This document summarizes an action research project on using oral languaging to improve student writing in Italian. The researcher had students record oral reflections on written feedback for their first draft compositions. Most students agreed that reflecting orally on errors helped them understand grammatical, vocabulary, and other issues. By coding errors, the researcher found students corrected an average of 71% of errors on the second draft after doing oral reflections. The conclusions were that oral reflections helped students process feedback and improve accuracy from one draft to the next.

1. Oral Languaging in Writing
Feedback:
An Action Research Project
Matteo Musumeci,
Graduate Teaching Assistant
(Italian)
Northern Arizona University

2. 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)

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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?

7. 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)

8. Participants by Education
Level

9. 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).

10. 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.

11. 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)

12. 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

13. 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)

14. 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

15. 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
%oferrorscorrected
Student
Percentage of number of errors corrected

16. Perceptions

17. Questionnaire Values
1 = Strongly Disagree 3 = Agree
2 = Disagree 4 = Strongly Agree

20. 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 agreed
that 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%)

21. 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

22. 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.

23. ¿Preguntas? Domande?
Questions?
Have any questions?? 