User:Monicanena/literature

Annotated bibliography

Brookhart, S. M. (2008). How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10250492&ppg=10

Burke, D. (2010). Giving Students Effective Written Feedback.Berkshire, GBR: Open University Press. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10441959&ppg=4

Hathaway, P. (1997). Giving and Receiving Feedback : Both Critical and Positive. Menlo Park, CA, USA: Course Technology Crisp. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10058903&ppg=45

Martínez E.N. & Roca de L., J. (2010). The use of models as a form of written feedback to secondary school pupils of english. International Journal of English Studies, 10(2), 143-170.

Santos, M., López-Serrano, S., & Manchón, R. (2010). The differential effect of two types of direct written corrective feedback on noticing and uptake: reformulation vs. error correction. International Journal of English Studies, 10(1), 131-154

Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and Teaching. (2006). Philadelphia, PA, USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10126071&ppg=2

Weitzel, S. R.(2007). Feedback That Works : How to Build and Deliver Your Message.Greensboro, NC, USA: Center for Creative Leadership. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10185375&ppg=7

Not all types of feedback used in class may be successful helping any kind of learners to improve their writing skill.

Teachers may apply different types of feedback, but they may not work for all kind of students. Each group of students has different characteristics from others. Even in the same group; individuals have different characteristics and needs. These features have to be considered when commenting on learners’ production in order to give effective feedback. Sometimes teacher do not choose the most appropriate type of feedback and the result may not be as good as expected. To avoid choosing an incorrect type teacher should know first of all the different types of feedback, their characteristics, advantages and limitations. Then they should pay attention in the characteristics and need of the target group of students that will receive input on their production.

The purpose of this research is to know the different types of feedback and matching them with the students’ characteristics and specific needs so feedback may produce improvements on writing. The different types of feedback may be applied and have different result for different situations and in different groups. Even though any feedback may have positive results, some types may be more useful for some students. Therefore, the main question is what type or types of feedback are the best option to help intermediate level students to improve their writing skill? What amount of feedback should be given? What would be the best manner of provide feedback, either orally or written, individual or in groups? How do teacher should deliver feedback? The analysis of different factors about the types of feedback and the target group should answer the previous questions.

Different types of feedback that help learners to improve writing skills.

Any type ofFeedback implies a whole process with different stages. A current concept of feedback defines it as a set of steps where teachers comment on learners' production in order to let them know how well they are regarding to the target, so they would be able to redirect their learning (Burke, D. 2010, p 4). The first stage consists on teachers giving input about the language production; in this manner learners may know their strengths, weaknesses and their progress according to the target. After receiving feedback learners have to modify the product taking into consideration the teacher’ comments in order to make a progress. Finally, teacher provides new input to the new product. Therefore, feedback becomes a cycle that helps learners to improve language skills. Even when this practice usually follows the same stages, teacher may have different ways of providing the input and carrying out the process. 

Reformulation refers to providing feedback through rewriting learner’s production. Teacher reformulates the product in order to make it sound like Reformulation refers to providing feedback through rewriting learner’s production. Teacher reformulate the product in order to make it sound like a native speaker writing and without changing the original meaning with the objective of learners noticing their errors by comparison (Santos, M., López-Serrano, & S. Manchón, R. M. 2010). The first stage of this corrective type of feedback refers to learners producing a text as output of language. After that, teacher takes the original text and changes the parts, sentences or chunks that are incorrect by other ones that are more likely to be written by a native speaker. Then teacher gives the modified text to the learner as an input of its output with the intention of comparing the original with the reformulated text and noticing the errors and the possible corrections. As an important fact of this type of feedback, the process ends in learners noticing the error and identifying the correct form of the language, but they don't rewrite the text in order to improve the skill because they already have the correction made. However there are other options of corrective types of feedback.  

Error correction becomes into another option to provide input of a product. It consist on teacher correcting usually grammatical or lexical errors by identifying them and providing the correct form of the language (Santos, M., López-Serrano, & S. Manchón, R. M. 2010). First, the learner produces language by writing a text. Then, teacher takes the original text, identifies errors that the learner made in order to correct them and writes the proper piece of language just next to the error. By a comparison, learners should be able to notice the incorrect items and its correct form. In this case, text is not modified as in reformulation except for the grammatical or lexical errors. In both types of feedback learners do not rewrite their text since they already have the proper language but they should apply what they learnt by the comparison in future language productions.  

Modeling implies a process where learners may improve their original text. Teacher provides learners with a model written by a himself or a native speaker, it is not a reformulation but a model where learners can compare their work and identify by themselves the errors they made in order to correct them (Martinez, E.N. & Roca de, L. J. 2010). Modeling type of feedback differs a little bit in their process from the types of feedback mentioned above. First of all, learners write a text in the target language. Then, the teacher or a native speaker writes a text about the same topic considering the learners level. After that, teacher provides the text to the learners so they can contrast their original text with the model in order to identify their mistakes. Since the model is not a reformulation of the original text learners can rewrite it correcting their mistakes by following the model. In that way, the learner identifies and corrects the error by himself and improves the original text that subsequently will receive new input.  

Dimentions to consider when providing feedback.

The key of effective feedback lies on the delivery of a clear and objective message. Effective feedback consists in creating and delivering a specific message about the performance that has been observed with the intention of describing the performance and its effects. (Weitzel, S. R. p 7. 2007). The message that teacher delivers is not always clear enough. Sometimes teachers tell students that they do a good or a bad job without giving evidence of their comments. In this stage, Input in a feedback session should consist on describing the aspects that affect learners’ performance. However, the message has to be delivered considering some steps in order to cause a positive effect on learners.

Feedback implies different steps that help teachers to prepare and give constructive comments on learners’ production. Teacher should follow some steps such as setting realistic goals, providing immediate feedback, and giving specific input about the product in order to provide constructive feedback (Hathaway, P. p 45-51. 1997). Teachers prepare the way to start the process of feedback when they informe learners about what is expected from them and from its language product. The expectations have to be realistic and appropriate according to the learners’ level and age. Once learners know exactly what the teacher expect from their performance, then they can start writing. The input to the production has to be immediate in order to make it meaningful to the learner, to give feedback after a long period of time may not be successful. Another aspect to consider refers to the objectivity of feedback. Comments on language production have to be specific and objective in order to let know the students were they committed an error and why. Therefore they will be able to correct what is wrong and avoid future errors related with the once that were made. When the teacher consider these aspects, redirect learners performance in order to improve their skills may be easier. Besides the steps, teachers have to decide on different aspects of feedback with the objective of knowing how they will carry out the process.

Types of feedback had the same dimensions but they may differ in the decisions teacher makes about these characteristics. Feedback has many dimensions such as the following: time that refers to when is proper to provide feedback, amount that requires deciding how much correction to do and mode that refers to how deliver the comments (Brookhart, S. M. p 10- 16, 2008). Teachers have to decide the correct time to comment on learners work. They should give feedback as sooner as possible because learners are still immersed on the topic and on their performance. Sometimes it is not possible to give input about a work because of different aspect such a time, disposition and others. Another important question refers to how many corrections the teacher has to do. Teacher have to decide on the corrections he is going to do, he should start from the important points according to the goal and expectations he settled at the beginning of the process. After that other teacher may consider to continue providing feedback on other errors. Finally, teacher decides on how to deliver the input about the product- He may consider different ways such as oral feedback, written comments, assignments, models, peer revision, tasks, etc. The decision over these dimensions defines the type of feedback that the teacher is going to provide.

Teachers have to consider the audience in order to take decision on the mode dimension. Feedback has more possibilities to success when teacher have sense of the audience and considers it when taking decisions about how to provide feedback (Brookhart, S. M. p 17, 2008). The audience may have different characteristics and needs among their individuals and at the same time they may share these needs. The specific situation may determine the manner of providing feedback. Therefore, input may result in individual, group or peer feedback session. If the needs of learners result in common aspects, then teacher can provide feedback group feedback. Knowing the audience also implies to consider age and level of the target group of students. The way in which teacher provides feedback causes different effects on different students because of the age and language level. Teacher should provide proper feedback for beginner level and it may differ from feedback for advance learners. Therefore, to provide effective feedback teacher has to consider the audience. In this way, feedback process will have more possibilities of success.

Research on the effectiveness of different types of feedback in specific groups of learners.

Negative feedback in its different modalities succeeded in Kubota research with five different groups of 25 intermediate level learners each one. All the groups of learners had improvements after providing either implicit or explicit negative feedback in their production (Kubota, 1994). The research focused in providing implicit and explicit negative feedback to different groups of students in order to know what modality is successful with intermediate level students. The different groups produced after feedback twice, the first time was just after feedback and the second time they produced after a period of time. All groups that received feedback had improvements in their productions in contrast with their initial work. However, there were groups that outperformed others; the groups that received explicit linguistic feedback outperformed the other groups that received feedback. In this case the different modalities of negative feedback actually help learners to improve their production, but explicit feedback had better impact and success in the group of students where it was applied. This situation shows that some types of feedback may be more adequate than other in some specific situations and groups of students. Other researchers have carried out similar studies but applying other types of feedback.

Recast as corrective type of feedback helped students in the accuracy of writing in Degteva research. Focused recast and error correction feedback should be applied in intermediate level; two participants received these types of feedback and improved their writing. (Degteva. O. 2011). Recast is recommended to higher levels because learners should have some knowledge on grammar so they could receive corrective feedback and take major advantage from it in difference with students of lower levels. The research focused on a treatment that includes different sessions and continuous feedback on different writing products in difference with Kubota research that only focused in one feedback session. The participants were only two students of intermediate level that wrote different texts. This method was successful in this particular case where the students had an intermediate level and they had continuous feedback session where they received feedback from their different writing productions. The most important fact to mention is that the improvements were really noticeable; the learners actually had dramatic and important improvement on their writing. So far implicit feedback and error correction have helped students to improve their writing skills but other method has been investigated as well.

Peer feedback also helps students to improve their writing skills. Peer feedback in lower and higher levels, help learners to improve their writing skills. In this case peers provided feedback in different ways, lower levels provided feedback about very specific details in their classmates’ compositions and higher levels provided feedback related to general aspect such as meaning and ideas (Kamimura, T. 2006). This is a different way of providing feedback to students; research shows that this method also helps students to improve their writing skill. In this case peer feedback method was applied at different levels having in both cases positive results. Among the students feedback was provided in a different way, students from higher levels provide feedback by making comments on pragmatics and general aspects instead of specific aspects in difference with lower levels that provided feedback about very specific aspects such as grammar. In this case, the peer feedback helped students to improve their writing skills. However, there are other ways of providing feedback that can be applied in class.

Modeling also had positive effects on improving writing production. Learners improved their writing skill by using models, they took from the model the language they needed to improve their own work therefore they rewrote their texts improving their writing skills. (Martinez, E.N. & Roca de, L. J. 2010). In this case the learners were working in pairs and therefore they identified more items in the models, so they could took advantage of those models. The more important aspect in the research is that students noticed the language in the model that they could use in their own writing. Therefore, they improve their original production. This type of feedback had success with this group because learners were able to improve their writing skill when rewriting their original work. However this research was applied in a basic level group. Therefore, this could be another option to provide feedback.

Conclusion

Feedback actually helps learners to improve their writing skills at any level. However some types of feedback have more success when helping student to improve their writing products. The success of any type of feedback depends on the group of students and its characteristics. For example, recast is recommended for higher levels and modeling had positive results in lower levels. Other methods to provide feedback such as peer correction had results in both lower and higher level. Corrective feedback was helpful with intermediate level students when improving their writing.

Even though, the different types of feedback are recommended for some specific level, there are other dimensions to take into consideration when deciding what type of feedback to implement. Audience, amount, way of providing feedback are some of these dimensions. The most important dimension to consider is audience, and then according to the audience the decision of when to provide feedback and how to provide it will be easier.

In this case, the information provided above is useful to take advantage of previous research related to feedback and to consider the limitations the researches had in their process. It is difficult to decide what type of feedback to use in general, because all groups of students are different and it is a limitation. However, selecting the proper type of feedback may result in success helping students to improve writing. Further research may focus in studying types of feedback previously discussed in lower levels, because most of the method studied were applied in intermediate levels.

References

Brookhart, S. M. (2008). How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10250492&ppg=10

Burke, D. (2010). Giving Students Effective Written Feedback.Berkshire, GBR: Open University Press. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10441959&ppg=4

Degteva, o. 82011). Impact of recast on the accuracy in EFL learners' writing. Girne American University.

Hathaway, P. (1997). Giving and Receiving Feedback : Both Critical and Positive. Menlo Park, CA, USA: Course Technology Crisp. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10058903&ppg=45

Kamimura, T. (2006). Effects of peer feedback on EFL student writers at different levels of English proficiency:a Japanese context. Tesl Canada Journal 39. 23(2).

Kubota, M. (1994). The role of negative feedback on the acquisition the English dative alternation by Japanese college students of EFL. Institute for research in Language Teaching Bulletín. 8, 1-36.

Martínez E.N. & Roca de L., J. (2010). The use of models as a form of written feedback to secondary school pupils of english. International Journal of English Studies, 10(2), 143-170.

Santos, M., López-Serrano, S., & Manchón, R. (2010). The differential effect of two types of direct written corrective feedback on noticing and uptake: reformulation vs. error correction. International Journal of English Studies, 10(1), 131-154

Synthesizing Research on Language Learning and Teaching. (2006). Philadelphia, PA, USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10126071&ppg=2

Weitzel, S. R.(2007). Feedback That Works : How to Build and Deliver Your Message.Greensboro, NC, USA: Center for Creative Leadership. Retrieved from: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/univeraguascalientes/Doc?id=10185375&ppg=7

Feedback

• Word count 1,710 and you need approximately 2,500.  Your annotated bibliography goes at the end, after your references section.  You have seven references and you need at least 10, which should be the same references you have in your bibliography.  Work on your introduction, making sure that you state a problem in the first paragraph and that you include a thesis statement in your second paragraph that links to your problem.  The reasons section of your thesis statement will be your topics you cover in each of the three sections of your literature review.  Click here to see some helpful videos.  Link your conclusion to your thesis statement and summarize the main points that you've previously discussed. Remember not to include any new information in your conclusion. Also, discuss future implications and ideas for further research related to your topic.   --Bnleez 17:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
• Add your annotated bibliography. --Bnleez 14:40, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
• Add your references section and see other comments above. --Bnleez 04:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)