Teacher mini conferences in class: an alternative to provide feedback in written tasks

Mini conferencias del docente en clase: una alternativa para proporcionar retroalimentación en tareas escritas

Recibido: 15/03/2020

Aceptado: 05/07/2020

Sigüenza Paul^1*, Espinoza María-Isabel²

1) Universidad Nacional de Educación, Azogues, Ecuador. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1040-0927 , Email: [email protected]

2) Universidad de Cuenca, Cuenca, Ecuador. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3574-5729, Email: [email protected]

Para Citar: Siguenza, P. I., & Espinoza, M.-I. (2020). Teacher mini conferences in class: an alternative to provide feedback in written tasks. Revista Publicando, 7(25), 49-63. Retrieved from https://revistapublicando.org/revista/index.php/crv/article/view/2084

Resumen: Hattie y Timperley (2007) definen la retroalimentación como el resultado en el que un agente, como un maestro, proporciona información sobre los aspectos de la comprensión de la persona. La estrategia de retroalimentación que se implementó en este estudio fue mini conferencias de docente en clase. Esta estrategia consiste en actividades previas a la escritura y a la generación de ideas donde el maestro discute con toda la clase e ilustra qué habilidad deben usar los estudiantes (Grabe y Kaplan, 1996). El estudio se realizó en una escuela pública en la ciudad de Cuenca, Ecuador, con estudiantes que aprendían inglés como lengua extranjera (EFL). Consistió en un grupo de intervención (n = 36) y un grupo de control (n = 31). El estudio se realizó durante la primera unidad didáctica (seis semanas) del año escolar 2019-2020 donde los estudiantes produjeron un total de cinco párrafos. El primer párrafo cumplió el propósito de pretest, mientras que el último párrafo fue el post test. La prueba de signos de Wilcox se utilizó para la comparación entre muestras relacionadas (Pre - post) y la prueba de U-Mann Whitney para muestras independientes. Los datos se procesaron a través de SPSS 25. El estudio concluyó que la retroalimentación de los maestros tiene un impacto mayor considerando el desempeño de acuerdo con Yang et al. (2006), Gielen, et al., (2010), Zacharias (2007) y Van den Bergh, Ros y Beijaard (2014). Además, las mini conferencias de docente en clase revelaron un impacto positivo en el desarrollo de ideas de apoyo, organización y transiciones, mecánica y el desarrollo del estilo.

Palabras clave: Mini conferencias del docente en clase, EFL, retroalimentación, Cuenca, Ecuador, escritura, párrafos.

Abstract: Hattie and Timperley (2007) define feedback as the result where an agent, such as a teacher, provides information on the aspects of the person’s understanding. The feedback strategy which was implemented in this study was teacher mini conferences in class. This strategy consists of pre-writing and idea generating activities where the teacher discusses with the whole class and illustrates what skill the students should use (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996). The study was carried out in a public school in the city of Cuenca, Ecuador with students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). It consisted of a target (n=36) and control group (n=31). The study was conducted during the first didactic unit (six weeks) of the scholar year 2019-2020 where the students produced a total of five paragraphs. The first paragraph served the purpose of the pre-test, while the last paragraph was the post-test. The Wilcox sign test was used for comparison between related samples (Pre - post) and the U-Mann Whitney test for independent samples. The data was processed through SPSS 25. The study concluded that teacher feedback has a larger impact considering performance in agreement with Yang et al. (2006), Gielen, et al., (2010), Zacharias (2007), and Van den Bergh, Ros, and Beijaard (2014). Further, teacher mini conferences in class revealed a positive impact on the development of supporting details, organization and transitions, mechanics, and the development of style.

Keywords: Teacher mini conferences in class, EFL, feedback, Cuenca, Ecuador, writing, paragraphs.

INTRODUCTION

In all academic environments, there are key aspects that help learning throughout the teaching process. In the context of teaching English as a foreign language, educators have found several elements that either promote learning or others that obstruct it. As Hyland and Hyland (2006) stated, feedback has long been regarded as essential for the development of second language (L2) writing skills, both for its potential for learning and for student motivation. Although many researchers such as Yang, Badger, and Yu (2006); Gielen, Tops, Dochy, Onghena, and Smeets, (2010); and Gielen, Peeters, Dochy, Onghena, and Struyven (2010) have conducted studies on feedback, the main focus has been allocated to peer-feedback, very little has been researched on mini-class conferences in class to provide feedback in writing assignments. This study aims to analyze the effects of teacher mini-class conferences after students produce written assignments.

As Ion, Barrera-Corominas, and Tomàs-Folch (2016) have pointed out, feedback has a clear purpose, to develop autonomous learners that can think reflectively and adopt self-directed attitudes regarding their lifelong learning. These authors concluded that in an EFL learning context, several teachers had a specific and stablished method to give feedback and did not look for alternatives that could possibly help students, acknowledging the diversity of their learning process in their classrooms.

However, Paulus (1999) determined that revision does not always mean improving the quality of a written task. This could be caused due to the lack of clearness, purpose, meaning, and compatibility that teachers' feedback has with students' prior knowledge resulting in deficiency in logical connections (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Van den Bergh, Ros, and Beijaard (2014) claimed that most research done on feedback has been examined in traditional learning contexts where the priority has been to change or confirm students' knowledge. Nicol and Macfarlane‐Dick (2006) claimed that there is not a clear agreement on defining quality feedback in active learning.

On the other hand, Zacharias (2007) established that a variety of attempts have been performed to help students improve their writing quality through feedback; in the words of this author, despite the efforts by English teachers, students do not improve their writing tasks and keep making the same mistakes. In this manner, several concerns arise. As Hyland and Hyland (2006) stated, an issue that is permanently presented in feedback is its degree of quality. Gamlem and Smith (2013) suggested that feedback processes need to be modified to help students improve in future tasks. As a result, this study focuses on analyzing a specific feedback process and the possible effects of the application of it. In agreement with Zacharias (2007), students keep making the same errors and mistakes in their tasks after the feedback is conducted.

Feedback definitions and relevance in teaching

Hattie and Timperley (2007) wrote that feedback is the consequence of performance where an agent, such as a teacher, book, experience, among others, gives information on the aspects of the person 's understanding. Voerman, Meijer, Korthagen, and Simons (2012) concluded that feedback can be interpreted as the previous level of performance of a student, an outside intervention with a desired objective or goal, and the new current level of performance of the same student.

Feedback helps students maximize their potential in different stages of their training and learning process by identifying strengths and areas of improvement. This aspect allows the development of new action plans to improve skills (Alirio & Zambrano, 2011). Van den Bergh, Ros, and Beijaard (2014) determined that feedback must be centered on developing metacognition in students, as well as knowledge of their socio-cultural skills as the teacher coaches them throughout the teaching-learning process.

Teachers' feedback is still considered the most effective method. This perspective does not only come from students' statements, but also from the teachers. Even when students are asked to provide feedback, most of the time, they will go to the teachers and ask if the comments they are making to their classmates are accurate (Zacharias, 2007).

Teachers and students find frustration regarding the feedback process and may find it even disappointing. Therefore, providing timely feedback has become crucial to develop competencies and constantly motivate the students Mahsood, et al. (2018). According to these authors, it is necessary to administer formative feedback to positively impact the students' learning stating that the quality of information provided by the teacher will influence on the students' performance.

Teacher mini conferences in class

This technique is part of the teacher-student responses. It involves several ways that this technique can be applied. For instance, talking about pre-writing and idea generating activities where the teacher discusses with the whole class and illustrates what skill the students should use; also, teachers should have students write evaluations of their written drafts and discuss those evaluations; further, the teacher can use a specific writing or writings from the students to lead to discussions of problems that students share; moreover, a teacher can work with a volunteer to analyze the writing and receive feedback from the entire class; finally, the teacher can apply language learning activities such as scrambling sentences, highlight opinions and arguments and discuss their effectiveness (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996).

Studies on feedback interventions

Zacharias (2007) confirmed in his study on teachers' and students' attitudes towards teacher feedback that teacher feedback is an important tool to improve students writing, according to the following reasons in favor of teacher feedback: teachers have higher linguistic competence in English, teacher feedback provides security for the students, cultural belief that teachers are the source of knowledge, and teachers control grades. Similarly, Yang et al. (2006). compared peer and teacher feedback by means of analyzing students' written drafts. The results demonstrated that students received 65.6% more feedback per word from their teacher compared to their peers' feedback. Also, students incorporated 90% of the feedback when it was provided by the teacher against 67% from their peers. Finally, interviews were applied to the students where they stated that teachers' feedback was more professional, experienced, and trustworthy than their peers. These authors demonstrated that teacher feedback leads to greater improvement due to the perception that teacher feedback is more qualified, experienced, accurate, valid, reliable and trustworthy. However, Zacharias (2007), claimed that not all students agree, especially the ones who have received inappropriate teacher feedback such as: too much feedback or the use of unknown terms.

Further, a study on teacher and peer feedback in writing was performed in a secondary school by Gielen, et al., (2010) where similar results to Yang et al. (2006) were recorded. Based on students' perceptions, 56% of students did not consider peer feedback to be useful, and 63% of the students did not wish to continue using peer feedback. Both studies by Gielen et al. (2010) and Yang et al. (2006), agreed that teacher feedback has a larger impact considering performance. Moreover, Rajab, Khan and Elyas (2015) aimed to identify teachers' perceptions in EFL (n =184) and practices in Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) in the Saudi context found “time” as the main factor in following a particular strategy for written corrective feedback.

Voerman, Meijer, Korthagen, and Simons (2012) found that feedback interactions are low, and most are non-specific. However, specific feedback is among the most relevant tools to influence students' learning (Hattie, 1999). Moreover, Van den Bergh, Ros, and Beijaard (2014) conducted a study in Netherlands where 47 primary schools were considered. The research pointed out that around 50% of teacher-student interactions are regarded to feedback, precisely on assignments that students are working or on process. The authors affirm that very few of these interactions have non-specific feedback or feedback focused on personalities.

Baker and Hansen Bricker (2010) conducted a research on native English and ESL speakers' perception on writing feedback. They found that both speakers were able to quickly identify positive and negative comments when they were direct. However, both speakers were slow to identify positive and negative comments when they were indirect suggesting that students easily understand feedback when they are praised, but when comments are negative, students take longer to understand them. It helps explain why some students do not make changes in their works after the teacher has illustrated some errors. In addition, Burnett (2002) concluded that students, who perceived that the teacher was constantly giving them negative feedback, reported a negative relationship with the teacher while impacting on the classroom environment in a negative way. Thus, the author suggested that students' satisfaction is determined by the positive feedback that the teacher provides.

Kazemi, Abadikhah, Dehqan (2018) conducted a study to compare teacher-written feedback with joint feedback of student reviewers after intra-feedback session. A group of twenty-one university students and an EFL teacher participated in the study. From the results, it was found that both teacher and students were concerned with surface-level errors during peer feedback and indicated less engagement with other aspects of the composition such as content and organization.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

This study was a quantitative research. The study was framed under this approach to analyze the effects of teacher mini class conferences on writing paragraphs, from a statistical view and from students' perceptions. Thus, it will be developed by integrating numerical results and students' points of views of this type of feedback. In agreement with Millsap and Maydeu-Olivares (2009), this study was quasi-experimental because it tested the effects of a particular type of teacher feedback in a unit (classroom) and did not focus on applying different treatments (feedback methods) to individuals. The study has an independent variable: teacher mini conferences in class and the dependent variable: paragraph structuring.

This research was done similarly to Byram, Gribkova, and Starkey (2002) with a pre-test, treatment, post-test, quasi-experimental design in which the collected data will be analyzed quantitatively. For the perception analysis, a survey was conducted.

The study was conducted with 67 students made up of groups; the first, the “target group” with 36 participants: 30 men and 6 women between 14 and 16 years old. The other, the “control group” with 31 students: 28 men and 3 women between 14 and 16 years who regularly attended the English class during the period September - October 2019 a public primary school, a public institution of the city of Cuenca.

The application of the teacher mini-class conferences was conducted during the first didactic unit (six weeks) of the scholar year 2019-2020. During this time, the students produced a total of five paragraphs. The first paragraph served the purpose of the pre-test, while the last paragraph was the post-test. In the target group, after the students had finished writing each paragraph, the teacher provided feedback through mini-class conferences. Meanwhile, in the control group, the teacher was free to provide feedback as she wished. After the feedback was given, the students were asked to write the next paragraph.

Data collection and analysis

The instruments that were used in this study for the analysis were: the five written assignments, to collect the data; and the survey to analyze the students' perceptions. To grade the students' paragraphs, Brown's basic paragraph rubric was used from Mesa Community College (Appendix 1) on a scale from zero to two for each criterion.

The analysis is presented using measures of central tendency and dispersion, the behavior of the data was not normal according to the Kolmogorov Smirnov test (p <0.05). Consequently, non-parametric tests were used; the Wilcox sign test for comparison between related samples (Pre - post) and the U-Mann Whitney test for independent samples. The decisions were made with a significance of 5% (p <0.05). The data processing was done in the statistical program SPSS 25, and the editing of tables and graphs in Excel 2019.

RESULTS

The results of the pre-test showed that each of the sub-skills before the intervention reached a maximum of 1 with a mean lower than 1, indicating a “moderately appropriate” level in each of them; topic sentence was the sub-skill with the best performance within this group (M = 0.83; SD = 0.27), followed by supporting details (M = 0.54; SD = 0.40), while the weakest performance sub-skill was organization and transition. After the intervention, a similar behavior was found in the development of sub-skills. However, a significant improvement was found in the total writing performance, and in 4 of the 5 sub-skills evaluated except in topic sentence.

Note: *Significative difference (p<.05). TS=Topic Sentence, SD= Supporting Details, OT= Organization and transitions, ST= Style, ME= Mechanics

In the control group, before the intervention, a general oscillating performance was found between 0 and 1 with average scores close to 0.5 which implies a poor level of writing. It was found that the best developed sub-skill was topic sentence (M = 0.55; SD = 0.35) followed by supporting details (M = 0.22; SD = 0.32), with style being the weakest sub-skill within this group. The results of the post-test had maximum scores of 1.5 and average scores close to one in each of the sub-skills following a similar pattern of performance except organization and transition, that proved to be the weakest in the post-test, being also the only one not to reflect a significant difference between before and after.