Málfríður - 15.05.1992, Blaðsíða 4

Robert Berman:
Teaching comments on student essays
IT MATTERS WHAT YOU SAY
ABSTRACT
This experimental study stems from a debate on the effectiveness of written feedback in teaching second
language (L2) writing. Two classes of advanced adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) were
taught essay writing skills by the investigator for a six-week period, with all learners receiving the same
in-class writing instruction and the same kind of written corrections of their essays’ surface errors (gramm-
ar, spelling, etc.). In addition, half of the students of each class received written comments directed at
their essays’ discourse (i.e. the presentation of a topic, relevant supporting details, conclusion, etc.). Pre-
and post-test scores of all students were analyzed to estabiish the students’ relative progress in learning
written discourse skills. The study’s hypothesis, which was that carefully directed comments are more
effective in improving advanced ESL students’ written English discourse than no such feedback, was sup-
ported by the investigation. The study therefore suggests that teachers of advanced ESL students should
continue — or begin — to provide written feedback on their students’ writing.
1. Introduction
Many second language (L2) teach-
ers spend a great amount of time
writing comments on the essays of
their advanced students (Raimes,
1985). Although a number of studies
have investigated the effects of
teachers’ written comments and/or
corrections on student writing, there
is still no consensus on whether
such feedback is effective.
Studies such as those by Cardelle
and Corno (1981) and Lalande
(1982) found written feedback to be
effective in improving L2 writing.
On the other hand, Hendrickson
(1977), Semke (1984) and Robb,
Ross and Shortreed (1986) obtained
quite different results.
Cardelle and Corno’s (1981) study
involved American university
students of Spanish. They found that
"achievement was consistently
superior. . . with constructively crit-
ical feedback” (p. 251), Lalande
(1982), studying the effects of in-
structors’ written responses on Ame-
rican intermediate college students’
accuracy in German, also found
written feedback to be effective. In a
language programme where
rewriting was an important feature
of the course, Lalande found that the
group for whom lype and location of
errors were identified improved to a
greater extent than the group which
had all its corrections simply written
in by the marker.
Different results had been found
by Hendrickson (1977). Intermediate
students of English as a Second
Language (ESL) were divided into
two gropus one whose serious errors
were indicated and the other whose
less important and seríous errors
were marked in different colours.
Hendrickson found no significant
difference between the two groups’
written accuracy at the end of the
term. Similarly, Semke (1984),
studying the effects of comments
and/or corrections on the written
accuracy of four groups of adult be-
ginners studying German, found
that corrections did not improve ac-
curacy, although the group receiving
comments only (but whose memb-
ers had to write many more pages
than the other groups to receive an
A grade) came to write more and
made more progress on a general
language proficiency (cloze) test.
Robb, Ross and Shortreed (1986),
compared four methods of providing
written feedback on the writing of
Japanese students of English: com-
plete corrections of all syntactic, lex-
ical and stylistic errors; coded
feedback showing error type; un-
coded feedback showing the place
where an error existed; uncoded
feedback where the number of er-
rors in a line of the student’s essay
was shown in the adjacent margin.
Their study indicated that the type
and amount of teacher feedback was
immaterial in improving students’
writing. However, no research has
yet seriously investigated the ef-
fectiveness of written feedack that is
"focused or concentrated on one or
two key aspects of writing” (Hill-
ocks, 1986; 165). After all, humans
1 This title is based on that of an article by
Marzano and Arthur (1977), Teaching
comments on student essays: It doesn't
matter u hat you say, whose title sums up
their point of view. Their study was of Ame-
rican high school students.
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