318 / 2021-09-02 19:06:16

Written Corrective Feedback: A Case Study of One Teacher’s Feedback on ESL Students’ Initial and Final Drafts

education; English writing; ESL; written feedback; feedback strategies

Despite the heated research of written feedback (WF), few studies have explored the actual practice of English writing instructors in situ and even fewer studies report teachers’ feedback practise on students’ initial draft and final draft separately. Therefore, this case study, through analyzing the WF provided on students’ initial and final drafts in situ in America and the data drawn from the interview, explores one writing teacher’s practice of providing WF and the (mis)match between her cognition and practice. The results show that the participant employed such WF strategies as underlining rubrics and written commentaries to provide positive feedback, negative feedback and suggestions for improvement on both drafts. The feedback targeted students’ writing content, organization, and language on both drafts, but the feedback foci differed, with the feedback on language changed from general to specific and the number has increased significantly. Moreover, differing from most previous research finding, the teacher’s cognition matched with her practice. This current study may offer some insights into tailoring one’s feedback practice to students’ different drafts and into how to provide balanced and sufficient amount of feedback for students.