feedback on esl writing teachers’ practices and students’ preferences = hoạt động thực tế của giảng viên và mong muốn của sinh viên đối với phản hồi trên bài viết tiếng anh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
******************

LÊ THỊ THU HÀ

FEEDBACK ON ESL WRITING: TEACHERS’ PRACTICES AND
STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES
HOẠT ĐỘNG THỰC TẾ CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN VÀ MONG MUỐN CỦA
SINH VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI TRÊN BÀI VIẾT TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111




HANOI - 2013
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
******************

LÊ THỊ THU HÀ

FEEDBACK ON ESL WRITING: TEACHERS’ PRACTICES AND
STUDENTS’ PREFERENCES
HOẠT ĐỘNG THỰC TẾ CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN VÀ MONG MUỐN CỦA

SINH VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI PHẢN HỒI TRÊN BÀI VIẾT TIẾNG ANH

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. To Thi Thu Huong


HANOI - 2013
i

DECLARATION

I confirm that this is my own research, and that it has not been published or
submitted for any other degrees.

Student's signature



Lê Thị Thu Hà
ii

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Dr. To Thi Thu
Huong, for her invaluable support, useful guidance and comments. I am truly
grateful to her advice and suggestions right from the beginning when this study was
only in its formative stage.
I would also express my gratitude to all the teachers of English at College of

Technologies and Economics in Trade for their constant support as well as
suggestions for this paper.
Especially, I am grateful to the students in the three classes which I am in
charge for their actively taking part in completing the writing tasks and answering
the survey questionnaires. Without their help, this study could not have been
completed.
Finally, my special thanks go to my family and my friends who have been
beside me and have encouraged me a lot to fulfill my study.

iii

ABSTRACT
This case study was conducted at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade
to investigate teachers’ practices and students’ strategies for handling the feedback
they received as well as students’ preferences for four different types of feedback.
Fifty seven students in three ESL classes were asked to fill out the questionnaires
and three writing teachers were asked to participate in the interviews. In addition,
students’ paragraphs with teacher feedback were analyzed to see how teacher gave
the feedback and how students responded to the feedback they received. The results
show that teachers used written feedback frequently, but in different ways; and
students’ strategies for handling feedback varied depending on the types of
feedback each teacher gave on their papers. Besides, the study revealed that
students preferred teacher feedback (teacher correction, teacher correction with
comments, error identification) to non-teacher feedback such as self-feedback, peer-
feedback or computer- directed feedback. The findings of the study suggests that
writing teachers should consider the fit between their practice and students’
preferences to choose the most suitable ways of feedback giving to help students
improve their writing.
iv

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: The number of each type of teacher feedback on students’ first drafts 23
Table 2: Student strategies for handling feedback 28
Table 3: Student’s preferences for each types of feedback 31
Table 4: Attitudes of students in class A to different types of feedback 32
Table 5: Attitudes of students in class B to different types of feedback 34
Table 6: Attitudes of students in class C to different types of feedback 36


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Paragraph sample of the student in class A with teacher feedback 24
Figure 2: Paragraph sample of the student in class B with teacher feedback 25
Figure 3: Paragraph sample of the student in class C with teacher feedback 27

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Student questionnaire I
Appendix 2: Interview questions IV
i

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS i
DECLARATION i
ABSTRACT iii
LIST OF TABLES Error! Bookmark not defined.
LIST OF FIGURES Error! Bookmark not defined.
LIST OF APPENDICES Error! Bookmark not defined.
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1. The rationale of the study 1
2. Purposes of the study and research questions 3

3. Scope of the study 3
4. Significance of the study 4
5. Research methods 4
6. Organization of the study 5
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6
1. Definitions of feedback 6
2. Roles of feedback in teaching ESL/EFL writing 7
3. Types of feedback 8
3.1. Teacher feedback 9
3.1.1. Student-teacher conferencing 9
3.1.2. Teacher written feedback 10
3.2. Peer feedback 12
3.3. Self-feedback 13
3.4. Computer- assisted feedback 13
ii

4. Teachers’ beliefs and practices of giving feedback on ESL writing 14
5. Students’ reactions and preferences for feedback 15
Chapter 3: THE STUDY 18
1. The current situation of teaching and learning English writing at CTET 18
2. Methodology 20
2.1. The participants 20
2.2. Methods and Instrumentation 20
2.2.1. Students’ compositions 20
2.2.2. Questionnaire and interview 21
2.3. Data collection procedure 21
2.4. Data analysis procedure 22
Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 23
1. Teachers’ practices of giving feedback on ESL writing 23
2. Students’ reactions to the received teacher feedback 28

3. Students’ preferences for different types of feedback on ESL writing 31
4. Implications for teaching and learning 38
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 41
1. Summary 41
2. Limitations of the study 41
3. Suggestions for further studies 42
REFERENCES 43
APPENDICES I



1

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1. The rationale of the study
Among the most important skills students of English as a second language
(ESL) or a foreign language (EFL) need to develop is writing. For many years, as
many historical accounts have shown, writing won little interest from the learners’
side compared to other skills, especially speaking. Learning to speak has been
deemed a primary concern; learning to write has always been a secondary matter, a
means of practicing, sustaining and reinforcing other skills. However, foreign
language proficiency demands a balance in mastery between different language
skills. Thus, ESL/EFL students have come to realize the importance of writing as an
independent medium of communication which they need for a wide range of
purposes in different contexts both inside and outside the classroom.
The ESL learners at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade, who
follow a three year course in English with Business English as major, by no means;
an exception. The course program offers the learners not only knowledge about
business in English but also chances to improve their four English skills. Among
the four macro skills, writing has recently been interested by both teachers and

students. Over the first semester of the first years, the students are introduced to
some basic concepts in Grammar (parts of speech and word function), Syntax
(phrases, clauses, and sentences), and Mechanics (capitalization and punctuation). It
is until the second semester that students are introduced to basic writing, ranging
from writing informal letters/email to business letter, then writing paragraphs and
essays for the third and the forth semester. They are taught different forms of
letters/email and techniques for paragraph and essay writing including writing topic
sentence, introduction, developmental paragraphs and conclusion. Besides, they are
provided with insights into different patterns of essay development such as
cause/effect, comparison/contrast or argumentation. The third year is by far an
2

opportunity for them to practice writing essays with different patterns of
development.
Teaching English writing is not an easy task for ESL teachers as it involves
various processes which require teachers to devote a lot of time to helping students
write better. Planning what to teach within a particular curriculum is only a part of
the task. Besides, they have to consider the different approaches that gleaned from
theories and researches on teaching writing in ESL contexts. Teachers also spend a
great deal of time in the post-writing process grading students’ compositions in
detail. Especially, it is the teachers’ jobs to select the approach that best fits the
learners’ needs and create a motivating environment, and facilitate the learning-to-
write activity. The teacher can do so by widening the area of interaction between
him and his students. The best means for teacher-student interaction may be
insightful feedback which helps both improving students’ writing production and
motivating them to be independent writers. Therefore, most teachers believe that
feedback is an important aspect of teaching of writing.
However, providing effective feedback is one of the many challenges that
any writing teacher faces. In ESL classroom, feedback practices can be even more
challenging. Teachers and students agree that teacher written feedback is a crucial

part of the writing process (Cohen& Cavalcanti, 1990). Teachers want to give
feedback that will encourage and challenge students to be better writers, but do not
always know how the feedback that they are giving is perceived by students, or how
effective it is. Since reading students work and giving feedback is very time-
consuming process, teachers may feel frustrated when the feedback they offer is not
followed by the students. Even when the teachers’ system for giving feedback is
clear and consistent, sometimes teachers do not know whether students understand
their practices. Therefore, the study examines teachers’ practices of feedback and
compared these with students’ preferences and reaction to feedback to see how the
teachers’ practice matches students’ needs and to find the best approach to improve
students’ writing skill. Besides, through the study, some implications will be
3

suggested for using feedback in teaching ESL writing. In setting up the study, an
attempt is made to replicate Saito’s (1994) study because Saito’s study used ESL
students of Engineering and included Vietnamese background student which is
quite similar to the context of the current study.
2. Purposes of the study and research questions
The research reported in this thesis aims to study teachers’ practices of
feedback giving, the students’ strategies for handling feedback they received and
their preferences toward different types of feedback in teaching – learning English
writing at College of Technologies and Economics in Trade (CTET) so that further
improvement of students’ writing can be achieved.
In order to achieve the aim, the research attempts to answer the following
questions which are a modified version of Saito’s (1994) research questions:
1. How do English teachers at CTET usually give feedback on their students’
written work?
2. How do ESL students at CTET react to the teacher feedback they received?
3. What types of feedback do students prefer?
3. Scope of the study

1. The study was conducted with the participation of the second-year
students in three CTA classes and 3 teachers of English in the Faculty of Foreign
Languages, College of Technologies and Economics in Trade in the academic year
2013. These students study Business English as their major.
2. The study focuses on four different types of feedback on students’ English
writing. The types of feedback used in the study are (1) Teacher feedback with four
sub-types, (2) Peer feedback, (3) Self- feedback, and (4) Computer-assisted
feedback.
4

3. The study investigated two issues. Firstly, the real situation of teachers’
practices and students’ reactions to feedback on ESL writing was studied. Secondly,
the study investigates students’ preferences to four different types of feedback.
4. Significance of the study
Theoretically, the study proves teacher’s feedback to students’ writing is
undeniably a key component and a crucial part of the process. Feedback offers a
number of advantages. Indeed, it “helps students to improve their writing by
communicating feedback detailed enough to allow students to act, to commit to
change in their writing” (Reid, 1993). It also gives the teachers a better chance of
closely following the progress of students, both in terms of the feedback offered and
revision made.
Practically, the study shows that using feedback not only helps students
recognize and correct the mistakes to become more professional writers, but also
give teachers chances to understand students’ needs and choose the most suitable
approaches of writing teaching. The study also offers teachers some implications to
improve teaching writing.
5. Research methods
To meet the research aforementioned aims, document analysis and
questionnaire survey together with interview were used in this study.
First, a sample of 57 paragraphs of English written by students with teacher’s

feedback on these samples were collected from 57 students who agreed to take part
in the research and analyzed to find out how teachers give feedback on students’
writing. Besides, the author also compared the first versions with the revised
versions to see whether the results from the student questionnaire match the reality
in which they handled the feedback or not.
5

Second, a questionnaire survey was done on the 57 students to find out the
strategies they used when handling received feedback and their preferences for the
four different types of feedback. A semi-structured interview was also carried out
with the participation of three ESL writing teachers to know more about their
practices of giving feedback on student’s ESL writing and their perceptions about
four different types of feedback.
6. Organization of the study
The paper consists of five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1- INTRODUCTION- briefly states the rationale of the study, the aims,
research question, scope as well as the significance and organization of the study.
Chapter 2- LITERATURE REVIEW- discuss the literature related to the feedback
in writing, different types and roles of feedback as well as teachers and students’
attitudes to feedback.
Chapter 3- THE STUDY – describe the current situation of teaching and learning
writing at CTET and the methodology which deals with the participants,
instrumentation, data collection procedure and data analysis procedure.
Chapter 4 - RESULTS AND DISCUSSION- analyzes and discusses the data and
then draws the implications for teaching and learning of writing using feedback.
Chapter 5 - CONCLUSION- summarizes the major findings of the study,
acknowledges its limitations and provides suggestions for further study.
6

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1. Definitions of feedback
Before discussing issues concerning to feedback, it is necessary to present a
clear definition of the term “feedback”. In the literature, various researchers define
the term “feedback” in different ways. Some researchers consider feedback as a
form of revision, for example, Keh (1990) defines that feedback is “input from a
reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for
revision”. Hence, feedback is supposed to show learners what is right or wrong in
order for them to produce better texts in future. Sharing the same opinion with Keh,
Phil (2007) says that “feedback is when you receive comments about your work, so
that you know how well your studies are going – and of course there’s the other
side to this – so you know how badly your studies are going”. So, through feedback,
the writers raise awareness of their strength and learn where they misled or
confused to identify action to be taken to improve the next performance. Besides,
“feedback is part of the overall dialogue or interaction between teacher and
learner, not a one-way communication” (Judy, 2007). It means feedback is a way of
interaction between teachers and learners, more broadly between readers and
writers. It can be an effective means to communicate to the students about their
writing. Through feedback, teachers can understand more about learners; and
learners learn from the comments of the teachers. Especially, feedback could be
“consider a motivator that increase a general behavior” (Kulhavy & Wager, 1993).
For example, positive feedback, such as praise, strengthens students’ motivation
and self-confidence.
Through the definitions reviewed, feedback is also an indispensable part of
writing development. Feedback in writing is the information that is given to the
learner about his or her performance of writing, usually with the objective of
improving this performance. Feedback on ESL writing means advice, criticism or
information about how good student’s writing is or what errors are in the student’s
7

writing. It can be provided by writers themselves, peers, and teachers or innovative

computer programs.
2. Roles of feedback in teaching ESL/EFL writing
The roles of feedback in English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as
a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching and learning have been key issues in several
studies in teaching writing. Many scholars and researchers believe that feedback
plays an important role in the writing process. According to Simpson (2006), the
feedback on the content and organization help the students to improve the quality of
their writing. Student writers who receive feedback will have information about
which parts of their texts need to be corrected and improved. Glover and Brown
(2006) in their study also indicated that feedback is effective if students act on it to
improve their future work and learning. Sharing the same opinion, Carless (2006)
confirms that students who receive feedback during the writing process have a
clearer sense of how well they are performing and what they need to do to improve.
In sum, feedback can provide assessment on how well the students perform their
work or their accomplishment of a given task as feedback is meant for helping
students narrow or close the gap between their actual ability and the desired
performance (Brookhart, 2003).
Another role of feedback in writing is said to raise students’ awareness of the
informational, rhetorical, linguistic expectations of the reader. Williams (2005)
suggests, feedback in writing can stimulate explicit knowledge of student writers.
He describes explicit knowledge as the knowledge of language rules that students
can articulate and provide reasons that certain rules should be applied. Students who
receive feedback will resort to their prior knowledge about language and writing
rules that they have learned. In writing, student writers will apply explicit
knowledge as stimulated by the feedback on their writing.
Additionally, feedback can increase students’ attention on the subject they
are writing. Students who receive feedback will pay more attention to what they
8

have written that, beyond their knowledge or awareness, their work does not meet

certain standards. The feedback that they receive draws students’ attention to those
aspects of their writing that need remediation, and by doing so, they learn how to
improve their performance. The increase of attention will lead to writing
improvement which can be defined as a gain in accuracy in both form and content
of writing as indicated by Ashwell (2000)
Moreover, feedback plays an important role in improving the students’
motivation in language learning, especially in writing. Ellis (2009) indicated that in
both structural and communicative approaches to language teaching, feedback is
considered as a way of inspiring learner motivation and increasing linguistic
accuracy. Nazifah & Shafiq (2012) also argues the roles of feedback that
“incorporating feedback in writing is an effective approach in writing lesson as it
can foster the students’ motivation, improve their language proficiency as well as
promote their great achievement in writing performance.”
3. Types of feedback
In recent years, studies of language education have given considerable
attention to the issue of how and who to provide feedback to students’ writing.
However, researchers still discuss the questions of what types of feedback would be
the most effective one to improve students’ writing skill and fit the needs of
particular students. Through the literature reviewed, feedback has been categorized
into various types of feedback based on feedback functions, media, focus, source,
and strategy. However, in the present study, the writer reviewed four main types of
feedback: teacher feedback, peer feedback, self- feedback and computer-assisted
feedback.

9

3.1. Teacher feedback
Teacher feedback is defined as “any input provided by the teacher to
students for revision” (Keh, 1990), and this includes both content and form. In ESL
writing teaching and learning, teachers provides feedback on student writing to

support students’ writing development and nurture their confidence as writers.
Teacher feedback is often divided into two forms: verbal feedback and written
feedback. Verbal feedback may be given as teacher circulates around the classroom
while students are writing. It may be also given in student-teacher conferences.
Written feedback may be given in many forms such as error identification, error
correction and comment. In the present study, the writer reviewed two main types
of teacher feedback: student-teacher conferencing as verbal feedback and teacher
written feedback.
3.1.1. Student-teacher conferencing
Student-teacher conferencing is defined as “the teacher and student discuss a
piece of student writing individually during the writing of a composition, and after
it is finished” (Saito, 1994). It has become increasingly popular tools in writing
instruction in L1 settings, and recently, this approach has started to become popular
in L2 situations as well (Carnicelli,1980; Zamel,1985; Bitchenere., 2005). In an L1
study, Carnicelli (1980) reviewed students' opinions towards writing conferences
and found that two-way communication in a writing conference appeared more
effective than written comments because it allowed students to explain their
opinions and needs, and to understand the teacher's comments. Besides, when
considering second language learners, Zamel (1985) emphasized the importance of
writing conferences: "We should set up collaborative sessions and conferences
during which important discoveries can be made by both reader and writer"(p. 97).
Discussing this type of feedback, recent researchers also suggested that student-
teacher conference as a means of giving feedback to L2 learner can be beneficial.
For example, Bitchenere et al. (2005) said that giving feedback through student-
10

teacher conferences may very well provide the opportunity for increasing the
interaction between the teacher and the student, which helps students to clarify the
confusion that they have, and maximize their achievements through the social
interaction. Supporting the effectiveness of student-teacher conferencing, Peterson

(2010) stated that “when there is a dialogue between student and teacher, the
student may ask for help in a particular area or ask what effect the writing has on
the teacher-as-reader; the teacher may ask about the students’ goals, their
impressions of the strongest parts of their writing and their thoughts on what they
have learned through writing a particular composition.”
Though Bitchenere (2005) provided an evidence for the effectiveness of
student-teacher conferencing as a way of providing feedback to students’ writing;
he also showed that there may be some disadvantages to it: “when the number of
students in a class is over forty, there may be difficulties in arranging a twenty-
minute student-teacher conference for each student.” This means that teacher-
student conferencing seems to be suitable only to small classes with about 10 -15
students. It also requires teachers much more time and energy to do this task.
3.1.2. Teacher written feedback
Teacher written feedback is a primary method to respond to students’
writings to assist students’ writing development. Surveys of students’ feedback
preferences generally indicate that ESL students prefer teacher feedback to other
forms such as peer feedback or self- feedback (Saito, 1994; Zhang, 1995). Most
students see a teacher as the only source of authority value teacher revision highly
than other methods because they have confidence in the teacher’s knowledge and
skills in English. In fact, teacher written feedback on students’ draft helps indicate
students’ problems and make suggestions for improvement of future papers.
Besides, through feedback, teacher can help students compare their own
performance with the ideal and to realize their own strengths and weaknesses.
11

Researchers have tried to find out what kinds of teacher feedback are the
most effective. Roberts (2001) examined the effectiveness of teacher written
feedback with three types: errors marked with codes; errors underlined with no
codes; and no error feedback at all. Before that, when discussing the types of
feedback, Saito (1994) categorized teacher written feedback into three main types as

error correction, error identification, and commentary. In this study, based on the
category of Saito (1994), I discussed teacher written feedback in three main forms:
error correction, error identification and teacher commentary.
Error correction by teacher or error marked with codes is defined that “the
teacher corrects all the surface errors by crossing out perceived errors and
providing correct answers” (Saito, 1994). It is direct feedback given by teachers
and considered the most common form of written feedback in ESL writing contexts.
Many researchers have indicated that L2 students benefit from teacher error
correction. Lee (1997) studied the performance of ESL college students in Hong
Kong and found that the students corrected more errors when their errors were
indicated with teachers’ codes. Similarly, Ferris and Roberts (2001), studying the
effects of teacher feedback among university ESL student writers, showed that error
feedback groups significantly performed better than the no feedback control group.
In the study of Saito (1994), he also found out that L2 students favored teacher error
correction because it is easy for them to edit and improve their papers. However,
Truscott (1996) did not think that error correction had many benefits as other
researchers said and argued that this kind of feedback is harmful to students’
fluency and their overall writing quality and should be abandoned.
Error identification is indirect feedback, which is marked by teachers by
means of an underline, circle, code, etc. without any correction. It may be the most
widely-used technique for responding to the writing of L2 learners (Cumming,
1985). A number of researchers think that error identification is generally more
appropriate and effective than error correction and brings more benefits to students’
long-term writing development (Frantzen, 1995; Ferris, 2002). It is because this
12

way of giving feedback requires students to solve problems themselves. It gives
students opportunities to understand and fix their errors themselves and express
their ideas more clearly in the next writing. However, error identification from
teacher is useful only when it incorporated with student self-revision. Lower

proficiency students may be unable to correct errors marked by teachers, so they
prefer teachers to give all the corrections for their mistakes.
Commentary, as defined by Saito (1994), is “when teacher provides feedback
by making written comments or questions on the margins or in between sentences
without any error corrections made”. As discussed in the literature on ESL
teaching, there are very few studies about teachers’ commentary as a means of
feedback in teaching writing; and teachers seem less likely to use commentary on
ESL students' writing. In the research of Zamel (1985), he revealed that ESL
teachers' comment tended to ignore the content or ideas in students' writing in favor
of attention to grammatical errors. Besides, other researchers such as Cardelle &
Como (1981).have suggested that positive written comments along with specific
comments on errors may be an effective way to motivate students to improve their
revisions of their writing.
3.2. Peer feedback
Peer feedback is a useful assessment-for-learning tool that has been shown to
support students’ writing development and contribute to students’ revisions to
improve their writing (Peterson, 2013). As defined by Saito (1994), peer feedback is
that “students evaluate each other’s work in pairs or with a whole class”. It benefits
not only the students who receive suggestions for improving the writing, but also
the feedback providers, as they gains a greater awareness of qualities of good
writing through assessing and commenting on peer’s writing. Peer feedback also
develops students’ self-assessment abilities, as they gain experience in using the
criteria to read their own writing (Cho & MacArthur, 2010; Lundstrom & Baker,
2009). However, it is important for ESL teachers to teach students how to give
13

feedback to their peers and how to work with the feedback. Researchers recommend
that students should be guided by teacher modeling and assessment criteria.
3.3. Self-feedback
Self-feedback, or self-correction, or self-assessment, means that students

evaluate their own work by using a checklist, computers, etc. (Saito,1994).
Discussing this type of feedback, Charles (1990) defines it that “students makes
annotations about any doubts ad concerns during their writing”. He also claimed
that self-feedback makes students express their intentions and uncertainties much
easier and encourages them to develop the critical and analytical writing skills.
Furthermore, it is beneficial to let students place themselves in the position of
audience and receive feedback directly to their queries. Similarly, Oscarson (2009),
when studying self-assessment of writing in learning EFL, stated that students and
teachers were positive to the incorporation of self-assessment activities in the EFL
writing classroom. The method was seen to be a practical way of helping students
become more aware of their language skills and language levels. However, in the
study of students’ preferences towards various types of feedback, Saito (1994)
showed that the students less favored self-feedback than other types of feedback.
3.4. Computer- assisted feedback
The rapid development of computer technology together with the use of
computers by linguistics and researchers, and the increasing importance of
computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and computer-assisted language
instruction (CALI) has greatly influenced writing teaching in recent years.
Therefore, the terms of “computer-assisted feedback” or “computer-based
feedback” appeared to support the giving feedback activity in writing teaching and
learning. “Computer-assisted feedback” means using the innovative computer
programs to evaluate and score written feedback. Nowadays, there are a number of
computer applications which provide feedback to the writer, for example, Electronic
Feedback software, MY Access. The software has been developed to score
14

students’ writing in a variety of genres and provide writers with immediate
feedback on content and organization for revision (Lee, 2009). When comparing the
reactions of students to handwritten and electronic feedback using Electronic
Feedback, Denton (2008) stated that students rated the electronic feedback superior

for “mark scheme clarity, feedback legibility, information on deficient aspects, and
identification of those parts of the work where students did well”. Many teachers
also like using the software because it saves their time and energy. However,
Matsumara (2004), who investigated the influence of computer-anxiety on the
preferences of students for face-to-face teacher feedback, computer-based feedback,
and peer feedback in EFL writing classes, showed that student’s attitudes toward
computer-directed feedback varied depending on their level of computer anxiety.
4. Teachers’ beliefs and practices of giving feedback on ESL writing
Teacher beliefs, which have been a common focus of previous studies in
ESL education, are important aspects that influence teachers’ practice. Borg (2001)
defines teacher belief as “a set of consciously or unconsciously held propositions
that serves as a reflection and a guide to the teacher’s thought and behaviors”.
However, very few studies have investigated teacher beliefs and perceptions about
feedback, and even fewer that explore the correspondence or difference between
students’ preferences and teachers’ practices for feedback giving.
In a recent study in an EFL context in Hong Kong, Lee (2003) compared
teachers’ feedback beliefs with teachers’ feedback practices. She found that
although many teachers believe in giving selective error correction feedback, most
teachers surveyed still mark papers comprehensively. Lee (2004), also comparing
teachers and students’ beliefs in Hong Kong, added the extra element of comparing
teacher beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions to student beliefs, attitudes, and
perceptions. She found that both students and teachers in this context preferred
comprehensive marking and that teachers use only limited strategies in their
feedback practices. Another research of Montgomery and Baker (2007) who
15

surveyed 98 students and ten teachers showed that teachers’ perceptions of the
amount of feedback that they give are generally lower than students’ perceptions. In
investigating the relationship between the teachers’ beliefs and actual feedback
provided, Lee (2003) indicated that teachers may not have provided feedback in the

way that they believed they should. Another example of such a study was conducted
by Farahman (2011) who explored teachers’ perceptions in relation to their actual
performance. The finding also indicated that teachers’ stated beliefs do not always
match what they actually do. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy studies in teacher
beliefs and practice was conducted by Lee (2009) outlining ten mismatches between
teachers’ beliefs and practice regarding error correction- a type of teacher feedback.
Further results from the studies indicate that teachers’ beliefs regarding
feedback differ from the actual feedback that they provided to the respond to the
students’ writing. The mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and practices may come
from several problems of teachers such as “time constraint, teachers' heavy
workload, large class size, learners' lack of motivation, and mixed level class.”
(Moniruz & Abul, 2012)
5. Students’ reactions and preferences for feedback
Recent empirical work has investigated students’ reactions to feedback. In
general, most of the studies show that students find feedback helpful for them to
improve their work. For instance, according to the study of Lizzio & Wilson (2008),
students value feedback that is fair, encouraging, and has a developmental focus.
Besides, Nazifah & Shafiq (2012), studying the reactions of students in Thailand,
also argues that students became more motivated and have great enthusiasm to
accomplish their goals in writing after getting feedback from their instructors on
their writing, especially positive feedback as praise.
Although most students value feedback on writing, the ways they handle the
feedback they received are different. According to Saito (1994), “students'
strategies for handling feedback may depend on the type of feedback they receive in
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ESL classes”. Usually, when students receive corrected feedback to their writing,
they may simply read through their corrected compositions instead of putting a lot
of effort into revising or rewriting. However, if the feedback gives only clues for
students to make corrections themselves, students are prompted to correct errors and

revise their papers. In the study of Shamshad & Faizah (2009), it can be seen that
students respond differently to different types of feedback. “Some students might
respond positively to content-focused feedback because they might possess some
writing skills as well as the content knowledge of the topic. On the other hand, there
are students who respond positively to form-focused feedback due to factors such as
the instructional context itself and the perception of students themselves towards the
meaning of a good essay.” For instance, to teachers’ commentary, the study showed
that “students use various strategies to respond to teachers’ commentary such as
following closely the corrections made by the teacher or avoiding the corrections
altogether by not incorporating them in their revision process.”( Shamshad &
Faizah, 2009)
Recently, many studies have discussed students’ preferences to feedback on
writing such as Radecki & Swales (1988), Cohen & Cavalcanti (1990), Leki (1991),
Lee (2008), and April (2011). Generally, results from the studies show that both
undergraduate and graduate students noted the importance of feedback that was
clear, provided positive comments, and was constructive (April, 2011). Specifically,
participants appreciated feedback that provided them information on the overall
structure and approach of their essays and that focused on the key points of their
work. Positive comments were recognized as motivating, and students reported
being receptive to a balance of positive and critical comments if the focus was
improvement. Besides, most students from the studies prefer all their mistakes to be
corrected when they receive feedback from teachers or colleagues. For instance, in a
survey of 59 ESL students’ attitudes towards feedback on their written work,
Radecki & Swales (1988) emphasized that ESL teachers might lose their credibility
among their students if they do not correct all surface errors because findings
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revealed that students seem to need and expect correction of all errors. Also,
according to Cohen & Cavalcanti (1990) who investigated nine EFL Brazilian
students’ responses to their teacher’s commentary, the students reported that the

comments they usually received were mainly form-based focusing on grammar and
mechanics, but they would prefer feedback on other aspects of writing such as
content and organization of ideas. In a similar survey of 100 ESL students’
preferences for error correction, Leki (1991) found that students equate good
writing in English with error-free writing and that they expect and want all errors in
their written work to be corrected.
However, some studies about the preferences of learners also showed that the
needs of students with different levels and learning contexts to feedback are not the
same towards the different types of feedback. For example, students in the study of
Saito (1994) found teacher feedback such as teacher correction, error identification,
teacher-student conferencing, more useful than peer correction or self correction.
Besides, Moniruz & Abul (2012) states that learners' preference for direct feedback
might have been influenced by the reality of EFL context that learners lack enough
proficiency and confidence in handling the target language forms. In fact, in
EFL/ESL context, those learners who have low proficiency in English may want to
have direct feedback on specific items. Otherwise, they may not understand the
nature of the feedback and may be frustrated. On the other hand, advanced level
learners may want indirect feedback and due to their proficiency level in the target
language, this type of feedback may be appropriate for them.
In sum, previous research on student views of feedback has consistently
shown that students treasure teacher feedback and are quite positive about receiving
feedback on their writing. However, learners of different ages, backgrounds,
motivations and proficiency levels in different classroom contexts have different
reactions and preferences to types of feedback.