Responding electronically to student drafts on campus: Encouraging or discouraging dialogue? (original) (raw)
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Humanising Language Teaching, 2012
The teaching of writing skills to students of English as a foreign language in the university teacher training setting can be described as one of the most challenging tasks to be faced by instructors. Although reasons to support the aforementioned statement abound, there are two issues that can be regarded as central to this writing context. In the first place, the development of writing skills becomes an aspect of utmost importance for students’ successful performance in the different subject areas during the four-year course of studies. That is, students need mastery of the tools that enable them to complete tasks that range form answers to exam questions to literature review research papers in specific fields of study such as Phonetics, Literature or Didactics. As well as this, upon completion of their studies, graduates become part of the EFL discourse community characterized by the spread of information and exchange of ideas via the written word. Publication of articles in magazines and journals, presentation of papers at conferences or participation in web forums are some of the activities at the core of any teacher’s professional development in today’s world-wide knowledge society. Given the perceived centrality of the writing curriculum in teacher education, instructors are always on the lookout for different ways of facilitating the process especially in terms of what they can contribute with directly in the form of written feedback. In a process-oriented composition class, the instructor’s feedback on students’ writing, with the subsequent response to it, seems to be the fuel that makes the composition of written pieces an active process. The aim of the present paper is to describe a system of feedback that has resulted beneficial for both students as well as instructors, by which process writing is emphasized making use of e-mails and the comment tool on the Microsoft Word application. The word system is used since the practice described here does not only involve the comments made by the teacher but also the way the drafts are handed in to the instructor and the medium used to do so. This system of feedback is used with students attending the last English Language class in the four-year course of studies at Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos to become EFL teachers. Although based on experiential data – as opposed to research-based – the observations provided represent the work carried out over a period of five years in which the tool used has remained the same but the efficacy of the instructors’ comments and students’ performance has improved. It can be accessed at http://old.hltmag.co.uk/apr12/sart.htm Year 14; Issue 2; April 2012, ISSN 1755-9715
Students’ expectations of feedback given on draft writing
Per Linguam, 2011
Academic writing is the primary means of assessing university students and feedback (oral or written responses) on writing can contribute significantly to student learning and success . This study explores students' expectations of feedback on draft writing. The research design was two-pronged. The initial quantitative aspect employed a questionnaire which students completed after receiving feedback from Writing Centre consultants who aim to give developmental feedback. A subsequent phase involved focus groups with volunteer students. This mixed methods design allowed for greater depth of understanding as the qualitative findings extended the quantitative results. The study concludes that students expect feedback to be understandable, encouraging and to focus on both positive and negative aspects of their writing. Importantly, students expect feedback to 'unpack' the conventions of academic literacy while still encouraging independence and originality.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2021
Despite contemporary research calls for promoting learners' feedback dialogue, how feedback dialogue occurs and contributes to learners' uptake has been little addressed. This study on 28 pairs of EFL undergraduates attempts to explore the process of feedback dialogue, its potential and the main factors affecting it. The data collected from learners' screencast records of feedback dialogue archived in Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, first and final essay drafts in Google Docs, notes on students' screencast dialogue and follow-up interviews were analyzed. Findings illustrate that learners engaged in multidirectional (writer-writer, writer-non-writer and writer-teacher) and bimodal (oral/voice and written) dialogue and negotiations. The observed and perceived potential of feedback dialogue is realized through learners' understanding of feedback, revising and enhancing their writing and learning how to give feedback as well as reducing instructor's time in giving feedback. Yet, learners' engagement in dialogue varied among the pairs from high to moderate/partial and low. Factors behind this variation are learner-related, teacher feedback formulation-related, learner-pairing and grouping-related as well as technical issue-related.
Spicing up Undergraduate Collaborative Writing Course through Feedback Dialogues
International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research
Dialogic feedback, as opposed to unidirectional feedback that positions English language learners as mere receivers, is argued to be effective in promoting learners' self-regulated learning and active roles in feedback interpretation and negotiation. Despite the emphasis on dialogic feedback, empirical research on the how? question related to the processes of dialogues in feedback settings is limited. This paper, therefore, being positioned as part of this dialogic feedback approach, aimed to explore how feedback dialogues on the writing of fifteen pairs of undergraduates joining a writing class in a Saudi Arabia university are constructed. The data was collected from records of oral face-to-face (F2F) dialogues and digital or online written and audio interactions. The dialogues were analysed using an interactional analysis guided by several conceptual frameworks from previous research. Findings illustrated that dialogues are promoted and constructed within a four-dimensional pr...
Assessing Writing, 2011
This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study comparing the effects of peer-editing to self-editing on improving students' revised drafts. The study involved two intact classes (experimental and control groups) of an English course. The experimental group practiced peer-editing while the control group engaged in self-editing. After receiving sufficient training in their respective type of editing, both groups wrote a graded argumentative essay in two drafts. Results of a MANCOVA test carried out on the graded essay written by the two groups showed a statistically significant difference in revised writing in favour of peer-editing. A random sample of seven peer-edited and self-edited essays was analyzed to determine the differences between peer-editors' and self-editors' ability to notice errors, revise, and improve them. Results revealed that while peer-editors and self-editors had more or less the same noticing ability, writers who engaged in self-editing revised more errors than writers who received peer-feedback. In contrast, writers who engaged in peer-editing improved their revised drafts more than self-editors did. Differences in revised writing performance between the two groups are attributed to the use of language learning strategies, peer interaction, and engagement with language. The paper concludes with implications for classroom teaching/learning and recommendations for future research.
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Despite the growing movement to embrace sociomaterial approaches to feedback practices (e.g. Gravett, 2020), dialogicity remains the prominent and dominant approach, especially in the teaching of introductory or compulsory writing courses at the tertiary level. To examine this in our own practice, we reflected on and compared our written corrective feedback (WCF) provided to our students. Based on our WCF practices, we contend that feedback practices may range from dialogic to sociomaterial. The former aims to ensure students' learning of expected academic skills or objectives of a module, while the latter promotes students' pursuit of content knowledge. These observations are noteworthy for other higher education instructors, whether subject experts or academic literacy instructors. In particular, we recommend that instructors need to carefully identify temporal and spatial contexts where either or both dialogic and sociomaterial feedback practices can be utilized to enhance students' learning experiences.
The impact of e-feedback on the revisions of L2 writers in an academic writing course
Computers and Composition, 2004
This study explored the relationship between electronic feedback (e-feedback) and its impact on second-language (L2) writers' revisions specifically focusing on how L2 students responded to their peers and what kinds of revisions they made as a result of the feedback they received. The 20 L2 writers wrote, responded, and revised on a database-driven web site specifically designed for writing and responding. Other forms of feedback they received included oral feedback from friends and peers and from face-to-face meetings with university writing center tutors. Results suggest students preferred oral feedback. However, e-feedback had a greater impact on revision than oral feedback, implying that e-feedback might be more useful. Additionally, e-feedback helped L2 writers focus on larger writing blocks. Thus, L2 writers may use e-feedback to create macro revisions. This exploratory study highlights a new form of revising and responding and offers insights into joining oral response to online collaboration. 0 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
TESOL International Journal
Using two groups of university students who enrolled in English 102, one from the Philippines and one from Thailand, this study looked into the role feedback and conferencing played in the process writing approach of the respondents. This study used a descriptive-qualitative causal design, adopting Dana Ferris’ 1995 research in multiple-draft composition classrooms done at the California State University in Sacramento. To suit the speci$c needs of this study, Ferris’ questionnaire was modi$ed. Survey results were tabulated and questions placed under ordinal categories were averaged using SPSS. Results were analyzed using Categorical Data Analysis (CDA). Other questions were dealt with using a qualitative survey data analysis, a process of systematically searching for and arranging the answers to open-ended questions. This study underscores four major ndings.First,studentspreferredboththequantitativeandqualitativeformsofassessmentoftheiressays.Second,studentspreferredtheprocessapproachtowriting,relyingonthebenendings. First, students preferred both the quantitative and qualitative forms of assessment of their essays. Second, students preferred the process approach to writing, relying on the benendings.First,studentspreferredboththequantitativeandqualitativeformsofassessmentoftheiressays.Second,studentspreferredtheprocessapproachtowriting,relyingonthebenets the model promised them. Third, earlier drafts were found to have had positive inGuence on the succeeding drafts and the final copy. Lastly, this study demonstrates that revision is central in the improvement of every essay. Key words: feedback, conferencing, process approach to writing
Journal of Second Language Writing, 2000
In this study, four different patterns of teacher feedback were given to foreign language students producing a first draft (D1), a second draft (D2), and a final version (D3) of a single composition. The pattern usually recommended within a process writing approach of content-focussed feedback on D1 followed by form-focussed feedback on D2 was compared with the reverse pattern, another pattern in which form and content feedback were mixed at both stages, and a control pattern of zero feedback. It was found that the recommended pattern of feedback did not produce significantly different results from the other two patterns in which feedback was given in terms of gains in formal accuracy or in terms of content score gains between D1 and D3. A post-hoc analysis of changes made by students revealed that students may have relied heavily on form feedback and that content feedback had only a moderate effect on revision. Explanations for these findings are put forward and the implications for the classroom are drawn. Advocates of a process writing approach to second language writing pedagogy have made various suggestions about the best ways teachers can respond to their students' writing. One of these suggestions is that teachers should attend to content in preliminary drafts before switching to focus on form on later drafts. The supposition is that by doing so the teacher can encourage revision (making large-scale changes to content) on early drafts before helping the student with editing (making small-scale changes to form) on the final draft. One assumption is perhaps that focussing on form too early in the writing process can dissuade students from revising their texts. Another assumption is
Written Corrective Feedback and Its Effects on English Department Students’ Writing Drafts
2014
This thesis investigates the teacher’s Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) strategies used in the students’ writing drafts and the effects analyzed from the comparison between the first and final drafts. It consists of fifty eight students’ writing drafts as the source of data limited to language use (LU) and vocabulary. The theories applied were the WCF strategies by Ellis (2009a); the effects of written feedback to students by Hyland (2003), and supported by Ferris (2006). The qualitative approach was used in this study. The finding revealed that the strategies used in the class were Direct CF (430 times), and Indirect CF (329 times). The effects were Error corrected, Incorrect change, No change, and Deleted text. Moreover, it was revealed that LU problem was more noticed by the students to be corrected. In conclusion, WCF can guide the students to be more aware of their mistakes and to improve their writing.