A STUDY ON PEERS’ POSITIVE FEEDBACK IN GROUP WORK BY VIETNAMESE EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Abstract

This study was conducted to find out Vietnamese EFL students’ perceptions of peers’ positive feedback in group work and their actual practice of giving positive feedback. The participants included 100 third-year English majors at a university in central Vietnam. Questionnaire, interview, and recorded group observation were used for data collection. The findings show that most EFL university students had awareness of the significance of peers’ positive feedback in group work. With regards to positive feedback, peers resorted to various strategies, including giving some simple phrases such as “Good!”, “Nice!”, “Excellent!”, “Well done!”, some expressionss, including adjective + noun, pronoun + is + (really) + (a) + adjective + noun phrase”, and “What + (a/an) + adjective + noun phrase. Besides, they reported using compliments containing the modal verb should in their utterances. From the findings, suggestions were made for students to deliver positive feedback to peers in group work.