Oral Languaging in Writing

Feedback:

An Action Research Project

Matteo Musumeci,

Graduate Teaching Assistant

(Italian)

Northern Arizona University

Research Problem

• Thesis: Teachers and students benefit from feedback that pushes them to process their language mistakes deeply.

• Metalinguistic and reflective feedback given on writing is important for improving the quality of writing (Bitchener & Knoch, 2009; Ferris, Liu, Sinha, & Senna, 2013; Truscott & Hsu, 2008; Erlam, Ellis, & Batstone, 2013)

• Recommendation: Oral languaging (i.e., reflecting orally) on writing feedback (Suzuki, 2012)

Oral Languaging Defined

Oral languaging, as adapted from

Suzuki’s (2012) research = oral

reflection on language mistakes.

Real-time recording of oral

reflections and indicate specific

corrections for a second draft.

Background Research

Shintani and Ellis (2013) discuss the positive effects of

metalinguistic feedback on students’ writing compositions

versus direct feedback.

Ferris, Liu, Sinha, and Senna (2013) explore the usefulness

of written corrective feedback and conclude that written

corrective feedback is useful for writing students.

Bitchener, Young, and Cameron (2005) indicated how

written corrective feedback and conferencing with students

showed significant gains in students’ writing accuracy.

Background Research (cont.)

Erlam, Ellis, and Batstone (2013) illustrated how graduated feedback (versus direct feedback) promoted students’ self-correction, depending on teacher perceptions of which feedback technique to employ.

Suzuki (2012) employed the process of written languaging (i.e., descriptive explanations of errors) and found that this process:

• showed significant gains in learners’ knowledge of language errors committed on compositions, and

• led to increased accuracy and writing skill development.

Research Questions

1. Does the process of oral languaging improve

students’ writing accuracy on a second draft?

2. What are students’ perceptions of oral languaging

during the writing and revision process?

Methods – Participants

• 19 undergraduate students in Italian 102 at Northern

Arizona University

• The majority of students have taken Italian 101

while some students have had more experience in

Italian (i.e., study abroad, high school courses)

Participants by Education

Level

Methods – Instruments and

Procedures

• Step 1: Assign the composition topic, discuss the research

project, inform the students of their rights and

responsibilities, and illustrate examples of sound recording

tools to use to complete their oral reflections.

• Step 2: Collect compositions and provide written corrective

feedback in the form of descriptions of language errors as

Comments in Word. For example: “What verb tense do you

need to use here for the first-person singular subject ‘io’”?

• Step 3: Return compositions with revisions and assign due

date for oral reflections (3 days after first draft is returned).

Instruments and Procedures

(cont.)

• Step 4: Have students reflect orally using

a sound recording tool while they are

making their corrections. It is expected

that students will indicate specific

corrections they will integrate in their

second draft.

• Step 5: Distribute “Perception

questionnaire” to students using Google

Forms and collect perception data

electronically.

Examples of sound recording

tools

• I-Phone or Android phone voice

recorder (audio)

• http://www.vocaroo.com (audio)

• PhotoBooth (available on Mac,

audio and/or video)

• QuickTime (video and/or audio)

• Google Voice (audio)

Methods – Coding

• Coded students by assigning them an ID number

• Counted errors on second draft and compared them to

the first draft

• Counted oral reflections

Participant

ID

Language

mistake

Type of

mistake

Language

mistake

corrected?

Commented

in

reflection?

Coded

numerically

(e.g., 1)

Coded

numerically

(e.g., 1)

Coded by

letter (see

next slide)

0 = No

1 = Yes

0 = No

1 = Yes

Language Errors by Category

• Classified each language mistake into 10 categories:

• V = Verb agreement error (e.g., Io parli, should be “Io parlo”)

• SP = Spelling error (e.g., coretto, should be “corretto”)

• VOCAB = Vocabulary or word choice error

• SS = Sentence structure error (S-V-O and structure errors)

• N = Number agreement error (e.g., le matita, should be “la”)

• G = Gender agreement error (e.g., la papà, should be “il”)

• VT = Verb tense error (e.g., Ho studio, should be “ho studiato”)

• ART = Article use error (e.g., il studio, should be “lo studio”)

• PREP = Preposition error (e.g., in il, should be “nel”)

• SYN = Syntax error (e.g., incorrect accent: é = is, should be è)

Verb agreement error

4%

Spelling error

7%

Vocabulary error

6%

Sentence structure error

39%

Number agreement error

3%

Gender agreement error

18%

Verb tense error

1%

Article use error

5%

Preposition use error

11%

Syntax error

6%

Language Mistakes (Total)Results

Results

91%

14%

100%

38%

90%88%

57%

36%

100%

75%

62%

20%

100% 100% 100%

92%

50%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

% o

f err

ors

co

rrect

ed

Student

Percentage of number of errors corrected

Perceptions

Questionnaire Values

1 = Strongly Disagree 3 = Agree

2 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Agree

Conclusions

• Reflecting orally on language mistakes seems to improve student writing (RQ1). Average of all language errors corrected: 71%

• A majority (> 50%) of the students agreed or strongly agreedthat reflecting orally on language mistakes helped them think about these major areas (RQ2):

• Grammatical errors (88%)

• Vocabulary errors (76%)

• Spelling errors (58%)

• Organization of writing (59%)

• Content of writing (71%)

• Language errors (70%)

• General improvement in writing in Italian (76%)

Considerations and

Recommendations

• Students find it easy to record their oral reflections

• The teacher only needs to listen to students’ oral

reflections instead of reading them

• Oral reflections truly help students understand their

mistakes and make corrections on a second draft

• There are many resources for students to use to record

their oral reflections, most of which are free

• The teacher must thoroughly explain the process of oral

reflecting and give concise examples

References

Bitchener, J., & Knoch, U. (2009). The relative effectiveness of different types of direct written corrective feedback. System, 37(2), 322-329.

Erlam, R., Ellis, R., & Batstone, R. (2013). Oral corrective feedback on L2 writing: Two approaches compared. System, 41(2), 257-268.

Ferris, D. R., Liu, H., Sinha, A., & Senna, M. (2013). Written corrective feedback for individual L2 writers. Science Direct, 22(4), 307-329.

Truscott, J., & Hsu, A. Y. (2008). Error correction, revision, and learning. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(4), 292-305.

Suzuki, W. (2012). Written Languaging, Direct Correction, and Second Language Writing Revision. Language Learning, 62(4), 1110-1133.

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