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英语本科论文:A Study of Mutual Feedback –Negotiation in Hi

时间:2021-09-01 来源:未知 编辑:梦想论文 阅读:
Abstract
Since the product-oriented writing is shifted into the process-oriented writing, negotiation has been widely used in the context over the past decades. This study employs two frameworks, negotiation and scaffolding, which represent considerably different theoretical orientations towards the second language acquisition. The purpose of the study is to find out the impact of negotiation on high school EFL learners’ English basic writing development based on the process-oriented writing. The question is addressed: Can negotiation raise the experimental group EFL learners’ more writing scores than that of the control group? The study was conducted in No.1 High School in through the experiment. The major finding was: Negotiation helped students to improve their writing scores because there were significant differences (t=2.254, P=.026<05, df =98) in the writing quality between the control group and the experimental group after the study. 
 
Keywords:  High school   English writing   negotiation   scaffolding
 
I.Introduction
In high school, English basic writing teaching is very important. Since the product-oriented writing is shifted into the process-oriented writing, negotiation has been widely used in the context over the past decades. This study employs two frameworks, scaffolding and negotiation, which represent considerably different theoretical orientations towards the second language acquisition, and yet both are found in the description of revision-promoting talk in writing conferences.       Scaffolding, like negotiation, refers to tactics in the talk provided by a more proficient interlocutor when assisting a less proficient learner in accomplishing a task or solving a problem which he or she could not accomplish alone. Scaffolding is often associated with a socio-cultural orientation to language learning since it describes the facilitative talk of expert/novice pairs in the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978). Through dialogic collaboration in the ZPD, the expert can provide contingent and graduated assistance as required (Aljaafreh & Lantolf,1994; Anton, 1999; De Guerrero & Villamil, 2000; McCormick & Donato, 2000).  In Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, negotiation is defined as follows: "(in conversation) what speakers do in order to achieve successful communication. For conversation to progress naturally and for speakers to be able to understand each other it may be necessary for them to: (a) indicate that they understand or do not understand, or that they want the conversation to continue; (b) help each other to express ideas; (c) make corrections when necessary to what is said or how it is said. These aspects of the work which speakers do in order to make successful conversation are known as negotiation in Conversational Analysis (Richards et al. 1985:190).” In the field of SLA, this term has been used to characterize the modification and restructuring of interaction that occurs when learners and their interlocutors anticipate, perceive, or experience difficulties in comprehension and production. 
Negotiation, typically associated with the Interactionist Hypothesis (Long, 1981), refers to certain tactics used in expert/novice pairs in order to solve communication problems, particularly in the area of conversational management and performed language functions. While the taxonomy of these tactics has grown (see Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991), the most common features cited are confirmation checks, comprehension checks, and clarification requests. Negotiation has been observed in writing talk between peers (Mendonc¸ A & Johnson, 1994; Nelson & Murphy, 1993), learners and tutors in writing centers (Thonus, 1998; Williams, 2002, 2004), and teachers and learners in writing conferences (Goldstein & Conrad, 1990; Patthey-Chavez & Ferris, 1997) and linked with successful revision. The following foreign researchers explored that negotiation had the impact on writing. Boomer et al (1992) confirmed that negotiation had a significant effect on improving the first language and second language writing skills. Goldstein and Conrad (1990) analyzed the English learners’ writing meetings and found that the learners who could negotiate with others would make more comprehensive changes to make their English writing better. Fiona (1999) studied two teachers’ writing lesson, and found that Class A that adopted the student-student negotiation had more writing conversations and concerned about the content and the organization of the composition, but students didn’t pay enough attention to peer reviews. Class B that adopted the teacher-student negotiation focused more on the accuracy of language forms, the students respond to teacher feedback more positively. Doreen (2009) observed the teacher-student negotiation in the second language writing meeting to analyze the teacher’s words and confirmed that the teacher-student negotiation could make more students participate effectively in the writing review and learning. In Hedgcock and Leflcowitz‘s(1994) findings suggested that: teachers focus on the accuracy of language form and peer feedback paid more attention to the content and the organization of the composition. Thus, teacher-student negotiation and student group negotiation had its own advantages, if the two ways were combined together, could students get more English writing scores? Therefore, this study attempts to explore the impact on English basis writing scores of high school students by using a combination of the teacher-student negotiation and group negotiation.  
Second language teaching and learning was recently orientated towards a more learner-centered approach. For students, the chief activity in writing is learning how to write. But for teachers, in addition to the main activity of teaching students how to write, the other significant activity in teaching writing is to give appropriate and useful feedback. In teaching, feedback refers to comments or information learners receive on the success of a learning task, either from the teacher or from other learners (Richards et al, 2000:172). In China, where language teaching is characterized with large classes, negotiation, an effective combination of traditional teacher assessment and peer assessment, is one of the solutions to the deficiency of the traditional writing assessment method. However, Yang Sisi (2008)points out that the Chinese EFL writing course is typically teacher-centered in assessment with little negotiation between the teacher and students or among students themselves. The researchers in China started researches on negotiation in recent years. The research focus is still on the review of existing researches on negotiation abroad and is presented a number of viewpoints. Little empirical study of the writing exists. Zhang Hanbin (2006)explored the impact on the University's student evaluation of writing, modifying composition, writing ability and the attitude of the students on the negotiations based on Schmidt's attention by the way of group negotiation. The results showed that: the students could give more volume, more general features to the commentary; the students had improved their writing scores significantly; students had a positive attitude toward negotiation. He suggested that the future research could be done on different levels of language learners to test the effectiveness of negotiation. Since negotiation could improve the university students’ writing ability, could it improve the high school students’ English basic writing scores? Therefore, the researcher tried to explore the impact on the high school students’ English basic writing scores based on Scaffolding by using a combination of the teacher-student negotiation and group negotiation. The question is addressed: Can negotiation raise more writing scores of the experimental group than that of the control group? 
 
II. Subjects
 
The study was conducted in No.1 High School. Two natural classes, both of which were taught by the writer, were involved. Altogether there were 100 participants, whose average age was 16. Experimental group, Class 4, Senior One, had 50 students, with 30boys and 20 girls. Control group, Class 5, Senior One, also had 50 students, 28 of whom were boys and 22 were girls.
 
III. Instruments
 
Both groups received a pretest to assess their writing abilities at the beginning of the experiment. The posttest was conducted to compare the progress achieved by the two groups. SPSS16.0 was used to analyze the data. The independent variable in the study is the negotiation-based assessment while the dependent variables were students’ grades in the pretest and the posttest.
 
IV. Design and Procedures of the Study
 
1. The Design of the Experiment
 Table 4.1 Design of the Experiment
Experimental Group Control Group
Writing Pretest Writing Pretest
Teacher-student negotiation and group negotiation on Writing Procedure and Assessment Individual Writing Task and Teacher Feedback
Writing Posttest Writing Posttest
 
2. The Procedure of negotiation
Step 1: Teacher-student negotiation
Students were assigned a composition of English basic writing. After finishing it, they handed it in. The teacher then returned the papers to the students with extensive comments. The students used the assessment guideline to review the comments by the teacher and completed the evaluation of their own. Then the teacher checked the students’ comments and the grades. If the teacher thought that the result was inappropriate, the teacher made a conference with the student to discuss the problems.
Step 2: Peer negotiation
After self-assessment, the teacher had students exchange their essays within their groups. Each group member was responsible for the assessments of other member’s essays and assigning the grades in terms of the negotiated guideline. When students got back their own papers and assessments, they had to read them and made a combination of the assessments from their group members and themselves. If they had problems, they made a conference with their group members.
Step 3: Making revision decisions
After reading all the comments and read their essays carefully again, they negotiated with their group members or the teacher to make a revision plan. At last, they revised their essays.
 
V. Data Collection and Analysis
 
The effectiveness of the negotiation on improving the EFL learners’ writing scores
This study lasted a term, during which students involved in the experiment had much practice in writing and negotiation. The quality of students’ posttest writing was expected to be better than that of the pretest and the experimental group was expected to perform better than the control group. The data was analyzed by SPSS16.0. The results are in the following.
 
Table 5.1 The Descriptive Statistics on the Pretest Scores
Group Statistics
group N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Pretest scores Experimental group 50 8.98 1.985 .281
Control group 50 9.44 1.971 .279
In table 5.1, the descriptive statistics on the pretest scores revealed that the mean score for the experimental group was 8.98 with a standard deviation of 1.985 and the mean score of control group is9.44with a standard deviation of 1.971, which showed that the scores of the two groups, although the control group was slightly higher than the experimental group, were basically similar.
Since the probability (.670) of F Value (.183) in Table 5.2 was bigger than .05 (P>.05), the data on the line of “Equal Variances Assumed” were analyzed. Therefore, Table 5.2 showed that there was no significant differences (t=.-1.163, P=.248>.05, df =98) in the writing quality between the experimental group and the control group before the experiment. In other words, the writing proficiency of the two groups was basically at the same level before the experiment. Many mistakes made by them were similar, and most of them ignored the importance of content and organization in a composition.
    After confirming the homogeneity of the experimental group and the control group, the researcher conducted another Independent Samples Test to examine whether the two independent groups were significantly different in the quality of posttest writing.

Table 5.2 Independent Samples T-test on the Pretest Scores
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
Pretest scores Equal variances assumed .183 .670 -1.163 98 .248 -.460 .396 -1.245 .325
Equal variances not assumed -1.163 97.995 .248 -.460 .396 -1.245 .325
 
 Table 5.3 The Descriptive Statistics on the Posttest Scores
Group Statistics
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Posttest scores Experimental group 50 10.78 1.877 .265
Control group 50 9.76 2.592 .367
    In table 5.3, the mean score of the experimental group was 10.78 with a standard deviation of 1.877 and the mean score of control group is 9.76 with a standard deviation of 2.592, which all showed that the scores of the experimental group were obviously higher than that of the control group, presenting descriptive differences. That is to say, the experimental group, after the training of negotiation, did make greater progress in writing quality than the control group. The errors in language forms evidently decreased but, more important, the students began to realize the important roles played by content and organization in a composition. Most of students in the experimental group did their best to make the content included in the requirement and have the structure well-organized.
  In table 5.4, since the probability (.053) of F Value (3.834) was bigger than .05 (P>.05), the data on the line of "Equal Variances Assumed" were analyzed. Therefore, Table 5.4 revealed that there were significant differences (t=2.254, P=.026<05, df =98) in the writing quality between the control group and the experimental group after the study. However, it was not reasonable enough to attribute the differences solely to the
training of negotiation because the difference might have been caused by some other factors. Hence the researcher carried out two Paired Samples T-tests to examine whether significant differences existed between the pretest score and the posttest score of the experimental group as well as those of the control group.
 
Table 5.4 Independent Samples T -test on the Posttest Scores
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means
F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
Posttest scores Equal variances assumed 3.834 .053 2.254 98 .026 1.020 .453 .122 1.918
Equal variances not assumed 2.254 89.306 .027 1.020 .453 .121 1.919
 
Table 5.5 Paired Samples Correlations on the Pretest and Posttest Scores of
 the Experimental Group
Paired Samples Correlations
N Correlation Sig.
Pair 1 EG Pretest Scores & CG Pretest Scores 50 .782 .000
In Table 5.5, the Correlation value was .782 that was high, and the probability was .000 (P<.05), the pretest and posttest scores were, therefore, correlated and carried out in the same group, namely the experimental group, and the data could be analyzed by Paired Samples T-test.

Table 5.6 Paired Samples T -test on the Pretest and Posttest Scores of           
the Experimental Group
Paired Samples Test
Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference 
Lower Upper 
Pair 1 EG Pretest Scores - CG Pretest Scores -1.800 1.278 .181 -2.163 -1.437 -9.961 49 .000
Table 5.6 presented that there were significant differences (t=-9.961, df=49, p=.000 <.05) between the scores of the pretest and that of the posttest. In other words,
the data before the treatment and that after the treatment were significantly different. And with the results of the descriptive statistics, the mean scores of the pretest and posttest of the experimental group were 8.98 and 10.78 respectively. The mean score of the posttest was distinctly higher than that of the pretest score, that is, students made some progress in the quality of writing by means of negotiation training. 

Table 5.7 Paired Samples Correlations on the Pretest and Posttest Scores of  the Control Group
Paired Samples Correlations
N Correlation Sig.
Pair 1 CG Pretest Scores & CG Posttest Scores 50 .860 .000
In table 5.7, the Correlation value was .860 that was very high, and the probability was .000 (P<.05), was the pretest scores and posttest scores were, therefore, closely correlated and from the same group, i.e. the control group. So the Paired Samples T -test was adopted.

Table 5.8 Paired Samples T -test on the Pretest and Posttest Scores of
                    the Control Group
Paired Samples Test
Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference 
 
Lower Upper 
Pair 1 CG Pretest Scores - CG Posttest Scores -.320 1.347 .190 -.703 .063 -1.680 49 .099
As is shown, table 5.8 revealed that the scores of the pretest and that of the posttest were not significantly different (t=1.680, df=49, P=.099 >.05). In addition, the mean scores of the pretest' and the posttest of the control group were 9.44 and 9.76 respectively. The mean score of the posttest was similar to that of the pretest. In other words, students made little progress after one-semester traditional writing training. However, it could not neglect, though not as significant as that of the experimental group, that some changes did take place in the control group. The changes might be caused by the increased amount of English knowledge and writing practice compared with students who refused learning more English knowledge and had not so much writing practice.
   Hence, the results of the statistic analyses conducted so far supported the alternative hypothesis that the negotiation could contribute to increasing the students’ writing scores, namely negotiation was better than the traditional assessment in the effect of improving students' writing scores.
 
VI.Conclusion
From the study, the writer had the following the major findings: Negotiation helped students to improve their writing scores because there were significant differences (t=2.254, P=.026<05, df =98) in the writing quality between the control group and the experimental group after the study. 
The findings could shed some light on the teaching of writing. Negotiation can create the student-centered learning atmosphere and raise students’ autonomy. But the training is needed to prepare the students for effective negotiation.
Owing to the researcher’ limited time and limited ability, some limitations of the study might have affected its results. They are the short time period and not all data were analyzed. The researcher used convenience samples, which cannot be assumed to represent the population. The researcher had compared negotiation with teacher feedback. It will be an interesting thesis to do a study among teacher feedback, peer feedback and negotiation.
 
References:
 
[1]Aljaafreh, A., & Lantolf, J. 1994. Negative feedback as regulation and second language learning in the Zone of Proximal Development[J]. Modern Language Journal, 78:465–483.
[2]Anton, M. 1999. The discourse of a learner-centered classroom: Sociocultural perspectives on teacher–learner interaction in the second-language classroom [J]. Modern Language Journal, 83:303–318.
[3]Boomer, G, Lester, N., Onore, C. & Cook, J.  (Eds.). 1992. Negotiating the Curriculum:Educating for the 21st Century [M]. London: The Falmer Press.
[3]DeGuerrero, M., & Villamil, O. 2000. Activating the ZPD: Mutual scaffolding in L2 peer revision[J]. Modern Language Journal, 84:51–68.
[4]Doreen E.E. 2009. L2 writing conferences: Investigating teacher talk [J].Journal of Second Language Writing, 18: 251—269.
[5]Fiona Hyland.1999.Teacher Management of Writing Workshops: Two Case Studies [J]. Asia Pacific Journal of Language in Education,2(1).
[6]Goldstein, L. M., & Conrad, S. M. 1990. Student input and negotiation of meaning in ESL writing conferences[J]. TESOL Quarterly, 24: 443–460.
[7]Hedgcock, J.& Lefkowitz, N. 1994. Feedback on feedback: assessing learner receptivity to teacher response in 12 composing[J]. Journal of Second Language Writing; 3, 141-163.
[8]Larsen-Freeman, D., & Long, M. 1991. An introduction to second language acquisition research[M]. New York: Longman.
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