failed to interpret and 
handle teacher responses, and even if the students 
understood the feedback, their paper was not better. 
Sommers (1982) reported that “teachers’ 
comments can take students’ attention away from 
their own purposes in writing a particular text 
and focus that attention on the teachers’ purpose 
in commenting” (p. 149). Students made changes 
in their paper in the way the teacher wanted, not 
what they thought was needed. Teacher responses 
focused more on errors than on idea development, 
and teachers did not prioritize errors to be fixed. 
Sommers also observed that “teachers’ comments 
are not text-specific and could be interchanged, 
rubber-stamped, from text to text” (p. 152). Teacher 
response tended to be generic, which included 
vague directives and abstract commands. Brannon 
& Knoblauch (1981) reported that students revise 
their drafts to meet their teacher’s expectation, 
not because of their need for idea development. 
Teacher response was believed to be authoritative 
and imposing, which emphasized logical, rational 
arguments, rather than being reflective and clear. 
More importantly, written response was even 
reported to be unsupportive and even harmful to both 
teachers and students (Hairston, 1986; Sperling & 
Freedman, 1987). Hairston believed that responding 
may leave negative effects on teachers (such as 
frustration, burn-out, and despair) and on students 
(cognitive overload, defensive barriers that resist 
teacher comment). Sperling & Freeman (1987), in a 
case study with a high school student, reported that 
response was not supportive to student revision, 
and that the student misinterpreted the teacher’s 
message. The student seemed to ignore problems 
pointed out in the comments by the teacher. These 
observations are echoed by Wilson who reported 
that students receptively accepted the comments, 
and made changes to satisfy the teacher, to have 
good marks, which damaged and demotivated 
students’ view of what writing means (Wilson, 
2009). Sperling & Freeman, therefore, called for 
clearer, more careful, well-constructed, helpful, 
relevant feedback from teachers in responding to 
student drafts.
2.3. More recent balanced perspective on 
response
A milder, more balanced view in judging 
teacher’s written feedback and student revision was 
noticed in recent studies (i.e. Anson, 1989; Beason, 
1993; Crone-Blevins, 2002; Freedman et al., 1987; 
A. Lunsford & Connors, 1993; R. Lunsford & 
Straub, 1995; Mathison-Fife & O’Neill, 1997; 
Smith, 1997; Sperling, 1994, 1996; Straub, 1997). 
These researchers attempt to construct an analytical 
framework in examining teacher comments and the 
influence on student writing.
Freedman, et al., (1987) conducted an extensive 
ethnographic study (surveying 715 junior high 
school students, 560 teachers from 116 National 
Writing Project sites) and reported that response 
during writing processes is significantly more 
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helpful than response to final polished products. 
Teacher response is preferred over peer, parent, 
or other adult response. But when grading was 
involved, teacher feedback was not helpful on the 
final piece submitted for grading. 
In a series of studies, Sperling (1994, 
1996) proposed that in order to reach a deeper 
understanding of student writing in the context 
of school, teachers should have in mind five 
orientations when responding to student writing: i) 
interpretive (relating elements in students’ writing 
to teachers’ prior knowledge and experience or 
to students’ prior knowledge and experience); ii) 
social (playing different social roles in reading 
students’ papers, such as peer and literacy scholar, 
teacher, and aesthetic reader); iii) cognitive/
emotive (reflecting reasoning and emotions as 
teachers read students’ papers); iv) evaluative 
(critically assessing students’ writing, explicitly and 
implicitly, opening chances for extensive criticism 
on students’ writing); and v) pedagogical (treating 
students’ papers as teaching and learning tools) 
(Sperling, 1996, pp. 23, 24). These orientations 
form an analytical framework for investigating the 
perspective of teacher-as-reader in responding to 
student writing. Having questions, relating to prior 
knowledge and experience, playing multiple roles 
in reading a paper, and sharing these hypotheses 
with students helps students understand themselves 
better as writer and reader. The framework might 
serve as a holistic approach to investigating student 
writing in classroom context where teacher response 
is valued. 
In their landmark research, Straub & Lunsford 
(1995; 2006) investigated 3,500 comments by 12 
experienced teachers and professors of English on 
156 sets of responses. The researchers examined 
written teacher comments by analyzing the “focus” 
and “mode” both quantitatively and qualitatively. 
Focus is understood as the issue to which the 
comment refers while the mode refers to how the 
comment is shaped. 
Figure 1: Categories for analyzing comments 
(R. Lunsford & Straub, 1995, p. 159)
FOCUS
Global
Ideas
Development
Global structure
Local
Local structure
Wording
Correctness
Extra-textual
MODE
Corrections
Evaluations
Qualified Negative 
Evaluations
Imperatives
Advice
Praise
Indirect Requests
Problem-Posing Questions
Heuristic Questions
Reflective Statements
Straub & Lunsford reported that most of the 
teachers’ comments were text-specific, focused on 
global issues. The comments were framed in a non-
authoritative mode and supported writing as a process.
Anson (1989) attempted to examine responding 
styles and their relationship with thinking styles. 
The researcher categorized written teacher response 
styles into three groups of dualistic, relativistic, 
and reflective. Dualistic responders tend to focus 
their attention on surface errors and mechanics. 
Teacher responders clearly prescribed what is right 
from what is wrong, and that students should make 
changes in their revision. “The tone of the responses 
implied that there were standards for correct and 
incorrect ways to complete the assignment, and that 
a teacher’s job was to act as a judge by applying the 
standards to the student’s writing,” or “[the tone] 
was highly authoritative and teacherly” (Anson, 
1989, pp. 344, 348). Grammatical issues seem to be 
the focus of dualistic comments. Dualistic response 
emphasized narrowly prescriptive comments 
(Straub & Lunsford, 1995). Dualistic response 
tends to focus on spelling out issues, not to offer 
options for revision. The following example is a 
typical dualistic response: 
There are some serious problems with this 
paper. For one thing it is far too short, and the ideas 
in it, if any, are at the moment barely articulated 
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one obvious reason why you did not write more, 
is that you have very serious deficiencies ... 7/2017
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HOW TEACHER’S REFLECTIVE WRITTEN FEEDBACK MAKES A DIFFERENCE 
TO ESL STUDENTS’ REVISION
TRUONG ANH TUAN, LANNIN AMY, NGO QUY CHUNG
Abstract: Teacher’s written feedback is arguably the most widely adopted method by English 
teachers; yet it is time consuming and the least understood. In the current study, teacher’s 
reflective written teacher feedback and its effects on L2 students’ writing revision and quality 
were explored. Over thirty drafts from 15 themes were collected from three L2 college students 
during two academic semesters (24 weeks). The influence of teacher feedback on the students’ 
revision were analyzed using Ferris’s rating scale while the students’ writing quality was evaluated 
by holistic and analytical scoring following a version of the National Writing Project’s analytic 
writing continuum. The analyses showed that teacher’s written reflective feedback was helpful 
to L2 students’ revision. More than two thirds of teacher’s comments led to successful revision. 
Final drafts also scored statically significantly higher than first drafts. Individual raters reported 
that final drafts tended to be richer in content, more organized, and clearer voice while no clear 
effect in word choice and conventions was found. The findings suggested several implications for 
response practices in the context of L2 writing.
Keywords: writing response, written feedback, reflective feedback, L2 writing.
Received: 11/04/2017; Revised: 11/5/2017; Accepted for publication: 28/6/2017