The Impact of Explicit Feedback on EFL High School Students Engaged in
Writing Tasks
El impacto
de la retroalimentación explícita en tareas de escritura en
lengua inglesa de estudiantes de secundaria
Roxanna
Correa Pérez*
Mariela
Martínez Fuentealba**
María
Molina De La Barra***
Jessica
Silva Rojas****
Mirta
Torres Cisternas*****
Universidad
Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Chile
*****gabriela.azulado@gmail.com
This article was received on September 24, 2012, and
accepted on July 20, 2013.
The aim of this article is to examine the impact of
feedback on content and organization in writing tasks developed by learners of
English as a foreign language. The type of study is qualitative and the
research design is a case study. One study involved three students and a female
teacher, and the second consisted of three students and a male teacher.
Research instruments involved were a structured interview, a writing task in
class and document analysis. The findings show that students feel motivated to
re-write a writing task when the teacher provides feedback on content and
organization. Moreover, there was evidence of improvement in the
students’ writing when they incorporated the teacher’s comments.
Key words: Feedback,
motivation, writing, writing tasks.
El objetivo de este
estudio es examinar el impacto de la retroalimentación, orientada a
contenidos y organización, en escritos desarrollados por aprendices de
inglés como lengua extranjera. El tipo de investigación es
cualitativa y el diseño un estudio de casos. Un caso se conformó
con tres estudiantes y una profesora, el segundo quedó compuesto por
tres estudiantes y un profesor. En relación con los instrumentos, se
utilizaron una entrevista estructurada, una tarea de escritura y el
análisis documental. Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes se
sienten motivados a reescribir una tarea de escritura cuando el profesor
comenta las ideas y la organización de esta. Además se
evidenció una mejora en los escritos de los estudiantes al incluir las
sugerencias del profesor.
Palabras clave: escritura,
motivación, retroalimentación, tareas escritas.
Introduction
Many issues may happen with the teacher and learner
interaction during the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and
learning process. Thus, teachers are always concerned about what is occurring
with their learners during lessons. They want students to learn from their
mistakes; in this case, language teachers expect students to learn a new
language by being aware of the aspects they need to improve. That is why they
provide comments to learners when correcting. Some of the teachers do respond
(in written or oral form) to their students’ tasks without noticing the
effect it may produce on the students. The researchers of this study, during
their pre-service experience, have noticed that language teachers provide these
comments in different ways: some of them mark the text with ticks or crosses,
while others provide the correct answer or just refer to an aspect that needs
to be improved (vocabulary, grammar, or other).
The last five years spent at different schools and in
educational contexts have helped us to notice that learners are not conscious
that receiving feedback gives them the opportunity to be led down the right
path, hence, the potential to learn and improve their writing competence.
Therefore, if students are not involved in understanding the feedback provided,
they will not improve their language competence, regardless of the amount of
time they spent trying to learn it. This reality implies that improving is a
matter of personal commitment and not a matter of time. Learners need to apply those
comments given by their teachers to their learning process in order to avoid
committing the same mistakes over and over. Hence, in order to better
understand the impact of informing the students about their weaknesses or
strengths during the process of learning a foreign language, the researchers
consider it relevant to carry out an in-depth research project. For this
reason, in this study we examined in detail the impact of explicit feedback
provided on content and organization in writing tasks, and whether this
response motivates EFL learners to improve.
In the first part of this article, the reader will
find a review of the principal concepts of this research such as feedback,
writing, feedback on writing and motivation. In the second part, methodological
aspects are described. In the third part, all the data collected are revealed
and then analysed. In the last part, a summary of the
conclusions is presented.
Concept
Framework
In order to define feedback in second language acquisition,
the concept of acquisition will be clarified. Acquisition is considered as the
use and understanding of a language in terms of conveying messages instead of
learning (Krashen, 1981). The concept of feedback on
second language acquisition will be revised.
Feedback
According to Ur (2006), “feedback, in the
context of teaching in general, is the information that is given to the learner
about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of
improving this performance” (p. 242). The author states that feedback is
the information that explains how well or poorly learners performed. The main
objective is to identify the potential areas where some improvements could be made as well as to foster
students’ autonomy.
In the same context, Aparicio
(2007) adds that feedback is the information given by the teacher to students
about their performance. The author suggests that feedback is the information
an instructor gives to his learners about their performance so they are able to
check themselves and be more successful in fulfilling the goals of a course.
Gattegno (as cited in Nunan, 1995) suggests that
feedback is a fundamental element during the teaching and learning process of
each individual learner since it allows not only the correction of errors during
a written assignment, but also the establishment of rapport and a consistent
relationship between the learners and the teacher. Students react to feedback
looking for teachers’ approval.
However, Ur (2006) emphasises
the idea that when giving feedback it cannot be possible to avoid the idea of
giving judgement. Ur explains that teachers have
feelings and different point of views, and it is difficult not to get involved
when they assess. For this reason Ur states that “Teachers are sometimes
urged to be ‘non-judgmental’ when giving feedback; in my opinion
this is unrealistic. Any meaningful feedback is going to
involve some kind of judgment” (p. 242).
Furthermore, Ur (2006) identifies as one component of
feedback correction the student’s own explanation about his/her
performance in a particular task. As a second component the author identifies
assessment, which allows students to know how good or bad their performance
was.
Sometimes teachers and learners think that correction
is just related to mistakes instead of giving positive comments to the
students. Indeed, according to the researchers of this study, it might be said
that some teachers tend to relate correction with error-correction instead of
providing positive comments.
Types of Feedback
Nunan (1995),
Brown (2000), and Ur (2006) agree that, at least, there are two levels of
feedback: positive feedback and negative feedback. Furthermore, feedback can be
classified into two types: explicit feedback and implicit feedback. Explicit
feedback is that which is extremely clear and evident and is perceived by the
students. Conversely, implicit feedback is not evident; the student has to
notice it and know how to use it to foster his/her learning.
Sheen (2004) has brought to light an inclusive concept,
which is corrective feedback (CF). According to this author,
“the term ‘corrective feedback’ is used as an umbrella term
to cover implicit and explicit negative feedback occurring in both natural
conversational and instructional settings” (p. 264).
A matter for debate has been the role of CF in second
language acquisition. Some authors like Schmidt (1990, 1992) and Long (1996) claim that negative feedback plays a
facilitative and crucial role in acquisition. Furthermore, Long
believes that from the interaction between the teacher and learners, implicit
negative feedback can give students a chance to pay attention to linguistic
form. This focus, of the learner, on the linguistic forms may foster the
student’s acquisition of the language.
Schmidt (1990, 1992) adds that students should notice
by themselves the space between the interlanguage,
understood by Selinker and Gass
(2008) as “interlanguage transfer is the
influence of one L2 over another” (p. 152), and the target language since
it allows the improvement of the acquisition of the language. However, Krashen (1981), Schwartz (1993), and Truscott (1996) differ
from Long (1996) and Schmidt’s (1990, 1992) beliefs by pointing out that
just positive feedback is enough for students to acquire a second language.
Moreover, they add that there is no sense in using negative feedback and it may
cause damaging effects on the language development.
Ur (2006) compares the role of positive and negative
feedback and states that “It is true that positive feedback tends to
encourage, but this can be overstated [whereas] negative feedback, if given
supportively and warmly, will be recognized as constructive, and will not
necessarily discourage” (p. 257). It is interesting to notice the positive
aspect of negative feedback and the negative side of positive feedback. Indeed,
providing only positive feedback is not advisable because students can think
that they are doing well when they are not. However, negative feedback should
be given in a constructive and warm way.
Writing
Based on Harmer (2003), Musumeci
(1998), Nunan (1995), Olshtain
(2001), and Ur (2006), we point out that writing is the expression and the
association of ideas which can be either in people’s mother tongue or
another language, being the association of ideas the most difficult to
students. The principle idea of any writer is that their piece of work may be
read but, as the reader’s feedback (i.e. comments, opinions) is not
received immediately any piece of writing should include conventions and
mechanical devices to make the reader’s understanding effortless. In
fact, any a piece of writing should have two components: coherence and
cohesion. The first one means that all the ideas in a paragraph flow smoothly
from one sentence to the next, and cohesion refers to the use of transitional
expressions or words to guide readers and show how the parts of writing relate
to one other.
Feedback on Writing
Feedback on writing is the information or comments
given by a reader to a writer in relation to organization, ideas, and writing
mechanics. It is also a useful tool for writers in order to achieve their
purpose, which is to let the readers understand what the writers want to
convey. Furthermore, Ur (2006) notices that content is
the most relevant aspect in a piece of writing because it includes the ideas
and events the writer wants to express.
For this research project, feedback on writing will be
considered as the comments given by the teacher to the students about their
writings/writing tasks. Moreover, it can be concluded that feedback on writing
is an essential element as part of the process approach to writing. The main
purpose of feedback is to provide important information to the writers so they
can use it to modify their mistakes (Ferreira, 2006). Indeed the most important
element in a writing task is content. For that reason, feedback should be given
principally on content and organization instead of on language forms. However,
teachers should correct some language mistakes if and when they really affect
the meaning of the message or if they are basic (Celce-Murcia,
2001; Harmer, 2003; Ur, 2006).
Motivation
Giving explicit feedback is a way that some teachers
use to motivate students to improve; in fact, the research question of this
study (Does explicit feedback, provided in content and organization in writing
tasks, motivate EFL learners?) is related to the motivation that explicit
feedback may cause in EFL learners. Dörnyei
(2001) defines motivation as that which “concerns the direction and
magnitude of human behaviour, that is: the choice of
a particular action, the persistence with it, the effort expended on it”
(p. 8). The author states that motivation is what guides people’s behaviour. Likewise, motivation occurs when the reason or
the will to improve and constant effort are present. In addition, it influences
how people deal with different situations.
In addition, according to Ur (2006), motivation is
classified into two types: extrinsic and global intrinsic motivation.
“Extrinsic motivation is that which derives from the influence of some
kind of external incentive, as distinct from the wish to learn for its own sake
or interest in tasks” (p. 277). Therefore, extrinsic motivation can be
understood as the external stimulus that students receive in order to learn.
This kind of motivation should be provided first by teachers, second by
parents, then by classmates, trying to enhance learners’ performances in
writing, to go beyond the task. In the case of intrinsic motivation, Miller, Benefield, and Tonigan (1993) as
well as Perry (1998) mention that writing tasks that require high levels of
cognitive engagement are related to higher levels of intrinsic motivation and
self-monitoring activities.
Moreover, Brown (2000) agrees with Ur (2006) in the
sense that motivation is a relevant aspect in the learning process. Brown
(2000) thinks that “motivation is a key to learning” (p. 160). In
addition, Brown classifies motivation into three different perspectives: behaviouristic, cognitive, constructivist. The first one is
related to the desire to receive positive reward. The second one deals with the
basic human needs. And the third one has to do with the social context (the
community). Likewise, motivation can be classified as Gardner and Lambert
suggest.
Gardner and Lambert
(1982) distinguish “instrumental motivation,” which occurs when the
learner’s goal is functional (e.g. to get a job or pass an examination),
and “integrative motivation,” which occurs when the learner wishes
to identify the culture of the L2 group. Another kind of motivation is
“task motivation”—the interest felt by the learner in
performing different learning tasks. (Gardner & Lambert as cited in Ellis,
1995, p. 300)
The concept of task motivation, suggested by Gardner
and Lambert, was considered in this research because the motivation towards the
task facilitates its accomplishment.
Finally, Celce-Murcia
(2001), Harmer (2003), and Ur (2006) agree that the essential element in
writing tasks is content, and furthermore, feedback on writing is a vital
constituent inside the process approach. For this reason, although teachers
should correct language mistakes, they should give feedback on content and
organization principally; that is, global errors instead of local errors.
According to Ferris (2002), global errors “are errors concerning overall
content, ideas, and organization of the writer’s argument [and] local
errors refer to minor errors such as grammar, spelling, or punctuation
‘that do not impede understanding’ of a text” (p. 22).
Nevertheless, no matter the kind of feedback provided, students should know how
to use it.
Method
This study is an exploratory qualitative investigation
and the type of research is a descriptive-interpretative one because, from the
description of the phenomenon, some concurrent ideas were identified among the
different sources of information. This research study has action research
characteristics because the participant teachers took part in it actively
during the research with the purpose of gathering information about the
teaching and learning of the writing process of their own classes.
The main objective of this study was to find out how
explicit feedback, focused on content and organization of written messages,
motivates students to carry out writing tasks. The specific objectives
established were to identify the kind of feedback provided by teachers in
writing tasks, to study how important it is for learners to receive explicit
feedback on writing tasks, to analyze students’ motivation to rewrite and
improve a task after receiving explicit feedback and to compare students’
opinions about the importance of receiving feedback and the second written
task.1
Participants
For this research, two groups of participants were
chosen, one of students and another of teachers. The selection criteria were
the following:
(a) Third and fourth year students from a subsidised high school from Concepción, Chile, who
had had English lessons since fifth grade and a regular attendance of 90%.
Their level of English, according to the school teacher, corresponds to lower
intermediate.
(b) Teachers: those having five years of language
teaching experience, belonging to a subsidised
educational system and teaching English in secondary education, at the same
school as the participating students.
With the criteria mentioned, six students and two
teachers were selected, and each of them participated voluntarily.
Data Collection
The data were collected with the use of one structured
interview and a document analysis methodology. The document analysis was
carried out examining a collection of participating students’ writing
tasks, carried out before and during the investigation. The purpose of analysing previous and current students’ written
samples was to identify the kind of feedback provided by the teacher in writing
tasks, to get a general idea of teachers’ knowledge of feedback and to
analyze students’ motivation to rewrite the topic after receiving
explicit feedback. In order to do that, a rubric was given to participating
teachers to guide the feedback they provided in the second writing task.
The structured interview was conducted in the
students’ mother tongue, Spanish. Furthermore, the structured interview
focused on the importance of explicit feedback in writing tasks for learners in
order to understand how motivation affects the quality of a written task.
Data Analysis
During the data analysis, the data were tabulated and
for the purpose of this research, the researchers analysed
the data in each case. Case 1 considered three students and the teacher of subsidised School 1; in Case 2, researchers considered
three students and the teacher of the subsidised
school. The information collected was analysed
through content analysis techniques, which includes the following phases: data
to be analysed were selected, units of meaning or
categories were determined, the properties of these categories were defined and
finally the data were classified in each category.
The document analysis carried out by the researchers
intended to observe and take notes about the different codes and
characteristics that teachers used when giving feedback. The analysis was
carried out according to the feedback categories defined below.
Affective feedback: It is the extent to which we value or encourage a
student’s attempt to communicate (Brown, 2000).
Cognitive feedback: It is the extent to which we indicate an
understanding of the message itself (Brown 2000).
Positive feedback: Positive feedback has two principal functions: to let
students know that they have performed correctly and to increase motivation (Nunan, 1995).
Negative feedback: The teacher’s overall attention towards
mistakes (Brown, 2000).
Neutral: It simply informs the speaker that the message has
been received (Nunan, 1995).
Explicit: It is extremely clear and evident and it is perceived
by the students (University of Cambridge, 2005).
Implicit: It is not evident, the students have to notice it and
know how to improve their performance (University of Cambridge, 2005).
Then, the structured interview was tabulated in order
to study how important it is for learners to receive explicit feedback on
writing tasks. Once the whole data were collected, the analysis was carried out
and the answers were analysed applying content
analysis methodology. After the development of the individual analysis, a
comparative analysis was made in order to see what common aspects and
differences might be observed among the participants.
To analyze students’ motivation to rewrite the
task after receiving feedback, through the writing task, a completely new
writing process was undertaken. First, students wrote an autobiography; second,
the teachers gave feedback on content and organization. Third, the students
rewrote the autobiography. Once students returned the tasks, the researchers
compared the two papers and analysed them in order to
notice which the students’ improvements in the writing tasks were.
Finally, a comparison between Specific Objective 2, To
Know How Important It Is For Learners to Receive Explicit Feedback in Writing
Tasks; and Specific Objective 3, To Analyze Students’ Motivation to
Rewrite and Improve a Task After Receiving Explicit Feedback, was carried out
with the purpose of corroborating if they were consistent between what they
manifested in the structured interview and what they produced in the writing
task after receiving explicit feedback.
Findings
Objective 1: To
Identify the Kind of Feedback Provided by the Teacher in Writing Tasks
This analysis was based on the following categories:
affective feedback, cognitive feedback, positive feedback, neutral feedback,
negative feedback, explicit feedback, and implicit feedback. Two teachers were
compared for this analysis.
To analyze each case, the information in Table 1 was used for the purpose of classifying each teacher
in the categories that most represent them.
Both teachers give explicit negative feedback because
they indicate where the mistake is, especially in grammar and spelling. To
support the teachers’ way of giving feedback, Ur (2006) mentions that
giving only positive feedback may not have a positive impact on students
because they can think that they are doing well when they are not. Besides,
this author states that negative feedback can be constructive if it is given in
a supportive and kind manner. However, there is one teacher who provides
positive explicit comments while the other gives the correct answers.
Otherwise, both teachers provide cognitive feedback because they understand what
students want to express. Nevertheless, there is one teacher that gives
affective feedback because the teacher praises students to persist in doing the
task.
In Table 2 it can be observed
that the teacher marks in red and uses codes for grammar and spelling.
Moreover, the participating teacher uses criteria such as requirements (name,
author of song, reason), spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. Also, the teacher
writes the correct version of the mistake. However, the teacher neither writes
comments nor gives a mark but indicates the score. Nevertheless, it is
important to mention that the teacher has other ways to mark the mistakes like
underlining, question marks, and parentheses. After observing the feedback
provided by the teacher, one can notice that the teacher gives feedback mainly
based on negative aspects.
In this case, the teacher’s tendency is to
provide explicit negative feedback because the teacher marks all
students’ mistakes and giving the correction of the mistake could be
considered as supportive since the teacher wants to show the students what the correct
answer is. Otherwise, it is important to mention that the teacher marks in red,
which could be interpreted as if the participating teacher were stigmatising mistakes. In this analysis, there is no
evidence of positive and neutral feedback. There is no proof of affective
feedback. Nonetheless, since the teacher responds to the student’s
message, it could be inferred that there is cognitive feedback because the
teacher understand students’ ideas.
In Table 3 below, it can be seen
that the teacher marks in red. Moreover, the participating teacher provides the
correct answer. Also, the teacher gives comments and suggestions about content.
Besides, the teacher provides the final mark but not the points awarded for the
task. It is relevant to realize that the teacher corrects the mistakes in other
ways. For example, the teacher adds punctuation and crosses out extra words.
Also, the teacher circles mistakes and wrongly-used words.
In this case, the teacher provides explicit feedback
and both positive and negative feedback because the teacher gives positive
comments and marks the mistakes. The teacher also provides cognitive and affective
feedback. It is affective as the teacher gives positive comments which
encourage students to continue writing. It is cognitive because the teacher
understands the message and reacts. The teacher reacts with comments and by
correcting the mistakes.
Objective 2: To
Know How Important It Is for Learners to Receive Explicit Feedback in Writing
Tasks
Relating to the importance of receiving explicit
feedback for learners in writing tasks, a structured interview was applied. The
objective of this interview was to learn students’ opinions and
preferences about receiving feedback. For this reason, six questions were
designed. These were in the students’ mother tongue, Spanish, as the
purpose was to learn students’ opinions instead of measuring their level of
English. The analysis is separated into two case studies.
In general, it is important for the students to
receive explicit feedback on writing tasks, because they can improve their
linguistic competence. It is important to mention that students prefer receiving
feedback in Spanish in order to understand better the teacher’s comments.
Moreover, most of them prefer receiving feedback from their classmates because
they trust them. There are three students who prefer receiving feedback from
the teacher too since the teacher’s comments help them to avoid making
the same mistakes. Furthermore, students like oral and direct feedback in
general. However, two of them prefer written feedback because this way they can
avoid speaking to the teacher in English. In addition, another student points
out that since she does not understand feedback in English, she cannot improve
her writing. Table 4 shows some of the evidence commented
on.2
Some students report that the explicit comments made
by the teacher help them. But, in general, students say that they do not
understand comments in English because of their low level of competence. Nevertheless,
one of the interviewees manifests that comments help
her to improve grammar aspects and ideas as can be found in Table
5.
Question 3 was conducted to learn of students’
perception towards how the explicit feedback provided by the teacher helped
them when they did the writing task in the English lesson.
The tendency is that all of the students mention that
receiving feedback from their teachers helps them to avoid making the same
mistakes and helps them feel more confident. There is one student who says
that, in spite of the teachers’ comments being important, s/he does not
pay attention to them.
In relation to the feedback provided by the teacher,
the students said that they do not like receiving feedback since they feel
uncomfortable and because the teacher just explains once. However, one student
did not say anything about the last point. Students’ answers are
illustrated in Table 6.
In Table 7 one of the students
manifests that she likes receiving written feedback as that way she avoids
speaking with the teacher. And some other interviewees mention that they like
receiving instant feedback.
Objective 3: To
Analyze Students’ Motivation to Rewrite and Improve a Task After Receiving Explicit Feedback
Two cases were analyzed. The results were analyzed
under three categories related to the writing assessment: emergent categories
(length of message), predetermined categories (content: improvement of ideas
and organization: logical sequence of ideas and structured paragraph), and
predetermined categories by participating teachers (use of linking words,
neatness, and grammar and spelling).
It is important to mention that all the students
re-wrote their task. In general, according to the category of length of message, it might be said that
some students shortened the pieces of writing. However, two students increased
the length of the autobiography. For example, Student 4 had 96 words in the
first piece of writing and then 155 words after receiving feedback from the
teacher.
In terms of content:
improvement of ideas, most of the students kept the same ideas and two
learners improved them. This happened because the students who did not add new
ideas after the feedback provided were those who had well organized ideas in
the first task. However, there was a student who did not write more ideas as
she did not understand the feedback provided by the teacher. The two students
who improved their ideas did so because the teacher suggested it. For example,
Student 1’s original writing (before receiving feedback) was about his
opinion of a famous character; the feedback of the teacher pointed to the title
(If you were Leonardo Da Vinci, How would your days be like), then said:
“You were asked to write your biography and not his, nor
your opinion about him.” In the student’s second writing (after
receiving feedback), he starts: “I’m Leonardo Da Vinci I was boiring [sic] in
1440.”
In the category of organization:
logical sequence of ideas and structured paragraph, the majority of the students
had logical sequences of ideas. These were mainly in chronological order
because the task was to write an autobiography. For instance, Student 5 started
talking about her parents, then about her childhood; after that, about her
career and finally, she talked about the present. Also, students had well
balanced paragraphs; they had almost the same number of lines per paragraph.
However, two students had unequal paragraphs because these did not have a
similar number of lines.
In relation to the use
of linking words, there was evidence that all the students used them
correctly in general, even though they utilised only
a few of them which were the common ones such as so, and, since. To exemplify this, Student 5 used
the following linking words such as so, and, when, which were correctly used.
With regard to the category of neatness, all students wrote neat pieces of writing. They used
legible hand-writing and the writing task was well presented. For example,
Student 6 had a clear piece of writing, with legible hand-writing and a
well-presented writing task as well. It is important to mention that one
student largely improved the neatness of the piece of writing and this
improvement contributed to the understanding of the writing process.
Finally, in the category of grammar and spelling, it was evident that students improved their
grammar and spelling, making fewer mistakes in general. For instance, Student 6
corrected several grammar mistakes which had been indicated by the teacher.
This occurred because the teacher, when giving feedback, provided the correct
version of the mistake. However, only one student did not follow the
teacher’s feedback and kept the same mistakes.
It might be concluded that most of the students
carried out the task correctly. However, two students did not follow the
instructions of the writing task, thus they did not write an autobiography.
Most of the students felt motivated to re-write the task. Furthermore, they
improved their writing after receiving the explicit feedback provided by the
teacher. The students incorporated the comments provided by the teachers,
especially on content and grammar and spelling. Nevertheless, there was one
student who did not improve her writing in any category; this student declared
that she did not understand feedback provided in English.
Objective 4: To
Compare Students’ Opinions About the Importance of
Receiving Feedback and the Second Written Task
As Table 8 shows, most of the
students were consistent between what they declared in the structured interview
and what they did after receiving feedback. However, there was only one student
who was inconsistent because she said that she did not consider feedback in
English since she did not understand it. However, she incorporated the feedback
provided by the teacher in her writing.3
Conclusions
Throughout the whole process the researchers have
tried to find out whether explicit feedback, provided on content and
organization in writing tasks, motivates EFL learners. In order to have a logical
sequence of conclusions, this section will be organized by the specific
objectives and their corresponding hypotheses.
According to the study of the document analysis of the
two case studies provided by participating teachers, we can conclude in general
that teachers do not give feedback on content and organization systematically
or that they are not aware of it and give it unconsciously. In fact, it can be
interpreted that neither students nor teachers have a culture of feedback.
However, teachers know how to assess error correction in writing tasks as they
specifically pay attention to local errors. Ur (2006) mentions that giving only
positive feedback may not have a positive impact on students because they can
think that they are doing well when it is not so. Besides, this author states
that negative feedback can be constructive if it is given in a supportive and
kind manner. For that reason, it is important to mention what Harmer (2003)
states about the role of feedback which is not only to correct students, but
also offer assessment on their performance.
Through the data analysis the researchers may conclude
that when giving feedback, participating teachers provided feedback that could
be classified in these categories (use of
linking words, neatness, grammar and spelling). Some of them are
considered basic categories in the process of writing by practitioner
researchers, but what was intended was to go one step forward and demand the
students’ best efforts in terms of content,
logical sequence of ideas, and structured paragraphs.
What could be observed in the structured interview, in
terms of students’ opinions, is that in general students like receiving
explicit feedback in order to improve their written tasks. Furthermore,
students said they preferred to receive feedback from their partners. This is emphazised by Gattegno (as cited
in Nunan, 1995), who recognises
the importance of the establishment of a consistent relationship between
teachers and students. In addition, Harmer (2003) states that written feedback
influences students’ final products and also orients students’
writings. The direct relation between students’ opinions about feedback
and their improvement in writing tasks is also evident.
After the document analysis of the writing task, we
can conclude that the kind of feedback provided by teachers does impact on
students’ motivation, in fact, it was demonstrated that students improved
their pieces of writing in the following categories: content: improvement of ideas, grammar
and spelling. Moreover, there is a relation between categories of length of message and grammar and spelling. And in relation to
the category of organisation
students do not have problems.
The relationship between teachers and students also
has an impact. For instance, teachers can create significant learning through
giving the appropriate feedback. On the contrary, Brown (2000) says that
negative cognitive feedback can cause students to perceive that their writings
are totally bad and they will feel frustrated.
In addition, the assumptions proposed by the
researchers were confirmed. The first one, which was related to learners’
improvement in writing tasks after receiving explicit feedback on content and
organization from teachers, was confirmed. This is evidenced in both cases in the
data analysis chapter as students improved their ideas and organization. The
second one, related to positive changes in learners’ attitude towards the
writing task after receiving explicit feedback on content and organization, was
also successfully confirmed. It can be verified since the majority of the
students re-wrote and improved the task incorporating the comments given by the
teachers because they felt motivated.
The comparison between students’ opinions about
the importance of receiving feedback and the re-written task, once they had
received feedback on content and organisation, showed
that most of the students’ opinions were consistent with what they stated
in the structured interview and what they did after receiving feedback on the
writing task.
To sum up, it might be concluded that explicit
feedback motivates EFL learners as they become aware of their writing process
by knowing their strengths and weaknesses. This demonstrates the impact of
providing feedback to EFL students which then leads them to improve their
writing. Nevertheless, if corrections do not happen, learners cannot modify
their mistakes.
1 The re-written task after receiving feedback on
content and organisation.
2 Questions and excerpts have been translated from
Spanish.
3 Students’ opinions have been translated from
Spanish.
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About the Authors
Roxanna Correa
Pérez, B.A. English Teaching,
University Teaching Diploma, and M.A. in Higher Education, from Universidad Católica de la Santísima
Concepción (Chile) and CertTESOL (Sussex
University, Trinity College of London). She teaches Methodology in the English
Pedagogy Program at Universidad Católica de la
Santísima Concepción, Chile, where she
has also been Head of the English Pedagogy Program and Curriculum Advisor.
Mariela Martínez Fuentealba, EFL Teacher graduated from Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción
in Chile. Nowadays, Mariela is working
at a public high school in a small city where she teaches English and organizes
different activities to encourage students to use the language.
María Molina De La Barra, graduated in Secondary English Education from Universidad
Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Chile, in 2010. Nowadays, María is
working at a public high school in Concepción, Chile, where she teaches
English.
Jessica Silva Rojas, English Teacher
graduated from Universidad
Católica de la Santísima Concepción in Chile. After her graduation, she started to work in different
types of schools and after a year, moved to the USA. There, she worked in the
SPLASH Program in Elon Elementary School. Nowadays,
she is working with an ONG giving English lessons.
Mirta Torres Cisternas, graduated from Universidad
Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Chile, in 2010 as an EFL teacher. After a year of working at the high school level, she
started teaching socially deprived students (from 2011 to the present) at the
elementary level.