University of Essex

Department of Language and Linguistics

MA in ELT

The Effect of Teachers‟ Written Feedback

on ESL Students‟ Writing: A Study on a

Saudi ESL University-Level Context

(A partial fulfillment to obtain the Master of Arts Degree in English Language Teaching)

Under the joint supervision of:

Dr. Nigel Harwood

Dr. Sonja Eisenbeiss

Submitted by:

Grami Mohammad Grami

2004

In the Name of Allah the Most Compassionate, the

Most Merciful

Acknowledgement

I hereby would like to thank Allah, The Merciful for his guidence and assistance. I

would also like to thank my father and mother for their concern and prayers. I shall be

really grateful to Dr. Harwood for his thorough comments and revisions of the parts I

gave to him. I would like to express my grattitude to Dr. Esinbeiss for looking at the

methodology section. My sincerest gratefulness shall be also addressed to my real

friends; Ayedh for all his logistic help, Eid for helping me on how to use SPSS and

his careful remarks, Khalid for reviewing the paper, and all my wonderful students

who participated in the study.

Abstract

The idea of this proposed paper was prompted by Truscott‟s (1996) extreme and

controversial article in which he rejects every possible positive effect of written

feedback given by language teachers to their students in order to improve students‟

writing and minimize their errors. In order to do so, the study will investigate a

number of Saudi university-level ESL students‟ perception of written feedback they

receive from their teachers, mainly linguistic errors as they are L2 learners, in their

ESL writing and will be followed ESL teachers‟ point of view. The main purpose of

the study then is to investigate whether ESL students would prefer to have their

written work corrected and commented on or not, and if they do believe or not in

teachers‟ comments‟ efficacy.

It also inspects the effectiveness of various types, techniques and attitudes of giving

feedback. This study has been carried out as a multi-phase study starting with

questionnaires for student writers which is the main part of the study, interviews for

students to gain a deeper understanding of their views and interviews for their

teachers to evoke teachers‟ perspective as data collection methods. The findings show

students‟ great interest in written feedback from their teachers and the teachers‟

positive reaction in accordance. The paper also attempts to relate its findings to the

relative resarch.

List of Abbreviations

KAAU: King Abdul Aziz University (The local context of the study)

ESL: English as a second language

L2: second/ foreign language

SD: Standard deviation (In SPSS data analysis)

Table of graphs:

Graph (1) Students‟ beliefs concerning teachers‟ written feedback

Graph (2) Teachers‟ corrections helps student improve their writing.

Graph (3) Feedback helps eliminating errors.

Graph (4) Teachers shall correct all students‟ written errors.

Graph (5) Students reaction towards direct feedback

Graph (6) Students reaction towards indirect feedback

Graph (7) Direct vs. Indirect feedback

Graph (8) Students reaction towards criticism

Graph (9) Students reaction towards praise

Graph (10) Suggesting the answer

Graph (11) Combination of praise and criticism

Graph (12) Locating the error

Graph (13) The use of symbols

Graph (14) A combination of locating errors and giving symbols

Graph (15) Marginal or terminal feedback

List of tables:

Table (1) Students‟ beliefs concerning teachers‟ written feedback

Table (2) Teachers‟ corrections helps student improve their writing.

Table (3) Feedback helps eliminating errors.

Table (4) Teachers shall correct all students‟ written errors.

Table (5) Students reaction towards direct feedback

Table (6) Students reaction towards indirect feedback

Table (7) Direct vs. Indirect feedback

Table (8) Students reaction towards criticism

Table (9) Students reaction towards praise

Table (10) Suggesting the answer

Table (11) Combination of praise and criticism

Table (12) Locating the error

Table (13) The use of symbols

Table (14) A combination of locating errors and giving symbols

Table (15) Marginal or terminal feedback

Chapter One: Introduction and Definition of Terms

Needles to say, writing is amongst the most prominent skills of language that learners

need to be trained as an essential component of their academic life and later on in

their professional life, which partially explains why teaching writing has prompted a

good deal of research that covers various aspects of its broad instructional contexts.

Writing does not only reside in the classroom, the need for well-organised, successful

writing can be seen almost everywhere, writing a formal letter to your supervisor, a

more casual letter to a cousin, even a shopping list are all examples of writing, i.e., the

need for acceptable writing is found in all everyday life practices; a fact that led to the

development of the notion of different genres of writing. Another fact is that

teaching/learning how to write successfully gets even more complicated and

challenging for both language teachers and students when it comes to ESL/EFL

settings compared with teaching L1 writing. In the former case, learners have to focus

on multiple interactive processes that go well beyond simple writing rules usually

meant for native student writers. In conjunction with this intricacy, little research

concerning teachers‟ feedback on L2 writing situations has been carried out. These

combined factors then may well justify the choice of this research topic and also gives

a genuine reason why researching this topic could be worthy.

In this paper, I try to focus not on writing itself, but rather on how can „poor‟ writing

by ESL/EFL students be improved with the help of their teachers‟ feedback. To be

more specific, I address students‟ writing errors, mostly surface-levelled, and how

their teachers respond to them as one interesting practice in teaching writing that has

been highlighted in the relevant literature is that of giving written feedback as

response to students‟ writing errors. Apparently, this practice has the aim of

improving learners‟ subsequent composition with regard to both short and long term

efficacy including their writing‟s fluency, accuracy and the overall quality. This

concern has been aroused after the recent emergence of process approach teaching of

writing in comparison with the case when writing teachers were all affected by the

more traditional product oriented approaches. (Radecki and Swales, 1988, Fathman

and Whalley, 1990, Ferris, 2002) Notably, the research being conducted in this field

usually refers to two main issues a) teachers‟ practices and approaches when giving

their comments and b) students‟ preferences and processing of the given written

feedback. (Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998, Radecki and Swales, 1988, Hyland, 1998)

This paper is concerned with surface-level errors‟ feedback that ESL writing teachers

give in order to enhance students‟ fluency in their subsequent writing. Types of

corrections include both direct and indirect written feedback which will be both

discussed and regarded in relation to their application in actual pedagogic contexts

and the gains expected from them. The implication of different types of feedback will

be examined with focus on different techniques that fall under indirect feedback with

special regard to their level of explicitness and their effect on long-term accuracy of

students‟ writing. In order to tackle this issue persuasively, a number of Saudi

university-level ESL students have been involved in a two-phase study where their

perspectives, believes and preferences have been questioned through a structured

questionnaire followed by an interview with some of them to expand their argument.

Teachers‟ perspective, however, has been considered as well but their views will

serve here only as a supporting tool or as means of comparison. (In the actual research:

That does not imply that their views are less important, but, as restricted by the word-

limit, this has to be shortened and alternatively a recommendation for further research

into this area will be stated.) The location of feedback (marginal or terminal),

although scarcely researched, may have some impact on the effectiveness of feedback

given. An issue that draws a greater deal of attention is that of teachers‟ attitudes

when giving their comments about students written errors. The previous researches

and studies will be mentioned in the discussion. A special reference to form written

feedback can be perceived.

1.1 Teaching ESL in the Saudi Context

This is an introductory section to teaching English in the broad educational context in

Saudi Arabia where the study has been carried out. Unfortunately, the research in

education carried out in Saudi contexts is scarce and most of the studies and reviews

are not published and, therefore, hard to obtain. There are, however, a number of

unpublished theses and dissertations by Saudi postgraduate students that may help

shed some light on this area. (See for example Mubaraki, 2003, Asiri, 1997)

Students in Saudi Arabia begin to learn English at an intermediate level at the age of

twelve, (in some private schools, students start learning English at primary level at the

age of nine years old). Learning English goes on to the high school level as well as

the university level. There are no other obligatory languages to be learnt, as is the

case with English which is a subject that must be passed as other courses. Learning

English is mandatory in both the intermediate and high school levels. Though the

schools and the educations systems are separated, both male and female students have

the same syllabus in all subjects. English is taught in public schools as other

obligatory courses that have to be passed to move to the next stage.

The teaching of English in Saudi Arabia is no exception to other countries in the

Middle East. The educational environment in Arab countries is alike since most of

them are EFL countries and English language does not touch their daily life practices.

Therefore, English is taught as other subjects with mainly the aim of passing exams

and moving to the next stage. When teaching writing, accuracy seems to be the most

predominant in teaching practices. The more traditional-like teaching practices such

as teacher centred and product-oriented teaching writing approaches are also prevalent.

1.2 Teachers’ Written Feedback: Definition and Significance

Feedback as defined by Kepner (1991:141) is “any procedure used to inform a learner

whether an instructional response is right or wrong.” The main focus of the review

here is on written feedback teachers give to their students as response to their errors in

writing which is different from other types of feedback such as peer feedback or oral

conferences comprising teachers and their students. A justification to the choice of

teachers‟ feedback, in comparison with other types, can be drawn from Jacobs et al‟s

(1998) study which shows that the majority of students (94%) prefer the response to

their errors from their teachers. Research in the field of teachers‟ response towards

students‟ writing suggests that L2 students want, expect, and value teachers‟ feedback

on their written errors, a fact that cannot be ignored. Moreover, many researchers

refer to the fact that giving feedback is considered by writing teachers as „obligatory‟.

Students, especially L2 students, from their part have been reported that they expect

their teachers to provide them with feedback on their writing and they value this as

they believe it improves their writing in terms of accuracy and overall quality. Ferris

and Roberts (2001) believe that knowing about students‟ attitudes and preferences

about error feedback and their own assessment of their weaknesses in writing is

important. They note that students‟ attitudes and preferences have been neglected in

many previous error correction studies and reviews. The effect of feedback whether

positive or negative is, as well, a subject of lively debate. (Lee, 1997, Truscott, 1996)

Chapter Two: Review of the Relevant Literature

This section will refer to previous discussions, researches, studies and argument in

relation to the topic being investigated. The subtitles highlight the main parts of this

research‟s concerns which all come under the broad topic of giving written feedback

in general and surface-related errors‟ comments in more details. Written feedback‟s

possible degrees of effectiveness will be referred to in the review as well. One topic

however will be discussed extensively which is pertaining the debate whether „form

feedback‟ has any positive effect in the first place (c.f. Truscott, 1996) for the simple

reason of if it does not help student writers‟ writing, then further discussion will be

irrational and complete waste of time. The discussion attempts to defend the notion of

form feedback as opposed mainly by Truscott (1996) and others.

2.1 Form Feedback versus Content Feedback.

Generally speaking, there are two types of written feedback given by writing teachers

to comment on their students‟ writing depending on the sort of errors they address:

form feedback and content feedback. This distinction, although not decisive as

described later, is based on the type of error whether notional or linguistic.

Form feedback (known also as surface-level errors‟ feedback, error correction

comments, structure feedback, and sentence-level feedback) can be described as the

type of written feedback given by writing teachers that is concerned about „accuracy‟

in students‟ writing. This includes comments about errors in grammar, vocabulary

(lexis), morphemes, syntax and spelling. In most cases, this type of feedback has been

associated with grammatical errors in particular and that is why it can be commonly

described as grammar feedback. Form feedback can also be described as the type of

feedback which is carried out for the purposes of „tidying up‟ the text and making it

into a more acceptable final product in terms of its surface features. On the other hand,

written content feedback (known also as meaning-related feedback, meaning-based,

message-related comments, and discourse-level feedback) addresses issues like ideas,

organisation, rhetoric, cohesion, and paragraphing. Hyland (1998: 273) describes this

type of feedback as “that attempted to make meaning clearer or focused on the

development of ideas or the logical relationships between these ideas.” (Kepner, 1991,

Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998, Radecki and Swales, 1988, and Ashwell, 2000, and

Hyland, 1998)

However, the distinction between form and content written feedback is, as already

noted, inconclusive and - according to some researchers - even artificial. Besides the

possibility of an overlap between the form and content written feedback - see for

example Ashwell‟s, 2000: 234 paper - the choice of the right word that collocates

with the context can be regarded as either a surface-level error because it violates the

accuracy, or a meaning-level error because it may hinder the understanding of the

sentence. In fact, the decision can be affected by many factors including teachers‟

perception, students‟ level of proficiency. Therefore, the choice can be, in many cases,

related to personal judgement.

As already mentioned, the focus of this review is mainly on the topic of surface-level,

form written feedback given by ESL teachers as response to ESL university-level

students‟ written tasks which does not necessarily mean complete neglect of content

feedback. The research scope also covers the significance and justification of giving

form feedback, different types and techniques of giving written surface-level feedback,

the effect of giving grammar comments on students‟ grammatical accuracy in both the

short and long terms.

The discussion about giving grammar-errors feedback (form feedback) cannot ignore

the oft-cited, rather controversial article by Truscott (1996) which has been the target

of almost all the following researches in the same topic. The findings of his article

which clearly stand against grammar correction were the aim of continuous debate

either in favour or against. However, some earlier researches have also concluded to

ideas similar to these of Truscott‟s but the main difference is that they do not overtly

recommend teachers to completely stop giving grammar feedback anymore as

Truscott did. Cohen and Robbison (1976), for example, argue that the correction of

student compositions is often ineffective in reducing errors. However, they have an

explanation for their finding that is teacher‟s correct errors inconsistently. Hillock

(1986:165) (as mentioned in Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998) also believes that “teachers‟

comments have little impact on student writing.” Again, the given possible reason for

ineffectiveness was due to teachers themselves. Sommers (1982:142) supports the

claim when found that teachers hand-written comments were “arbitrary and

idiosyncratic.” In the same stance, Connors and Lunsford (1993:215) comment on

teachers‟ written feedback: “large number of short, careless, exhausted, or extensive

comments.” But, with respect to his radical ideas, Truscott‟s (1996) article remains

the most debatable as he does not attribute the „failure‟ of grammar feedback to any

sort of inadequacy caused by teachers, students, or teaching contexts but because of

feedback itself. Therefore, he rejects the idea at all.

Truscott, however, gives what seems strong evidence that grammar feedback is

simply a waste of time and effort for both teachers and students. He goes further and

claims that grammar feedback is not only ineffective but it can be harmful too.

Therefore, he recommends writing teachers to abandon giving feedback that corrects

grammatical errors. His reasons for his stance are that grammatical correction has

harmful effects in terms of teachers‟ intervention in complex learning processes by

simply adopting a “simplistic view at learning as essentially the transfer of

information from teacher to student.” Truscott (1996: 342) Teaching practices that

rely on transfer of knowledge with no concern for the process underlying the

development of the language system are, according to him, „not promising‟. He also

argues that learning is most successful when the classroom becomes more enjoyable

and out of stress. Correction, however, encourages exactly the opposite. Another point

he states that makes grammar correction „counterproductive‟ is the time factor.

Students will spend a lot of time reading, thinking about, and correcting their errors

instead of doing “more productive learning activities.” (ibid: 355) Time factor seems

even more urgent with teachers. He believes that “grammar correction has no place in

writing courses and should be abandoned.” (ibid: 328) Truscott‟s reaction to the two

presumably valid reasons for giving feedback which are: 1) that not giving feedback

will lead to errors fossilisation and 2) that students themselves want their errors to be

corrected is that correction does not help students‟ accuracy and may well damage it

and it should therefore be, once again, abandoned as that “will not have any harmful

effect on accuracy (or anything else).” (ibid: 360)

Truscott‟s disputed views have been critically and empirically examined by many

subsequent studies. That is to be supported with early studies whose findings have

been neglected in Truscott‟s controversial paper. Some of these studies (to be

mentioned anon) give practical evidence that grammar correction in fact does help

students improve their accuracy as opposed to Truscott. The main weak point of

Truscott‟s paper is that most of the literature he used to support his claims is actually

researches that have been carried out in L1 contexts which cannot be transferred

complete to ESL contexts as the students in the latter environment struggle with their

L2 and errors are definitely expected from them. In an earlier study which also

contrasts Truscott, Lalande (1982) passionately believes that correction of errors is

defended. Laland (p.140) asserts that “unless all errors are identified, the faulty

linguistic structures, rather than the correct ones, may become ingrained in the

students inter language system.” In the same way, Thompson (as mentioned in

Lalande, 1982) assures that “the student does not improve his skill if his work is not

corrected.”

Later on, Kepner (1991:305) believes that error correction in second language

teaching is “of perennial concern to L2 teachers.” Kepner notes that many L2 teachers

fear the fossilisation of errors (a persuasive argument shared by Ferris, 1999) and that

teachers fell morally obliged to correct all mistakes in their L2 students‟ work. Kepner,

however, is aware that because of this fact, many L2 teachers will try to avoid

engaging students in sustained writing assignments because of the burdensome task of

correcting and explaining the many surface-level errors likely to occur. This finding

shed some light why teachers correct errors but it does not give empirical evidence to

how successful students become after receiving their writing corrected from the

teacher nor does it explain how teachers do in order to give their feedback effectively.

Moreover, Kepner (1991) in his study mentions that surface-error corrections are a

„traditional practice in L2 teaching‟ as a justification to the surface-level feedback

given to the participating students in the study.

Some other researchers carefully examined Truscott‟s viewpoint. Lee (1997), for

instance, describes Truscott‟s stance as „radical‟. Furthermore, Lee expects that his

beliefs will have little impact on classroom teachers. Another researcher who

extensively examined Truscott‟s beliefs is Dana Ferris. First of all, she notes that L2

students themselves are very much concerned about accuracy and they will ask for

their errors to be corrected by their teachers. In response to Truscott claims, that

giving grammar correction feedback must have no place in writing courses and should

be abandoned; Ferris describes his idea as “premature and overtly strong.” (ibid: 2)

Ferris (1999) also notes that Truscott overstates the negative evidence and disregard

the research results that contradict his views. Two significant studies that Truscott

disregards their positive findings are Fathman and Whalley (1990) and the already

mentioned Lalande (1982) where both of them found positive effects for error

correction. In the same way,

Ferris (1999) mentions three reasons why teachers shall continue giving feedback.

First of all, surveys show that students‟ opinion about teacher feedback asserts that

receiving grammar correction from teachers has been of great importance. Secondly,

studies on the subject of university instructors‟ perception of ESL students‟ errors in

comparison with the native students‟ errors. Professors feel that students‟ linguistic

errors are bothersome and affect their overall evaluation of student papers. Finally,

and most importantly, it is critical that students become more “self-sufficient in

editing their own writing.” (ibid: 8) Ashwell (2000) also responded to Truscott‟s

(1996) ideas concerning grammar correction and suggests that many teachers correct

their students written work because they believe that the accuracy of students‟

subsequent writing. Other teachers may give surface-level corrections because they

believe that this type of feedback will help avoid fossilisation of errors. Last but not

least, Chandler (2003) carried out a study which empirically proves that corrections of

grammar and lexis (sentence-level errors) between assignments reduce such errors in

subsequent writing without reducing fluency or quality, a finding that strongly

opposes Truscott. In contrast to Truscott, Chandler recommends teachers to give error

feedback and require students to make corrections if they want to increase accuracy in

student writing.

2.1.1 ESL Students and their Teachers: What Sets Them Apart from Their

Native Counterparts regarding Surface-Level Feedback?

It has been mentioned earlier in Ferris‟ paper that L2 students in particular prefer and

expect their teachers to provide them with comments about accuracy in their writing.

This idea is supported with the wide belief that responding to L2 students‟ writing has

been of great significance to teaching writing and is well considered by writing

teachers and pedagogy theorists alike. Ferris describes the practice of giving feedback

as „indispensable‟. Hyland and Hyland (2001) also note that providing written

feedback to students is one of the ESL writing teachers‟ most important tasks. In the

same manner, ESL students were also reported to overwhelmingly desire their

linguistic errors to be corrected and they strongly believe that it is teacher‟s

responsibility to provide such feedback. In short, ESL teachers have to correct

surface-level errors and students want their teachers to do so. The bottom line is that

as L1 writers usually have no limitation in their linguistic competence, they can focus

on more theoretical, notional, abstract ideas. This is, however, not the case with L2

learners where they are still struggling with their lower language proficiency and

linguistic errors, therefore, occupy the prominent status (Reid , 2000, Radecki and

Swales , 1988, Ferris and Hedgcock ,1998, Kepner , 1991, and Hyland and Hyland,

2001) As responding to the argumentation against giving grammar feedback, Ferris

and Hedgcock (1998: 139) note that “In fact, given the strong preferences that L2

writers have expressed for receiving grammar feedback, its complete absence may

actually be upsetting and motivating.”

The idea can be supported not only from ESL student‟s position, as for ESL writing

teachers (L2 teachers in general), the research findings show that they are very much

concerned about students‟ surface-level errors (e.g. Ferris, 2002 in her preface and

Hyland and Hyland, 2001). This concern about accuracy is likely to be caused by

already mentioned students‟ concern themselves. Research findings also show that

students want, appreciate and apply the corrections they get from their teachers.

(Zamel, 1985, Hyland and Hyland, 2001, Hyland, 1998, and Ferris and Hedgcock,

1998, Ferris and Roberts, 2001, Cohen, 1978, Leki, 1991). Zamel (1985), for instance,

notices that most of ESL writing teachers comments were concerned about surface-

level errors. Zamel then suggests that ESL writing teachers see themselves more like

„language teachers‟. Hyland (2003) shares the same belief of how ESL writing

teachers perceive themselves when giving written feedback. The possible explanation

of such an attitude by ESL students can be obtained from Ferris (2002) who notes that

L2 writers are aware of their linguistic limitations and thus “more likely to focus on

word- or sentence- level accuracy.” Similarly, Kepner (1991) refers to the traditional

view of achievement in L2 writing as “mastery of discrete surface skills required for

production of an accurately written document. In short, there is plenty of research

evidence to show that ESL students want surface-level correction and believe in its

effectiveness. Lee (1997), Leki (1991), and Hendrickson (1978). Ferris and Hedgcock

(1998) note that ESL students have been reported to prefer content feedback on early

drafts and form feedback on later ones, an idea that matches the recent trend of

process approach of writing. An attitude supported by Ashwell (2000) who reports

that foreign language students exhibit concerns about feedback that are distinctly

form-focussed. Similarly, Hedgcock and Lefkowitz‟s (1996) study reveals that ESL

students did value form feedback. To summarise, Hyland (2003: 178) notes that:

[T]eacher written response continues to play a central role in most L2 writing

classes. Many teachers do not feel that they have done justice to students‟

efforts until they have written substantial comments on their papers,

justifying the grade they have given and providing a reader reaction.

Similarly, many students see their teacher‟s feedback as crucial to their

improvement as writers.

2.2 Direct Written Feedback versus Indirect Written Feedback.

Another distinction between types of written feedback can be established according to

the feedback‟s explicitness: direct written feedback and indirect written feedback. As

mentioned earlier, there are form and content feedback. The types of feedback are

interrelated i.e. it is possible to find direct form feedback (e.g. add an –s to the verb in

simple present tense when the subject is third person singular), indirect form feedback

(e.g. locating the verb with the wrong verb tense), direct content feedback (this

sentence should be put at the beginning), or indirect content feedback (the use of a

code such as ORG to indicate that the organisation is not proper).

Direct written feedback refers to „overt‟, „explicit‟ correction of errors where teachers

provide the correct forms or structures in students‟ faulty sentences. Hendrickson

(1980) (as mentioned in Lee, 1997) and Ferris (2001) In direct corrections, students

simply transcribe teachers‟ corrections into the next draft of their papers and direct

feedback therefore has been broadly criticised for having little or even no long-term

effect on students‟ afterwards writing. Nevertheless, Ferris (2000) mentions three

situations where the use of direct feedback shall be „judicious‟: (1) when students are

at beginning levels of English proficiency; (2) when errors are „non-treatable‟; and (3)

when teachers wish to draw students‟ attention to particular error patterns but not

others (p.63) Ferris (2002) then suggests that students‟ proficiency level plays a

significant role of determining which type of feedback to implement. “For low

proficiency level students, it may not be effective to simply locate an error (with or

without a code or explanation) and ask the student to figure out the correct form.”

(p.57) In such instances, teachers may benefit from direct feedback. Ferris (2002) says

that direct feedback in previous situations gives students the needed input and helps

prevent fossilisation. It also gives them the opportunity to practice editing and

correcting their own writing. Chandler (2003) found that direct correction was

superior to indirect feedback i.e. describing the type of error (with or without

underlining) for reducing long-term error. On the other hand, direct feedback, as

suggested by research findings of Hendrickson, 1980, Semeke, 1984 (as mentioned in

Leki, 1997), has some harmful effects on both quality of students‟ subsequent

compositions and on students‟ attitudes towards ESL writing. Leki (1997:467)

mentions some of these not desired effects; first of all, direct feedback encourages

passive acceptance of teachers‟ comments. It also makes students become reliant on

teachers for error correction which is not good for them when they leave the

classroom environment. Finally, overt correction is based on the unfair belief that

students lack the knowledge to correct errors. Conversely, Kepner‟s (1991) findings

concerning the practical application of direct feedback suggest that direct corrections

as primary medium of feedback seems „ineffective‟ although Kepner says that direct

error correction is helpful in one aspect that “it permits low-verbal-ability students to

perform at the same level as high-level-ability students on measures of accuracy in L2

writing (the surface-errors counts).” (ibid: 310)

Indirect feedback on the other hand is defined by Lee (1997) as the feedback that

prompts students about the location of errors (by underlining the errors, indicating the

number of errors by line), and/or prompting students about the nature of the error by

means of a correction code. Codes (cryptic codes) are marks used to indicate an error

such as “Pl.” to indicate an error in plural, and “VT” to indicate an error in verb tense.

Codes are usually made up of a list of grammatical items such as noun, article,

pronoun, preposition and so on. Lee (1997), Ferris (2002). Hyland (2002: 181)

however makes a slight, even uncommon, distinction between codes and symbols.

According to Hyland (2002) codes refer to letter initials that indicate the type of error

(e.g. Sp for errors in spelling, VT for errors in verb tense) while symbols are the

marks other than alphabetic characters (e.g. ˆ over the misspelled word to indicate an

error in spelling). However, this paper will refer to both codes and symbols as parallel

for that „symbols‟ and „codes‟ have been used interchangeably in several relevant

researches and studies in the field (See for example Lee, 1997 and Chandler, 2003)

and because this is not the researcher‟s main concern.

Underlining the error is a common way to indicate the location of the error, the

teacher simply underline the word which has the error (e.g. The boys takes their

exams.) Underlining can be used with no accompanied explanatory tips (codes,

symbols, or verbal cues), or it can be supported with the use of the explanatory hints

to help student know not only the location of error but also what type or errors they

commit. Chandler (2003) mentions some positive points about the use of underlining

as a valid technique to react to students‟ errors in their writing. Firstly, it was found

that giving comments to students through underlining only was less discouraging than

either description or description with underlining. Underlining is also the fastest way

for teachers to respond to students errors. Ferris (2002) also adds that underlining is

even saver for teachers because they will not commit mistakes themselves.

Most of the relevant research which has been concerned about the type of given

written feedback discusses indirect feedback in more details than it does with direct

feedback. It goes without saying that the scope of indirect feedback is broader and, as

a result, has attracted more investigation. The level of explicitness in indirect

feedback and its positive effects on students, self-editing and long-term revising is

among the most appealing areas of interest. It shows the student writers that there is a

problem but leaving it to students to solve. Ferris and Roberts (2001) Relevant

research findings suggest that the use of indirect feedback is more effective, time-

saving, and desirable from the side of teachers and, in many cases, even students.

Research also shows that indirect feedback helps students make progress in accuracy

over time more than direct feedback does. Indirect feedback will save teachers‟ time

and this time can be used in other classroom activities while students may still prefer

indirect because it engages them in guided learning and problem solving. (Lalande,

1982, Lee, 1997, Ferris and Roberts, 2001)

2.3 Location of Feedback

Ferris and Hedgcock (1998) and Hyland (2002) note that teachers‟ written responses

to students‟ papers can take the form of marginal and/or terminal comments. Ferris

and Hedgcok refer to some earlier studies which show that some teachers give only

marginal comments, some only end comments, and for some others a combination of

both. Reviews of research show that there is no conclusive evidence that either

marginal or terminal comments are preferable or more effective although they

mention one possible advantage of marginal feedback that is that of immediacy and

proximity i.e. the teacher can give his/her comments at the exact point of the essay

where the error occurs. On the other hand, end (terminal) comments on their part,

have the advantage of saving teachers time. Hyland (2002) notes that a

comprehensive end note allows more space and opportunities for the teacher to

summarise and prioritise key points and to make general observations on the paper.

Marginal comments on the other hand are both “intermediate and proximate.” (ibid:

180) For Hyland, marginal comments are more effective than end comments in the

sense that students understand precisely what is referred to. Ferris and Hedgcock

(1998), however, suggest the following guidelines for teachers regarding the location

of their written feedback: 1) if only one form of comments can be given (marginal or

terminal) due to lack of time or large number of students a comprehensive and clear

note is preferable; and 2) a combination of marginal and terminal comments will be

advised if time permits.

2.4 Praise, Criticism and Suggestion in Written Feedback

The former two sections look at what can be called the type of feedback. However,

this section discusses what might be called the attitude or styles teachers take when

giving their written feedback. According to Hyland and Hyland (2001), commenting

on student‟s written work entails more than the distribution between form and content

feedback. In fact, teachers‟ written feedback “involves delicate social interactions that

can enhance or undermine the effectiveness of the comment and the value of teaching

itself.” (ibid: 194) Teachers‟ attitudes have an important role in creating a supportive

teaching environment which its pedagogic role in ESL contexts has not been

systematically studied. Hyland and Hyland (2001) indicate that teachers are aware of

the need for care when constructing their comments. Teachers attitudes can be

interconnected with their types of written feedback (e.g. indirect surface-level error

written feedback in the form of a suggestion: Why don‟t you use the right verb format

in this sentence?). According to Hyland and Hyland (2001:186), praise can be defined

as “an act which attributes credit to another for some characteristic, attribute, skill,

etc., which is positively valued by the person giving feedback.” Praising can be

applied to help reinforce appropriate language behaviours and foster students‟ self-

esteem. On the contrary, criticism (negative feedback) can be described as an

expression of dissatisfaction or negative comment on a text. Finally, suggestion is

similar to criticism but it differs from it that it contains an explicit recommendation

for remediation. In other words, it can usually be viewed as mitigated form of

criticism (although to Hyland and Hyland surprise, it can occur in statements of praise.

p 197) Suggestion may have the form of a question (e.g. why don‟t you use word X

instead of word Y) or through the use of „hedges‟ (e.g. you could use the verb tense X

instead of the verb tense Y) or (It seems that you need to revise the past simple use

here). Ferris and Hedgcock (1998) refer to that very idea that teachers use suggestion

in order to alleviate the possible discouraging effect of criticism. This can be achieved

through the use of a variety of hedges (e.g. please and maybe) as well as modals (e.g.

could and might). Writing teachers shall perceive that giving feedback involves

“delicate social interactions that can enhance or undermine the effectiveness of the

comment and the value of teaching itself.” (Hyland and Hyland, 2001:194) because

this is one of the probable reasons why teachers would opt to select giving their

criticism in the form of suggestion. However, there are a number of factors that may

effect teachers‟ selection of response style. They include the language ability of

students, task type, and the stage at which feedback was given. Ferris and Hedgcock

(1998) add to these factors and involve the nature and goals of students‟ text, the

strengths and weaknesses of individual students, and the shared knowledge of the

teacher and student as factors that the style of written feedback has to be varied

accordingly. In Hyland and Hyland (2001) study for instance, it was found that three

quarters of prise was reserved for final writing drafts for example. Ferris et al (1997),

as mentioned in Ferris and Hedgcock (1998), on the other hand found that there are

differences in the amount and type of feedback given to stronger and weaker writers

(i.e. more questions were addressed to the former and more imperatives to the latter).

Hyland and Hyland (2001) are aware that writing is very personal and that students‟

motivation and self-confidence as writers may be damaged if they receive too much

criticism. Furthermore, criticism has a determinable effect on writer confidence and

motivation. They also note that praising does well with students especially less able

ones. For more advanced-level students, Ferris (1995) as mentioned in Hyland and

Hyland (2001) report that they value encouraging remarks but expect to receive

constructive criticism than simple „platitudes‟. Ferris and Hedgcock (1998) report that

L2 writers remember and appreciate encouraging remarks made by their teachers.

Ferris (1995), as mentioned in Ferris and Hedgcock (1998), however notes that a

significant number of her participants described critical comments as being positive.

Ferris and Hedgcock therefore concluded that “although ESL students appear to enjoy

and appreciate positive feedback, they expect to receive constructive criticism and are

not necessarily offended by it.” (ibid: 135)

2.5 Research Questions and Hypotheses

Drawing on the above review of the literature and discussion, this research will try to

investigate the following research questions and hypotheses through a multiple-phase

investigation (to be illustrated anon):

Research Question One: What is Saudi ESL students‟ perception of teachers‟ written

feedback? The following hypotheses have been proposed:

Hypothesis 1: Students want, appreciate, and apply teacher‟s written feedback on their

writing.

Null hypothesis 1: Students do not want teachers‟ feedback nor they benefit from it.

Research Question Two: What type of written feedback (direct or indirect) students

prefer taking into the account long- and short-term effects?

Hypothesis 2: Saudi ESL students prefer indirect feedback (with its variable degrees

of explicitness) as it helps their subsequent writing better than direct feedback does.

Null Hypothesis 2: There is no considerable difference in effectiveness between

indirect written feedback and direct one.

Research Question Three: What is the impact of various attitudes (praise, criticism

and suggestion) on Saudi university-level ESL students‟ subsequent writing?

Hypothesis 3: Saudi ESL university-level students do not appreciate praise.

Null Hypothesis 3: Praise is very much appreciated among Saudi ESL university-level

students.

Hypothesis 4: Saudi ESL university-level students appreciate constructive criticism.

Null Hypothesis 4: Criticism is not appreciated among Saudi ESL university-level

students.

Hypothesis 5: The use of hedges (seem, look and modals) to alleviate plain criticism

lower the level of tension but not the effectiveness of feedback and Saudi university-

level ESL students will therefore appreciate it.

Null Hypothesis 5: Saudi university-level ESL students will not value the use of

hedges.

Hypothesis 6: A combination of praise and constructive criticism is the best style of

written feedback for Saudi university-level ESL students‟ later self-editing and

confidence in their writing.

Null Hypothesis 6: the combination of praise and criticism has no significant effect

over other styles of written feedback.

Research Question Four: Has the location of the written feedback (marginal or

terminal) had any obvious effect on Saudi university-level ESL students‟ perception?

Research Hypothesis 7: Saudi ESL university-level students‟ believe that the location

of the written feedback has no salient effects on Saudi university-level ESL students‟

writing.

Null hypothesis 7: The location of the written feedback has its effect on Saudi

university-level ESL students‟ perception.

Chapter Three: Methodology

As the complexity of this topic has been noted earlier, the study has had three phases.

First of all, the researcher has prepared a questionnaire for students to investigate their

theoretical and practical beliefs concerning the written feedback they receive from

their teachers as response to their writing. The second stage of the study was to

investigate teachers‟ beliefs and perceptions about the written feedback they give to

their students. Finally, an interview will be conducted with a number of students to

enrich the already gathered data from the questionnaire and to triangulate collected

data as well. This multiphase has the purpose of enriching gathered data through

triangulation; a widely accepted and a powerful way to attain validity and credibility.

This was reflected in this research through the use of two methods of data collection

(questionnaires and interviews). This type of triangulation is called methodological

triangulation. (Denzin, 1970 as in Cohen et al, 2000:113) (Davis, 1995) and (Brown,

2001:228). This study, however, does not come without its shortcomings. They will

be referred to in a later section and what did the researcher do to minimize the

possible negative effect of them on collected data accuracy and research findings.

3.1 Context of the Study

The study took place in department of European Languages (English Section) in King

Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah. The department gives a range of courses that are

related to English from basic English language skills to English literature. Linguistic

issues such as phonetics, semantics, syntax and phonology are also included in the

curriculum. The main concern here is writing courses. All students who want to

specialise in the department have to take four special courses in writing: LANE 103,

LANE203, LANE301 and LANE401. Students are obliged to successfully pass all the

four courses after having passed two special courses in English grammar. Writing

teachers are both native and non-native who have been teaching English in general for

at least five years. The students, on the other hand, are Saudi students who graduated

from local public and private high schools. There are a small number of students who

have studied their high school in a native English country but their number is quite

small and none of them has been involved in the study. The textbooks for writing are

Interactions I and Interactions II for LANE 103 and LANE203 respectively. The other

two courses (Essay 1, 2) are considered to be advanced-level courses and teachers

have to decide on the material.

3.2 The Researcher

The researcher is a current MAELT student at University of Essex who, beforehand,

has been teaching English for two years; one of them was in KAAU (the context of

the study). His educational background includes learning general English in public

schools for six years and as a major in the university for four more years. His teaching

experience, albeit limited, gives him a deeper insight and understanding of actual

teaching/learning contexts in Saudi Arabia. His current job in the university is as

teaching assistant but his duties include teaching some general English courses as well.

Fortunately, being a staff member gives him the opportunity to gain access to the

department‟s different facilities such as language labs, interaction with students and

teachers and allocation of teaching halls to carry out the study.

3.3 Motivation and Justification

A number of issues raised researcher‟s interest in this particular area of discipline.

First of all, the Saudi educational context in general is a context that has not been

investigated thoroughly and convincingly. Most of the available material about it is

either unpublished theses and dissertations, or a rather general discussion about

educational contexts in Middle Easter countries. Although the main focus of this

paper is not on Saudi educational context, it definitely gives an indication of the

actual teaching and learning environments in the Kingdom through familiarising the

reader with one aspect of teaching (teachers‟ feedback in writing). The choice of the

main topic of this paper (possible effects of teachers‟ feedback in writing) has been

adequately justified in the previous sections. It can be summarised in that although

many researches have been carried out in the broad topic, the number of studies

becomes fewer when discussing the issue from L2 student writers‟ point of view and,

to narrow it down more, how ESL students would perceive written feedback.

The researcher taught general English writing courses in KAAU and notices students‟

incompetence in their composition. One possible way to improve students‟ writing is

through giving them error correction and feedback to create an instructive input that

student may benefit from. There is an aggravated need for effective ways to improve

students‟ composition in terms of both accuracy and fluency. Being ESL students,

their linguistic errors that affect their accuracy seem to be the most apparent and both

teachers and students proved to be aware of that. As a result, the researcher planned to

appraise written feedback given by teachers and how the students will perceive that.

3.4 Preparation for Collecting Data

There are a number of considerations to be taken into account before starting to

collect data. Firstly, as indicated in various research guide references, the researcher

needs to get participants‟ consent for the questionnaire. (Cohen et al., 2000,

McDonough and McDonough, 1997, Wallace, 1998) There are some guidelines

suggested in Cohen et al‟s (2000: 51) to obtain reasonably informed consent which

have been applied here. Since the researcher in this project is a staff member in the

institute where the study has been carried out, there was no real problem about

obtaining cooperation from the institute (KAAU). Students also are likely to be more

cooperative with their teacher (the researcher) as compared with someone from

outside the institute whom they do not know. Moreover, McDonough and

McDonough (1997:61) discuss the issue of „sensitivity‟, a term used to describe not

only the question of scale (broad generalization and subtle differentiations), but also

describes the quality of the data to be collected. In this study, the researcher has tried

to apply the above recommendations through practicing constructing questionnaires,

piloting the questionnaire and by recording techniques.

3.5 The Questionnaire: Justification and Planning

Depending on the kind of questions (open-ended or more structured), there are three

types of questionnaires, structured questionnaire, semi-structured questionnaire, and

unstructured questionnaire. The choice of which one to implement is usually

determined by the potential number of potential respondents; the larger the size the

more structured (closed and numerical) and the smaller the size the more unstructured

(open and word-based) the questionnaire becomes. In this action research, however,

the researcher has about forty to fifty, for which respondents. The use of a more

structured approach would be the most appropriate for reasons already mentioned.

McDonough and McDonough (1997) believe that questionnaires are very popular

among educational researchers in general. There are some factors as to why a

researcher chooses questionnaires to collect data from students. The questionnaires

have some advantages over other data collecting methods (e.g. interviews): a)

questionnaires tend to be more reliable as they are anonymous b) they encourage

greater honesty from respondents, c) they save the researcher‟s and participants‟ time

and effort (more economical), and d) they can be used in small-scale issues and large

scale issues. On the other hand, there are some disadvantages of questionnaires as

mentioned in Cohen et al (2000) which the researcher will try to overcome. These are

a) the percentage of returns is often too low, b) if only closed items are used they may

lack coverage or authenticity, c) if only open items are used, respondents may be

unwilling to write their answers. Seliger and Shohamy (1989), Cohen et al (2000) and

McDonough and McDonough (1997). In order to minimize these disadvantages, the

researcher intended to hand out the questionnaire papers to students during one of

their formal classes so the percentage of respondents will be higher. For lack of

coverage and authenticity of closed questions, a following interview with some

students will minimise this drawback and open-ended questions have not been used.

Other suggestions are taken from Cohen et al (2000:129) who suggest that the

researcher needs to pilot questionnaires and refine their content, wording, length…etc

as appropriate for the targeted sample (the students) which were all taken into

consideration.

A structured questionnaire, therefore, was designed which was divided into three

main parts according to the nature of possible responses they are likely to prompt. The

first part asks rather general questions about the subjects: their educational

background, the number of courses about English writing they successfully passed,

their familiarity with the use of codes (symbols) in written feedback, and other rather

common questions about their age and first language. Then, the second part of the

questionnaire investigates students‟ theoretical beliefs, preferences and expectations

about the written feedback they receive from their teachers. Finally, the last part of the

questionnaire was designed to look like a real writing composition by a student with

teacher‟s written comments/ feedback on it. Teachers‟ comments in this piece of

writing represent the different types and attitudes of feedback (surface-level errors)

from direct to indirect, different applications of indirect feedback, praise, criticism,

suggestion, or a combination. This questionnaire has been piloted with five secondary

school student to estimate the time needed to complete and to highlight any changes

needed. The estimated time of this questionnaire to be completed was between ten to

fifteen minutes. Part two and three of the questionnaire took the form of a „likert

scale‟ from 1-5 to disclose their opinions.

The questionnaire has to be somehow concise as the time allocated for completing it

was limited because students were doing their final examinations and the survey will

took place after one of theses exams in the department.

3.5.1 Subjects of the Questionnaire

The Subjects of the first part of the study were ESL, university-level students whose

mother tongue is Arabic and who have been studying general English in public

schools for at least six years before joining the department to major in English. Their

total number is thirty-six. They all have successfully passed at least one special course

in English writing in the university. All of the students are male and their ages vary

between 19 and 25. Their English proficiency level has not been determined because

of the lack of time and resources. The study took place at the end of the academic year

when students were doing their final examinations and, unfortunately, the department

has not got a database in which students‟ proficiency level information can be kept.

Nevertheless, it can be estimated from their educational background (from the

information provided by the students in their questionnaires).

For students‟ interview, two students who took part in the questionnaire have been

interviewed. The type of interview here is semi-structured. The purpose of the

interview is to examine the findings of the questionnaire thoroughly and to give

students the opportunity to add or comment on the subject more freely.

3.6 Interviews: Justification and Planning

To support the findings of the questionnaire, the researcher has also applied another

way to obtain data from respondents: interviews. Interviews give participants a

broader horizon for their ideas to be revealed. The second and third levels of this

study consist of semi-structured interviews with a number of students and teachers

from King Abdul Aziz University, Saudi Arabia. As described by Wallace (1998),

most of semi-structured interviews‟ questions will be open and the agenda will

include comments, examples and/or follow up questions in order to encourage the

interviewee to give fuller and more detailed responses. Other aspects to be considered

include time factor, friendly and relaxed atmosphere, and suitable recording tools.

Participants were notified about the nature of the questions to be asked prior to the

interview. Wallace (1998) assumes that this helps participants give fuller, more

informative answers. Other procedures were obtaining participants‟ consent and

asking them to check the transcripts to agree that what has been written is what they

said. In this study, the researcher plans to interview participants using L1 as it makes

it easier for them to express their ideas more freely and without possible linguistic

restrains.1 Unlike quantitative data (as in the questionnaire), qualitative research data

is non-numerical and will be dealt with in linguistic units in oral or written form. The

comments of Cohen et al (2000) of how to design interviews were taken into

1 The interviews were carried out in L1 according to Dr. Harwood‟s advice (through a special contact).

consideration. The objectives of the interviews were determined in advance that is

participants beliefs and attitudes towards the topic discussed. Also, the participants‟

level of education has been considered especially through primary sections of the

interviews where participants were asked about their educational background. The

interviews were conducted in L1 (Arabic), and, thereafter, it was translated and

transcribed (see appendix). For transcribing is, according to Cohen et al. (2002), a

crucial step for the possibility of massive data loss.

3.6.1 Students’ Interviews

This is a following stage of the study which comes after the questionnaire. The

purpose of having interviews with students is to validate gathered data from the

questionnaire and also to get deeper insights from students. Students may arouse

interesting issues related to the topic that have not been discussed in the questionnaire.

The interview, however, was not designed to be comprehensive and tiresome; it was

actually proposed with the intention of triangulating gathered data from the

questionnaire.

3.6.1.1 Participants

Two students were involved in a semi-structured interview. They took part in the

earlier part of the study (the questionnaire) and will carry on their task. The first

student (Yousef) is a male, 21 year-old ESL student at the department of European

languages, English Section. He has been studying English for nine years; six years as

a compulsory course in public school and three years in the department. He shows

great enthusiasm for learning English (especially British English) and he comes to UK

almost every summer vacation during last five years. He expresses his desire to learn

more English frequently. According to the researcher‟s judgment, this student is

highly motivated and he wants to integrate with the English context as much as

possible. As he came to visit London on 20th of August, the researcher managed to

have an appointment to interview him.

3.6.2 Teachers’ Interviews.

The actual purpose of having teachers‟ interviews is to have a supplementary source

of additional information as well as viewing the issue from another perspective. The

researcher will not put heavy emphasis on the interview findings but will relate the

relative findings to those of students. Teachers‟ interviews will, nevertheless, give a

broder point of view of the topic of written feedback.

3.6.2.1: Participants

The researcher initially planned to have two ESL teachers to interview but because of

some reasons (to be mentioned in the limitations section), it was only possible to

interview only one. Therefore, the participant of this part of the study is an ESL Saudi

teacher who works at KAAU, English department. He has taught special English

writing courses in the department. Furthermore, he has showed that he is familiar with

different techniques of giving feedback as they were trained to teach English. The

interviewee was Khalid. He is a teaching assistant at KAAU with an extended five-

year experience of teaching English in two different contexts. He has taught writing as

a general and, later on, as a more specialised course during his professional years. An

extensive interview has been carried out to get a much deeper perspective from the

interviewee.

Chapter Four: Data Analysis and Discussion

The discussion will be based on three main aspects: relative literature review, research

questions and hypothesis and the findings of the study. For quantitative data, it is well

justified to use SPSS to elicit means and percentages. For the qualitative part of the

study (interviews), the researcher plans to use relevant tools for coding collected data.

Taking Wallace‟s (1998) comments into account, interviews were tape-recorded

because this makes it easier for the researcher to recall and transcribe the dialogues.

4.1 Questionnaire Analyses and Discussion.

The most outstanding finding obtained from the study is that Saudi ESL student

writers at KAAU by all means desire and expect feedback from their writing teachers.

This can be easily noticed through their responses means which certainly show solid

evidence that they appreciate any sort of given written feedback with variable degrees

of necessity.

4.1.1 Data Analysis Tools

The researcher has applied SPSS to analyse data gathered from the questionnaire

which will enable him to get precise percentages and means of subjects‟ responses.

4.1.2 Questionnaire’s Findings and Hypotheses Discussion

For the first general question which asks students to give their opinions about the

significance of teachers giving feedback to students‟ writing errors, their responses

were as follow:

Descriptive Statistics

36 1.00 5.00 4.3611 1.04616

36

it is important for

teachers to correct

students' written errors

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (1) Students’ beliefs concerning teachers’ written feedback

it is important for teachers to correct students' w ritten errors

strongly agreeagreedisagreestrongly disagree

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

22

10

3

Graph (1) Students’ beliefs concerning teachers’ written feedback

This finding supports the previous research findings in ESL writing environments

(Kepner, 1991 and Ferris, 2002). It clearly gives ample evidence that most ESL

writing students not only agree on the importance of feedback, actually they do agree

passionately which can be drawn from the very high mean (4.36). The very idea can

be elicited from ESL student writers‟ responses to other questions (will be discussed

afterwards) which indirectly bring out their opinions regarding surface-level errors‟

comments on a composition example. Therefore, it can be argued that ESL university

level students in Saudi Arabia do want, expect and appreciate teachers‟ written

feedback about their surface-level errors.

When students were requested to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers‟ written

feedback, the following results were gained:

Descriptive Statistics

35 1.00 5.00 4.4000 .97619

35

teachers' corrections

help me learn and

improve my English

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (2) Teachers’ corrections helps student improve their writing.

strongly agreeagreedisagreestrongly disagree

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

21

11

2

Graph (2) Teachers’ corrections helps student improve their writing.

Once again, the very high mean (4.40) gives the strong impression that Saudi ESL

students profoundly maintain the belief that they can improve their writing with

reference to the issues of accuracy and fluency. Only one student has no opinion

regarding this question.1 Theoretically speaking at least, the finding defies Truscott‟s

(1996) claims that written feedback concerning grammar has no, if not harmful,

effects on subsequent writings and supports the research findings that written

feedback does help students improve their accuracy without harming fluency (Ferris,

1999 and Chandler, 2003). Truscott does not put the emphasis grammar feedback

deserves. The former finding supports the argument of Ferris and Hedgcock (1998)

that students do appreciate their teachers‟ responses to their writing and they pay a

great deal of attention to it, and that of Hyland (1998: 262) that her students “not only

said they valued feedback, but demonstrated this through their actions in response to

1 For the full list of statistic frequencies, see appendix G.

it.” It is obvious that hypothesis (1) is strongly supported by these findings and it can

be said, therefore, that Saudi ESL students are similar to their counterparts in other

related studies where both show profound interest, appreciation and like for teachers‟

written feedback. The following data further supports the previous claims where

students have shown that they do benefit from their teachers‟ feedback:

Descriptive Statistics

33 2.00 5.00 4.3636 .99430

33

I do not make the

same error once the

teacher corrects it

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (3) Feedback helps eliminating errors.

strongly agreeagreedisagree

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

20

9

4

Graph (3) Feedback helps eliminating errors.

Students‟ opinions pertaining teachers‟ „interference‟ or to which extent shall they

correct students‟ errors has been evaluated and the following results were gained:

Descriptive Statistics

33 2.00 5.00 4.2424 1.06155

33

it is important for teachers

to correct every error

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (4) Teachers shall correct all students’ written errors.

strongly agreeagreedisagree

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

18

10

5

Graph (4) Teachers shall correct all students’ written errors.

The very high mean (4.24) indicates that the majority of Saudi ESL students held the

belief that its teachers‟ job to furnish them with all sorts written feedback in every

aspect of their writing. The percentage of students who have no opinion (I don‟t know)

is low (8.3%, three students). It looks that they want all their errors to be corrected

because as ESL students, they seem not to bear having linguistic errors which may

affect their writing accuracy and, subsequently, their writing‟s overall quality. This

argument can be referred to Reid, 2000, Radecki and Swales, 1988, Ferris and

Hedgcock, 1998, Kepner, 1991, and Hyland and Hyland, 2001‟s findings where

students show similar interest of their accuracy errors being corrected. Some reported

that they want all their errors corrected but in the context of this study, the percentage

seems more than expected. If this finding is to be related to Hyland‟s (1998) study, it

seems that ESL students in both cases were reported to use most of the feedback they

get. This can be further investigated via the following students‟ interview.

When students were asked to comment on different types of feedback depending on

their explicitness (direct and indirect) the following findings were obtained:

Descriptive Statistics

30 1.00 5.00 4.4000 .81368

30

Direct correction

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (5) Students reaction towards direct feedback

stongly appreciatedappreciatedstrongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

1514

Graph (5) Students reaction towards direct feedback

Once again, students show great interest in direct feedback which can be illustrated

through the high mean (4.40) and low standard deviation (0.81). Surprisingly, their

attitude towards indirect feedback shows much lower mean when they were given an

indirect comment:

Descriptive Statistics

25 1.00 5.00 3.6400 1.22066

25

indirect feedback

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (6) Students reaction towards indirect feedback

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

5

14

4

2

Graph (6) Students reaction towards indirect feedback

First of all, quite a few students have not had an opinion about indirect feedback (over

30%) which can be related to what does indirect feedback mean. The researcher

however tried to eliminate the possibility of such an incident by, first of all,

explaining what that means to the students and, subsequently, by giving them a more

practical example in the questionnaire where they were asked to comment on an

indirect correction. It worth noting, however, that students‟ preference over direct

feedback is much more than this of indirect. This finding disagrees with these of other

researchers‟ who suggest that students may still prefer indirect feedback because it

engages them in guided learning and problem solving (Lalande, 1982, Lee, 1997,

Ferris and Roberts, 2001) This may give some support to Chandler (2003) who found

that direct feedback was better than indirect feedback in terms of long-term error

reduction despite the fact that students‟ performance has not been evaluated but it still

shows that students held a strong believe that it does. With regard to hypothesis (2),

the questionnaire‟s results actually give an indication of students‟ perception for

which type of feedback they prefer. Although the distinction was made indirectly

through their responses in two different elements in the questionnaire, and although

the difference is not that salient, the finding seems not to support hypothesis (2) that is

students do not believe that indirect feedback is better than direct feedback. For their

theoretical perception of the matter, students‟ responses to a question that explicitly

asks them which sort of feedback they prefer were as follows:

Descriptive Statistics

26 1.00 5.00 3.9615 1.18257

26

It is more helpful to give

clear, direct instructions

about my writing errors

than suggesting a

correction.

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (7) Direct vs. Indirect feedback

strongly agreeagreedisagreestrongly disagree

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

1011

4

Graph (7) Direct vs. Indirect feedback

Not astonishingly, their relatively high mean (3.96) does support their former stance

that they prefer direct feedback than indirect feedback. With reference to the relevant

literature, direct feedback has some drawbacks such as the possibility of making

students reliant on teachers for error correction. Overt correction is based on the belief

that students lack the knowledge to correct errors. (Leki, 1997) Students need to be

properly aware that direct feedback, although it seems easier to understand and

implement in following drafts, does not help them much in terms of long-term editing

outside the classroom environment. Teachers, from their perspective, have to raise

students‟ awareness for the importance of indirect feedback. They also have to avoid

the unjust supposition that students lack the knowledge to correct their own errors.

Instead, teachers can enhance students‟ linguistic and rhetorical knowledge which will

help them later in their writing.

Moving on to feedback styles, Saudi ESL students‟ responses towards praise,

criticism, suggestion and a combination were as follows:

Descriptive Statistics

29 1.00 5.00 3.8966 1.26335

29

criticism

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (8) Students’ reaction towards criticism

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

1112

4

2

Graph (8) Students’ reaction towards criticism

Descriptive Statistics

21 1.00 5.00 4.3333 1.06458

21

praise only

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (9) Students reaction towards praise

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

12

7

Graph (9) Students’ reaction towards praise

The high mean does agree with the usual tendency of students‟ consistent like for

feedback whatever sort. It worth noting, however, that many students have no opinion

regarding the style of feedback; (7) in the criticism part and more than twice in praise

(15). Accordingly, a preliminary suggestion would be that Saudi ESL students do not

put heavy emphasis over the attitude teachers‟ impose within their written responses.

The little preference for a feedback, however, can be related to their earlier mentioned

rather general want for feedback from their ESL writing teachers. This may give the

idea that students at that age (20+) and in such ESL context do not actually attach

much weight to neither praise nor the use of hedges. However, the higher mean (4.33)

for those who give their opinions in criticism part comparing with the mean of praise

(3.89) may give an indication that they actually prefer criticism than praise. This

finding shows some encouragement for Hyland and Hyland (2001) beliefs that

students expect constructive criticism than simple platitude but the variation between

students‟ opinions are not profound. Returning back to hypotheses, the findings

concerning the effect of praise on Saudi ESL students‟ writing improvement and

attitude show that hypothesis (3) (Saudi ESL students do not appreciate praise) tend to

be correct. If we refer to Hyland and Hyland (2001) case, the already mentioned result

seems to support their case where some students regarded praise as „insincere‟ and a

waste of time. For criticism (constructive criticism), the research findings show a

relatively higher degree of appreciation from students‟ perspective. Students who had

an opinion, therefore, appreciated constructive criticism much more than praise and

hypothesis (4) therefore has been supported. The findings so far seem to agree with

Hyland and Hyland (2001) that most ESL students at university level seem not to like

praise and to appreciate constructive criticism in the contrary.

The use of hedges (suggestion) and its value for Saudi ESL students has been referred

to too. The results were the following:

Descriptive Statistics

18 1.00 5.00 3.7222 1.17851

18

suggesting the answer

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (10) Suggesting the answer

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

4

10

3

Graph (10) Suggesting the answer

It worth noting that many students (50%) are uncertain about this style of written

feedback. The mean (3.72) does not give a solid proof that the majority of students

would like to have criticism mitigated which is combined with the low percentage of

opinions given (half of the students have no opinion). Hypothesis (5) that is students

will appreciate the use of hedges to mitigate the criticism in written feedback has to

be further investigated. Students‟ interviews may help shed some light on the issue.

The combination of praise and criticism has been nominated by some researchers as

the best style of teachers‟ written feedback as it enhances students‟ confidence and in

the same time shows them their inadequacies in their writing. When Saudi ESL

university-level students were asked about their opinion about this style of feedback

the following results were revealed:

Descriptive Statistics

27 1.00 5.00 3.8519 .98854

27

combination of

praise and criticism

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (11) Combination of praise and criticism

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

5

18

3

Graph (11) Combination of praise and criticism

The most obvious gain from the survey is that most students appreciated / strongly

appreciated this style of written feedback. As university-level students, they seem not

to appreciate simple praise as they seem to be aware that their writing ability will be

assessed according to their accuracy and fluency and they therefore need their

inaccuracies to be addressed rather than glorifying their good aspects. This agrees

with the findings of Ferris and Hedgcock (1998) and Hyland and Hyland (2001). On

the other hand, a good number of students were not sure what the significance is of

such attitude of written feedback which affected the mean. Therefore, a cautious

remark can be related to hypothesis (5) that students do prefer this style of feedback

and teachers should consider this when they give their comments to students.

Regarding the degree of explicitness of indirect feedback (locating only, symbols only,

or a combination), the following data was obtained from the questionnaire:

Descriptive Statistics

26 1.00 5.00 3.8846 1.33647

26

locating only

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (12) Locating the error

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

1011

23

Graph (12) Locating the error

Descriptive Statistics

21 1.00 5.00 4.1429 1.01419

21

symbol

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (13) The use of symbols

stongly appreciated

appreciated

not appriciated

strongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

20

8

11

Graph (13) The use of symbols

Descriptive Statistics

28 1.00 5.00 4.2500 .79931

28

locating and symbols

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (14) A combination of locating errors and giving symbols

stongly appreciatedappreciatedstrongly not appreci

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

10

17

Graph (14) A combination of locating errors and giving symbols

As expected from earlier discussion, the means are high which might be attributed to

the strong like for feedback. It can be noted here that students preferred the use of

symbols or a combination of symbols and locating errors than only locating them in

spite of the positive advantages of underlining (locating) errors as suggested by Ferris

(2002) and Chandler (2003). In accordance with the previous discussion of direct and

indirect feedback, it can be noted from the three tables and graphs that the more

explicit the comments are, the more like students show. Therefore, a combination of

both underlining and symbols to indicate errors seems to be the most preferable with

the highest mean of (4.25).

Finally, when students were asked if they prefer marginal comments than terminal,

the following data was gathered:

Descriptive Statistics

31 2.00 5.00 4.0645 1.03071

31

It is better to write the

feedback in the margins

than at the end

Valid N (listwise)

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Table (15) Marginal or terminal feedback

strongly agreeagreedisagree

36

34

32

30

28

26

24

22

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

12

14

5

Table (15) Marginal or terminal feedback

Students, with a high mean of over 4, showed that they do prefer marginal comments.

This finding consents with Hyland (2002) which indicate that marginal comments

have the advantage of proximity and immediacy.

4.2 Interviews Analysis and Discussion

This comes as subsequent to the first part of the research. The findings of the

interviews will help give support to the findings of the questionnaires and to

triangulate the data. According to Cohen et al. (2000), the data analysis here is

interpretive. Data analysis will be less accurate representation and more reflexive.

Miles and Huberman (1994) (as mentioned in Cohen et al. 2000: 283) suggest some

tactics to generate meanings from qualitative data. They include:

Counting frequencies of occurrence.

Seeing plausibility.

Clustering.

Building a logical chain of evidence.

Interviews‟ data analysis will tend to be somehow concise which is due to space limit.

The researcher will try, nevertheless, to thoroughly investigate the interviews taking

into consideration the limited number of participants.

4.2.1 Students Interviews Analysis and Discussion

As mentioned earlier, this is a subsequent stage following the questionnaire to obtain

a much deeper insight. Unlike teachers, students needed more time to comprehend the

questions asked and their answers were much concise comparing with those of the

teacher. The first remarkable finding from both students is that they liked their

linguistic errors to be corrected and their teachers were much concerned about

accuracy of form than ideas as well. When Yousef was asked if both grammar

correction and content feedback are of the same level of importance, his reaction was:

Y: I think comments regarding ideas are more general while linguistic errors are

more specific.

Responding to another remark by the researcher about the fact of being an L2 student,

Yousef noted:

Y: It’s very important. I still commit many errors that are all related to form accuracy.

Therefore, I will really appreciate teachers correcting my errors.

From these short quotes, the main reasons for preferring form feedback for him have

been revealed. Students were likely to prefer something more specific in scope and,

taking the fact of being ESL students into the account, the existence of linguistic

errors is intolerable. This finding concurs with this of Ferris (1999) who notes L2

students‟ insistent need for their linguistic errors in their writing to be corrected.

Yousef also draws the attention to the point of linguistic input that is what information

about the target language teacher shall bring to the students:

Y: How can I know my mistakes if the teacher doesn’t show them to me? I really get

something from the teacher every time he corrects my mistakes.

The attitude of teachers‟ response has been questioned too. When Yousef asked about

the use of plain criticism, he noted that this may discourage the student but on the

other hand, he was also aware that very much praise is of no point as well. When the

researcher suggested a combination of praise and criticism he answered:

Y: Yes exactly. For praise, I really appreciate this attitude from the teacher but I’m

also aware that too much praise may have a negative effect as well. What I’m saying

is that teachers have to encourage their students but in the same time have to

familiarize them with their weaknesses.

Similarly, the other student who has been interviewed, Mohammad, showed the same

interest in feedback generally and form feedback in particular. When Mohammad was

asked to comment on his experience with form feedback in writing, his reaction was:

M: Teachers were very much concerned regarding the accuracy of writing especially

in secondary school. Their concern over form corrections was especially true with

grammar. I benefited a lot from these corrections.

His statement gives a very strong sense of like of form feedback. It also shows his

strong belief that teachers‟ comments are of great significance. Both students shared

similar attitude towards teachers‟ written feedback especially these concerned about

accuracy. This finding, therefore, agrees with these of Ferris and Hedgcock (1998)

and Hyland and Hyland (2001) and with the earlier findings of the questionnaire. As

already seen in the questionnaires‟ section, Mohammad share most of his classmates

the preference of direct feedback. Moreover, he believed that teachers have to correct

all of students‟ errors which can be elicited from the following quotation:

M: As a student for a second language, it’s very important to avoid every possible

linguistic error. That will help me know my problems and solve them later…

R: Help you in which way?

M: Help me in accuracy. Once the teacher corrects my errors, I won’t commit them

again.

Again, both students believed that when teachers correct their error, they provide

them with the appropriate linguistic input and, as a result, they will make use of it and

improve their linguistic skills. It worth noting that both students viewed their teachers

as „language teachers‟ more than „writing teachers‟ which completely agrees with the

suggestion made by Zamel (1985). A point that students did not agree on is that of

feedback style. While Mohammad does not like praise and would prefer constructive

criticism, Yousef held the belief that criticism is very discouraging and he would

prefer a combination of both praise and criticism to get the best out of the two and

reduce the possible negative effect of them. Mohammad‟s attitude can been perceived

from the following quote:

M: May be because as adult students, we know that insincere praise does not help

especially in situations where final assessment won’t take these statements of praise

into the consideration.

While Yousef stance was as follows:

Y: For criticism, I believe that this has a very negative effect on students’ self-

confidence. This is why I don’t like plain criticism and would prefer if it can be

alleviated…For praise, I really appreciate this attitude from the teacher but I’m also

aware that too much praise may have a negative effect as well. What I’m saying is

that teachers have to encourage their students but in the same time have to familiarize

them with their weaknesses.

The researcher, with reference to relevant literature (e.g. Hyland and Hyland, 2001),

would suggest that a possible reason for the variation in their attitudes could be

attributed to their personal differences. Teachers therefore will be advised to take this

into the consideration when giving feedback to their students.

4.2.2 Teachers’ Interview Analysis and Discussion

As already mentioned, the research is much more concerned about students‟ point of

view. That does not imply that teachers‟ stance is inferior to that of students‟ but,

because of space limit, the focus here is on students. It is assumed therefore that

teachers‟ point of view in this study has not been investigated thoroughly. However,

teachers‟ views and perceptions will show another angle of the topic discussed and, as

a result, it may help the reader have a wider perspective and insight regarding the

subject. It will also give a chance to compare the two points of view to bring about

similarities and differences. The main divergence in views was regarding the issue of

direct and indirect feedback. While students seem to prefer direct feedback, teachers

seem to prefer the indirect feedback. Khalid‟s justification for his choice can be drawn

from the following quote:

K: Well, I believe that giving them form feedback in a proper way and make it as

clear as possible after they finish their compositions will be of great value to them

because they will be aware of the type of errors they are likely to commit with their

corrections. As time passes by, the student will be able to correct his own errors (self-

editing)

The teacher here is aware of the issue of self-depending while students are seemingly

not. His statement agrees with these of Lalande, 1982, Lee, 1997, Ferris and Roberts,

2001 who all suggest that indirect feedback does help students write better than direct.

When Khalid was asked to comment on a citation by Leki (1997: 467) which

encourages teachers not to give direct feedback, he said:

[T]he student the correct answer directly is faulty for the simple reason that students

will not look for the right answers which will not contribute to their learning

development.

For the rest of opinions, both teachers‟ and students‟ point of views were similar and

they supported each other. The marginal feedback next to the error seems to be the

most preferable location for both teachers and students. The reason Khalid gave can

be elicited from the following abstract:

K: I think the location of feedback has a significant role in writing improvement. For

when a teacher write his comment close to the error, it connects the correction

directly with the error which, as a result, saves students’ time.

Just like what has been found from the questionnaire, it is obvious the marginal

comments are the preferable location of error correction/feedback.

4.3: Research Questions Discussion

Research Question One: (What is Saudi ESL students‟ perception of teachers‟ written

feedback?) can be answered as students do appreciate and value their teachers‟

corrections and they would stress on teachers‟ written feedback‟s beneficence.

For Research Question Two: (What type of written feedback (direct or indirect)

students prefer taking into their account long- and short-term effects?) It has been

found that students actually tended to prefer the direct type of feedback. Their

justification was that as language students, they may not be aware of the kind of error

they have committed and, as a result, they would perceive direct feedback as more

helpful. The researcher may also suggest some other reasons (although not mentioned

by students but with reference to his familiarity with such situations) which include

the traditional teaching/learning environments where teachers are responsible for

correcting students‟ errors. The proficiency level may have an impact on their

preference but that cannot be further investigated at the mean time.

For Research Question Three: (What is the impact of various attitudes (praise,

criticism and suggestion) on Saudi university-level ESL students‟ subsequent

writing?), the following findings have been drawn. First of all, students neither liked

neither insincere prise nor plain criticism. Praise may suggest that they have done

very well and therefore they have not have to work harder and good marks are

expected too. While that is definitely not the case, praise would be of very low in no

value. Criticism, on the other hand, may discourage students and imply that they are

unsuccessful. A combination of both types may reduce the negative effects of them.

For Research Question Four: (Has the location of the written feedback (marginal or

terminal) had any obvious effect on Saudi university-level ESL students‟ perception?)

The use of marginal comments/feedback seems to be preferable not only among

students but among teachers as well.

4.4 Implication for Teaching

This study highlights some interesting points to be considered for real ESL classroom

practices regarding the application of written feedback as response to ESL students‟

writing. The first recommendation the researcher wants to mention is that, according

to the relative literature and research findings, the application of written feedback in

Saudi ESL contexts is crucial and of great significance. Both teachers and students in

the context of the study have expressed their strong belief of its importance and

applicability. For teachers, giving written feedback is a matter of obligation to their

students‟ written errors and students, from their perspective, do expect and appreciate

this. Another finding that has its implication as well is the fact that most Saudi ESL

university-level students who have been involved in the study have expressed their

preference of direct feedback over indirect feedback. The researcher would argue that

it is important for teachers to clarify the „hidden agenda‟ of giving indirect feedback

to the students as it will encourage them to be involved in a more self-depending

activities out of the classroom in the future i.e. it helps them edit their later own work

and correct their errors. It seems that Saudi ESL students need to be aware that

indirect feedback gives them a greater chance for revision, accuracy and editing, and,

although it requires more time and effort to employ, help their subsequent writing in

terms of long-term improvement. It is worthy, therefore, to inform students formally

that indirect feedback works better in their situation.

Another suggestion for teachers would be that it might be easier, but still as valuable

and effective, if they give their feedback next to the location of the error instead of the

terminal (end) comments as space allows for the fact that it saves students‟ as well as

teachers‟ time and, more importantly, its immediacy. Finally, although students who

participated did not show significant preference of one style of giving feedback than

another, the researcher, depending on interviews findings as well as relevant literature,

would argue that both plain criticism and excessive, insincere praise have to be

abandoned. It would be better to support students if they did their writing well but it is

also useful to keep them aware of their difficulties that they have to deal with. A

combination of praise and mitigated criticism where the purpose of the former is to

support the student and the latter is to let him/her know his/her inconsistencies would

be the best.

4.5 Research Limitations and Recommendations for Further Research

As the amount of time allocated for the completion of this study and as limited

available resources allow, it is essential to know that there are some expected

shortcomings of this paper that the researcher is aware of. However, the possible

inconsistencies are not likely to extremely affect the accuracy of the research. Careful

and thoughtful application of data collecting methods and data analysis techniques

will minimise the possible negative aspects. Theses possible drawbacks are attributed

to factors that are all out researcher‟s control. They can be summarised as follows;

first of all, the possible effect of various factors including language ability of students,

writing task type, and the stage at which feedback is given on teachers‟ written

feedback has not been investigated. The researcher has been informed that a possible

factor that is apt to affect the findings is students‟ gender which, because of lack of

access, cannot be examined. In an unpublished MA thesis by Alhaisony (2004), it was

found that the gender has such a strong effect on the findings.1

Similarly, it is quite possible that students preferred direct feedback than indirect

because of their linguistic incompetence that they cannot employ teachers‟ written,

indirect feedback. (C.f. Ferris, 2002) Unfortunately, this cannot be further

investigated with current available data.

The researcher assumes that it might be more appropriate to have had the interviews

in the original context i.e. KAAU‟s English Department. The classroom environment,

academic surroundings and authentic teaching/learning practices may affect

respondents‟ attitudes. The choice of the location was, once again, out of the

researcher‟s control and possible difference in attitudes, roughly speaking, will not be

that significant. The researcher is also aware that the participants of the interviews

were at their vacation and pulling them back to the academic environment will not be

so attractive to them. This is, however, the only possible chance for him to interview

them and he hopes that he can interview more students in real, ongoing educational

context. Regarding data collecting methods, practical writing tasks with actual written

feedback assigned to students‟ papers shall give a more practical experiment of

different attitudes, styles and combination of styles, and the location of given

feedback and their effect on students‟ following writing tasks.

The issue of cultural influence on students‟ attitudes has not been included. The

surrounding environment will definitely affect the local teaching context. (C.f.

Holliday, 1994 and Gray, 2000)

It is worthy to have a longitudinal research in which students might be given different

writing tasks and types of feedback (direct or indirect) to investigate each type‟s

1 According to a special contact with Mr. Alhaisony on Wednesday, 25 August 2004.

effectiveness on their subsequent writing. It should give empirical evidence which

type of feedback works better in reducing errors in writing.

Despite all possible negative points, the research tends to be reliable and of value. The

researcher would have some suggestions for further research that will take the

shortcomings into account. First of all, the researcher wishes to apply the study in

more than one educational context in Saudi Arabia. This will surely include more

subjects/participants which will minimise the fraction of error and, at the same time,

inspects the topic from different angles which is still considered as another mean of

triangulation.

The researcher cannot ignore the significance of having teachers‟ perspective about

the issue. The researcher proposes a study that well investigates teachers‟ point of

view as well as their actual pedagogical practices regarding the subject. This will

include techniques such as think-aloud correction, teachers‟ focussed group

interviews, and other more qualitative techniques. The researcher really hopes that the

findings of this proposed research would lead to better understanding of the

educational contexts in the educational environments in Saudi Arabia.

Conclusion:

This study, regardless its shortcomings, gives a clear idea concerning Saudi

university-level ESL students‟ perspective towards their teachers‟ feedback to their

writing. It shows their strong like of feedback received from their teachers which is

reflected in their appreciation of it. As ESL students, they show great concern over

their linguistic errors and, as a result, form, sentence-level written feedback seems to

be of great value to them. The students who participated in the study are enthusiastic

concerning error correction. They valued every comment they received from their

writing teacher albeit different levels of appreciation. Teachers as well showed their

concern of the value of their written feedback. They expressed that its part of their job

to supply students with proper feedback to correct their errors. In short, both students

and teachers can be described as highly motivated regarding feedback. Their strong

fondness does not come from vacuum; it actually shows the rooted experience of the

teachers and practical involvement of students. Their notional stance is, therefore, of

great value and the related findings of the study cannot be ignored.

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Language Journal, 66, pp 140-149.

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Appendices: Appendix A

Students‟ Questionnaire (The English Version)

The Effect of Written Feedback on Students Writing Tasks

The purpose of this questionnaire is to investigate students‟ beliefs about how

teachers should correct errors and give them feedback on their writing. It aims to offer

better understanding for your perception about written comments you get from your

teacher. Ultimately, this will help improve teachers‟ written remarks on a hand and

students‟ writing ability on the other.

Important Notes: (1) The information that you will supply in here will never be revealed to a third party unless getting your written

consent. However, your personal information (name and age) will never be revealed to any other person. (2) If you have any queries please feel free to ask me at any time.

Name (optional):

Year of study:

How many years have you been studying English in formal education? ( )

years.

Have you taken any special courses outside of school or university which involved

writing? Yes No

In total, how many of these writing courses have you taken? ( ) course(s)

Section One: General Questions: This section asks you to answer some general

questions regarding your educational and linguistic background. (Just tick the correct

answer or the most suitable one) The purpose of this section is to know more about

the participants. Remember: you have the right not to answer any of these questions if

you feel they are irritating or intrusive.

1.1 Your mother tongue is Arabic:

Yes No

1.2 Your age is:

Below 18. Between 18 and 22. Over 22.

1.3 Have you taken any special training in symbol/code use (e.g. 'it have been

raining all night.' VA: Verb Agreement, 'the aerplane took off two hours ago' Sp:

Spelling) in writing correction:

Yes No

Section Two: The following comments are possible teacher‟s written feedback for the

previous short passage. Please decide whether you appreciate the type of feedback

you receive or not in terms of its usefulness/helpfulness for each correction, and to

which extent. You may consider its effectiveness in terms of helping self-correction,

short-term and long-term improvement in following writing tasks. The errors

concerned here are surface-level errors (spelling, word choice, tenses, punctuation,

verb agreement, capitalization … etc)

Please look through the following passage which contains different techniques of

corrections and giving written feedback. Circle the number to indicate to which extent

do you understand and appreciate the written comment (not).

(1) strongly like it, (2) like it, (3) do not know, (4) dislike it, (5) strongly dislike it.

How to reduce stress level?

Modren life has not only its benefits but its drawbacks as well. One very obvious and

common example of the drawbacks is stress. Stress is the pressare caused by fast

rhythm of modern life. For some people it is very difficult to cope with the situation

therefore stress will happen.

Stress not only caused headache, it was much more critical enough to consider it as

fatal sometimes. For example one who usually live with stress will suffer from many

other symptoms such as high blood pressure, ulcer and insomnia. These symptoms in

their turn can cause other serious problems like heart attacks and clot.

So, is there a way out? Definitely there is. The key point here is life pressure. So if we

can overcome this successfully we will certainly be successful in reducing stress level.

There are, however, many possible solutions. One good example is Yoga, a

combination of both spiritual and bodily exercises, which many experts have noted its

effectiveness. Nevertheless, Yoga require a sort of strict training that not so many

people are capable of, neither in terms of time nor money. There are nevertheless

other easier solutions which do not require much from people. One can go out with

his family to the beach or the mountains and have a good time there which will be as

good and effective. May be he or she can find a hobby that keeps him/her busy and in

the same time. One important thing is that do not let stress defeats you, you should

take life easy and overcome your stress.

3.1- Teacher‟s feedback: You should capitalize every initial letters in the title‟s main

words (i.e. all words except articles and prepositions)

1 2 3 4 5

3.2- Teacher's feedback: locating the error by underlining it and (Sp).

1 2 3 4 5

3.3- Teacher‟s feedback: (Sp).

1 2 3 4 5

3.4-Teacher‟s feedback: locating the errors by underlining them. 1 2 3 4 5

3.5- Teacher comment: (there is a resistant error you should really notice and take

care of which is to add an „s‟ in third person singular in the present simple tense.)

1 2 3 4 5

3.6- Teacher‟s feedback: (This is not the idiom. Change the preposition.)

1 2 3 4 5

3.7- Teacher‟s feedback: Why don‟t you use „on the other hand‟ instead of

„nevertheless‟?

1 2 3 4 5

3.8- Teacher‟s feedback: (Your description of that trip is enjoyable. I really liked its

organisation and order. Nevertheless, I‟d really prefer if you‟d use transitional words

such as first of all, then, after that and finally so your paragraph becomes coherent.)

1 2 3 4 5

3.9- Teacher‟s feedback: (Your passage sounds really interesting. I really like your

ideas and organization.)

1 2 3 4 5

Section Three: The following questions are general questions about your own beliefs

and preferences regarding teachers' written feedback. Please indicate whether you (1)

strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) do not know, (4) disagree, or (5) strongly disagree with

the following statements by writing the appropriate number in the space provided in

front of each example.

3.1 It is important for teachers must correct students' written errors.

1 2 3 4 5

3.2 Different teachers I have had have given e feedback in different ways/ by sing

different methods.

1 2 3 4 5

3.3 Some teachers are very good at giving feedback.

1 2 3 4 5

3.4 Teachers' corrections help me learn and improve my English.

1 2 3 4 5

3.5 It‟s important for teachers to correct every error.

1 2 3 4 5

3.6 I believe that the application of symbols (e.g. VT: Verb Tense, Sp: Spelling, Pro:

The selection of pronoun) is quite useful.

1 2 3 4 5

3.7 It is more helpful to give clear, direct instructions about my writing errors than

suggesting a correction.

1 2 3 4 5

3.8 I always pay close attention to my teacher‟s written feedback on my writing.

1 2 3 4 5

3.9 I do not make the same error once the teacher corrects it.

1 2 3 4 5

3.10 It is better to write the feedback in the margins than at the end.

1 2 3 4 5

Appendix B

Students‟ Questionnaire (Arabic Version)

تسم الله انسحمه انسحيم

و مىضىع انثحث هى مدي تأثير ملاحظاخ مه مشسوع انثاحث لإكمال زسانح الماجستيرأخي انطانة هرا الاستثيان هى جزء

.المدزسين المكتىتح في تحسين مستىي مهازج انكتاتح ندي انطلاب

انغسض مه هرا الاستثيان هى استقصاء قناعاخ و تىقعاخ و تفضيلاخ انطلاب فيما يخص وىع و طسيقح انتعهيقاخ المكتىتح انتي

مدزسيهم، تعىن الله سيساهم هرا انثحث في فهم أفضم نىجهح وظس انطلاب و المدزسين مما يساعد في تحسين وىعيح يتهقىنها مه

.ملاحظاخ المدزسين مه جهح، و جىدج انكتاتح ندي انطلاب مه جهح أخسي تإذن الله

لادظبد بخ

.ف أ لذذ٠ه اذك ف ػذ الإجبثخ ػ أ شء الأعئخ وب ٠ىه الاغذبة .1ج١غ اؼبد از عف رمذب رؼزجش ؼبد خبطخ ٠ز إطلاع طشف ثبث ػ١ب إلا ثؼذ افمزه، إػبفخ إ .2

.ره ، فئ ج١غ ؼبره اشخظ١خ عزجم عش٠خ

.ف دبخ جد أ اعزفغبس ذ٠ه، اشجبء ػذ ازشدد ف عؤا .3

.ع زا اجضء ؼشفخ خف١خ اشبسو١ ف الاعزج١باغش، أعئخ ػبخ: الجزء الأول

( .....................................................................اخز١بس) الاع .1

لا□ ؼ □غزه الأ اؼشث١خ .2

: .....................اغخ اذساع١خ .3

22أوثش □ 22– 18ث١ □ 18أل □ : ػشن .4

ذح و عخ دسعذ و١ف١خ اىزبثخ ثبغخ الإج١ض٠خ ثب ف ره اشدخ ازعطخ .5

.عاد \عخ) ( اثب٠خ

.بدح) ( و ػذد ااد ازخظظ١خ ف رؼ اىزبثخ از أوزب ثجبح ف اجبؼخ .6

أ (بطخ ف رؼ و١ف١خ اىزبثخ ثجبت ازذس٠ظ الأعبع ، أخزد أ دساد خ .7

ؼ □ ف ؼبذ أخش؟ )رذز ػ رؼ و١ف١خ اىزبثخ

لا□

بدح) ( ثبلإجبي و ػذد ااد ازخظظ١خ ف اىزبثخ از أوزب؟ .8

ف ٠ؼ خطؤ Spثلا ) عجك ه ؼشفخ و١ف١خ اعزخذا اشص لإشبسح إ الأخطبء .9

٠ؼ خطؤ ف ارفبق افؼ غ ٠VAؼ خطؤ ف اعزخذا اؼبئش، Proازجء،

لا□ ؼ □ ؟(افبػ

اؼجبساد ازب١خ ظش٠بد رزؼك ثمبػبره رفؼ١لاره لادظبد ازؼ١مبد : الجزء الثاني

.٠خاز رزمبب ذسعه ثخظص وزبثزه ثبغخ الإج١ض

:اشجبء الإشبسح إ لفه ب ثشع دائشح دي اشل ابعت ثذ١ث أ

غ١ش افك ثشذح -5 غ١ش افك -4 لا ٠ -3 افك -2 افك ثشذح -1

.٠جت ػ اذسع١ رظذ١خ أخطبء اطلاة الإلائ١خ اذ٠خ .1

1 2 3 4 5

.ازؼ١مبد ػ اىزبثخ رخزف ذسط ٢خش .2

1 2 3 4 5

: ثؼغ اذسع١ ز١ض٠ جذا ف إػطبء ازؼ١مبد .3

1 2 3 4 5

.رؼ١مبد اذسع١ ف١ب ٠خض وزبثخ اطلاة خ جذا فؼبخ .4

1 2 3 4 5

٠جت ػ اذسط رظذ١خ ج١غ أخطبء اطبت الإلائ١خ اذ٠خ ١ظ ػ١خ ب .5

5 4 3 2 1 فمط

لإشبسح إ الأخطبء ( ػلاخ رشل١ Punص افؼ، VTثلا )شص اعزخذا ا .6

.الإلائ١خ اذ٠خ ف اىزبثخ ػ١خ غب٠خ

1 2 3 4 5

أفؼ جشد الإشبسح ( use under instead of withثلا ) إػطبء رؼ١مبد جبششح .7

5 4 3 2 1 . إ١ب

ف اىزبثخ رجؼ أل اػزبدا ػ إػطبء ازؼ١مبد اجبششح ػ أخطبء اطلاة .8

5 4 3 2 1 .افظ

.أب ارجغ رؼ١مبد اذسط ف١ب ٠خزض ثىزبثز اعزف١ذ ب .9

1 2 3 4 5

.أب لا أػ١ذ رىشاس فظ اخطؤ ف اغداد ازب١خ ثؼذ رؼ١ك اذسط ػ١ب .11 .11

1 2 3 4 5

.ش ثذي وزبثزب ف ب٠خ امطؼخ الأفؼ وزبثخ الادظبد ػ اا .11 .11

1 2 3 4 5

عف أرغه ثآسائ اغبثمخ إرا أطجذذ ذسعب ، غ الأخز ثؼ١ الاػزجبس الذ .12 .12

.اجذ الاص١ لإػطبء ازؼ١بد ى طبت ػ دذح

1 2 3 4 5

مطغ لادذ اطلاة غ زا اجضء ازطج١م الاعزج١ب د١ث عزشبذ : الجزء الثالث

اشجبء رذذ٠ذ لفه د١ث فبئذح ازؼ١ك . ازؼ١مبد اذزخ ػ١ لج اذسط

ازج ذ ( 1: اشجبء اخز اؼا ازب١خ ف ػ١ الاػزجبس. لأ دسجخ، لبث١ز زطج١ك

اط٠ رذغ غز اىزبثخ ػ اذ( 2، الاػزبد ػ افظ ف رظذ١خ الأخطبء

الأخطبء اؼ١خ ب أخطبء . اجذ اجزي لج اذسط اطبت( 3، امظ١ش

ػلابد ، ارفبق افؼ غ افبػ، ص الأفؼبي، اخز١بس اىخ ابعجخ، ازجء)ظبش٠خ

(.اخ... اعزؼبي الأدشف اىج١شح ، ازشل١

إ أ دذ رغزط١غ ف ازؼ١ك رمذ٠ش ل١ز اشجبء سع دائشح دي اشل ابعت لإشبسح

:ثذ١ث أ( ػذ)

.لا ألذس ثشذح: 5، لا ألذس: 4، لا ٠: 3، ألذس: 2، ألذس ثشذ: 1

How to reduce stress level?

Modren life has not only its benefits but its drawbacks as well. One very obvious and

common example of the drawbacks is stress. Stress is the pressare caused by fast

rhythm of modern life. For some people it is very difficult to cope with the situation

therefore stress will happen.

Stress not only caused headache, it was much more critical enough to consider it as

fatal sometimes. For example one who usually live with stress will suffer from many

other symptoms such as high blood pressure, ulcer and insomnia. These symptoms in

their turn can cause other serious problems like heart attacks and clot.

So, is there a way out? Definitely there is. The key point here is life pressure. So if we

can overcome this successfully we will certainly be successful in reducing stress

level. There are, however, many possible solutions. One good example is Yoga, a

combination of both spiritual and bodily exercises, which many experts have noted its

effectiveness. Nevertheless, Yoga require a sort of strict training that not so many

people are capable of, neither in terms of time nor money. There are nevertheless

other easier solutions which do not require much from people. One can go out with

his family to the beach or the mountains and have a good time there which will be as

good and effective. May be he or she can find a hobby that keeps him/her busy and in

the same time. One important thing is that do not let stress defeats you, you should

take life easy and overcome your stress.

1- Teacher‟s feedback: You should capitalize every initial letters in titles main words

(i.e. all words except articles and prepositions)

1 2 3 4 5

2- Teacher's feedback: locating the error by underlining it and (Sp).

1 2 3 4 5

3- Teacher‟s feedback: (Sp).

1 2 3 4 5

4-Teacher‟s feedback: locating the errors by underlining them. 1 2 3 4 5

5- Teacher comment: (there is a resistant error you should really notice and take care

of which is to add an „s‟ in third person singular in the present simple tense.)

1 2 3 4 5

6- Teacher‟s feedback: (This is not the idiom. Change the preposition.)

1 2 3 4 5

7- Teacher‟s feedback: Why don‟t you use „on the other hand‟ instead of

„nevertheless‟? 1 2 3 4 5

8- Teacher‟s feedback: (Your description of that trip is enjoyable. I really liked its

organisation and order. Nevertheless, I‟d really prefer if you‟d use transitional words

such as first of all, then, after that and finally so your paragraph becomes coherent.)

1 2 3 4 5

9- Teacher‟s feedback: (Your passage sounds really interesting. I really like your

ideas and organization.)

1 2 3 4 5

Appendix C

Teacher’s Interview Schedule

Interviewee: Khalid Al Homaid Intended duration: 60 mins.

Date: Tuesday 16-August-2004 Interview began: 18:30

Interview finished: 19:25

Location: The interviwee‟s flat in London

Actual duration: 63 mins

R: Researcher

K: The interviewee

NB: The participant has been given a brief description to what the research is about

and what kind of questions (open-ended, less structured) he is going to be asked.

R: Hi Mr. Khalid!

K: Hello.

R: O.K. First of all, I‟d like to ask you about your teaching training, I mean before

you become a teacher, when you started doing your degree. Can you give us an idea

about your teaching training whether general English learning or specialized training

for teaching English?

K: Firstly, I enrolled in the university, department of English language. My BA took

me four and a half years as general English language education and preparation for

teaching simultaneously an addition to twenty credited hours specially designed for

teaching English. All the courses were taught in English except additional university

courses (Arabic language, Islamic literature, etc)

R: O.K. Let‟s go back to the specialsed courses you took in English, did you take any

courses that have something to do with writing?

K: Yes, in my first year in the university, there was a special course that‟s called “the

writing skills.” After that, in the first and second years, I took more courses about

writing such as essay writing and other types (genres) of writing.

R: Do you think that you benefited from theses courses later in your profession?

K: Definitely, I benefited a lot from these writing courses especially if you are going

to practice what you have learned.

R: Let‟s go back to your teachers who taught you writing, do you think that their way

of giving written feedback has affected your own way later? I mean did you imitate

them when you become a teacher yourself?

K: Well, some of them yes. I have really benefited from them and, later, I imitated

their way of giving feedback.

R: O.K. Mr. Khalid, can I ask you about your teaching experience? For how many

years have you been teaching English?

K: I have been teaching English for almost four and a half years. Two years in the

Commercial Secondary Institute and in KAAU afterwards.

R: Within these years, did you teach English writing as a compulsory, essential course

that students have to pass?

K: Yes, in the Commercial Secondary Institute, I taught English writing as a

specialized, independent course called “Writing and Composition.” When I moved to

KAAU, I taught writing in both integrated, Basic English courses and as independent.

R: Now let‟s move to the main focus of our discussion today which is how do you

give written feedback as response to students errors in their writing. Regarding form

feedback, (this type of feedback which is more concerned with issues like grammar,

lexis, punctuation … etc) do you think that giving this type of feedback to student will

have any effect on them later?

K: Well, I believe that giving them form feedback in a proper way and make it as

clear as possible after they finish their compositions will be of great value to them

because they will be aware of the type of errors they are likely to commit with their

corrections. As time passes by, the student will be able to correct his own errors (self-

editing)

R: You mean students will definitely benefit from form feedback and they will apply

your feedback in their subsequent writings?

K: That‟s the idea I hold.

R: Would you please comment on the following quotation?

Hillock (1986:165) (as mentioned in Ferris and Hedgcock, 1998) also believes that

“teachers‟ comments have little impact on student writing.” Again, the given possible

reason for ineffectiveness was due to teachers themselves.

K: The effect of teachers‟ comments on their students‟ writing is of great significant.

The student usually considers his teacher as a guide. Therefore, he might see the

teacher as a model to be followed. A teacher is like a source of knowledge and he‟s

the one who knows better about the language. Any comment received from the

teacher will be highly valued by students.

R: Now, when you‟re giving students your comments/feedback, do you do that

directly? I mean like saying write this verb form instead of that or your sentence

should look like that? Or you just indicate the error and ask your students to think

about their own errors i.e. you are correcting them indirectly. Which of them do you

usually use and what are your reasons for your choice?

K: Taking long-term effects into consideration, I believe that I will only indicate the

error and, after that, I expect the student to look for the right answer himself. I want

him to depend on himself. Eventually, he will find the right answer and it will last for

a longer time. Therefore, I believe that indirect feedback is much better than direct

feedback.

R: Is that what you really do when you give feedback to students?

K: Actually, sometimes depending on time, students themselves and the nature of the

writing course.

R: What are the techniques you use when giving indirect feedback? (underlining, the

use of symbols)

K: I always indicate the error by underlining them for students. Sometimes, I use

symbols but it seems that students don‟t like them.

R: Really?

K: I believe that they don‟t like symbols.

R: Why that‟s so?

K: I guess their lack of training of how to use symbols.

R: Good. Can you read this quote and give me your opinion?

Leki (1997:467): “It‟s important for teachers NOT to correct learners, errors and give

the right answers immediately. Overt correction is based on the premise that students

lack the knowledge to correct errors.” (Capitals NOT made by reasercher)

K: I believe that giving the student the correct answer directly is faulty for the simple

reason that students will not look for the right answers which will not contribute to

their learning development. I would imagine this situation like “spoon-feeding” where

a teacher is perceived like “mommy.” (Laughter) Therefore, I believe that teachers

must give their students an indication of the error like its location and they should

make him looking for the right answers until he gets them himself. Teachers should

involve students in the process and not do everything for students. The potential

benefit will be greater.

R: Now I want to move to another topic that‟s still related to giving feedback:

teachers‟ attitudes. Do you believe that your style of giving feedback has an effect on

students?

K: Sure. Actually, I believe that it has a strong influence on students. For example,

plain criticism has a negative effect on students while positive remarks stimulate the

students to work harder and it gives them the confidence to work better and better.

R: You mean praise has a positive effect on student‟s writing and creativity?

K: Exactley.

R: How about the location of the feedback? Sometimes teachers write their feedback

on the margins near to the location of the error. Some other times, teachers may write

their comments at the end of the paper. Do you think that this distinction has an effect

on students‟ writing?

K: I think the location of feedback has a significant role in writing improvement. For

when a teacher write his comment close to the error, it connects the correction directly

with the error which, as a result, saves students‟ time.

R: Would you please read the following quote and give me your opinion about it?

Ferris and Hedgcock (1998:139): “ESL writers do not appear to be adversely affected

by feedback on grammar given on preliminary drafts of their compositions.” “In fact,

given the strong preferences that L2 writers have expressed for receiving grammar

feedback, its complete absence may actually be upsetting and motivating.”

K: I do believe that giving students grammr (pause) I mean giving them grammar

feedback before content feedback is incorrect. It teachers have to give both types of

feedback, they should start with content feedback first.

R: (interrupting) Why?

K: Well, content feedback tends to be more general while form feedback are more

specific. For the other point that L2 students want to receive feedback from their

teachers, I would say yes. Students want feedback and need it and I‟m sure that they

desire to have feedback.

R: When you were a student, did you think that feedback is important and did you

expect your teacher to give you his feedback?

K: Definitely yes. Because I knew I will get a great deal of advantage and I will

benefit more and I will improve my writing.

R: And this quotation please.

Hyland (1998: 271) “[an] important factor was the teacher‟s awareness of how the

students were likely to respond to the feedback. The protocols suggested that teachers

gave feedback to individual students, not texts, and brought with them an

awareness of the student‟s likely reaction to the feedback.” (Bold words were made

by the researcher)

K: From my point of view, I usually consider the products of the students not students

themselves. I can determine students‟ special needs through the paper itself. The error

which is presented in the student‟s paper shows the student‟s incompetence and what

other aspects it needs to be improved, corrected and care. After that, I‟ll try of draw

students‟ attention to their own inadequacies in a later stage.

R: This is the last one.

Hyland, K. (2003: 178) “Teacher written response continues to play a central role in

most L2 writing classes. Many teachers do not feel that they have done justice to

students‟ efforts until they have written substantial comments on their papers,

justifying the grade they have given and providing a reader reaction. Similarly, many

students see their teacher‟s feedback as crucial to their improvement as writers.”

K: As an ESL teacher, I totally agree with Hyland. I do believe in the importance and

central role played by written feedback and the justifications given in this quote are

genuinely true with my case. Evaluating students‟ papers is of great significance in

actual pedagogical practices. Similarly, I do agree with the other part as well that

students will appreciate their teachers‟ feedback.

R: So, you believe that being teaching in ESL classrooms is different to teaching in

L1 contexts?

K: Exactly, in L2 contexts teachers as well as students are very much concerned with

linguistic errors.

R: O.K. Can you read this quotation and give me your opinion?

Zamel (1985) “The [writing] teachers overwhelmingly view themselves as language

teachers rather than writing teachers.”

K: Yes, that‟s what I have in mind. In fact, teaching writing to L2 students is

definitely a valid practice to teaching them the target language as well. This is why

both teachers and students are very much concerned about linguistic errors.

R: I would like to express my sincerest gratitude for your time and cooperation.

K: Never mind.

Appendix D

Students’s Interview (1) Schedule

Interviewee: Mohammad Al-Yehyaowi Intended duration: 45mins

Date: Thursday, 26 August 2004 Interview began: 16:43

Interview finished: 17:25

Location: The researcher‟s room.

Actual duration: 42 mins.

R: Researcher

M: Mohammad

R: Hi Mohammad.

M: Hi.

R: Can you tell me which year are you in now?

M: In my second year in the university and I‟m 20 years old.

R: Can you give an idea about your educational background especially this that‟s

related to learning English in particular?

M: Well, in intermediate level, I have studied general English for three years and the

same in secondary level. I was taught the four skills including writing…

R: (interrupting) For writing, did you take something advanced or was it like basic

kind of teaching?

M: We started with the basics and thereafter we went to more advanced levels such as

writing small paragraphs according to a model.

R: During these years, how can you describe teachers‟ concern over the form of the

piece of writing?

M: Teachers were very much concerned regarding the accuracy of writing especially

in secondary school. Their concern over form corrections was especially true with

grammar. I benefited a lot from these corrections.

R: How about your university level? How many specialized courses in English

writing did you take?

M: I have successfully completed three courses so far. The first of them was general

writing in which I was introduced to different genres of writing. The focus was again

on form especially grammar, punctuation, the choice of words … etc. The teacher was

flexible; he responded to students‟ mistakes. In the second course I started writing

more freely; things like diction and short paragraphs. The third course was more

advanced where I was taught how to write academic pieces.

R: did the same teacher teach you these three courses?

M: No.

R: Were they the same? Did you benefit from their written feedback all the same?

M: No I didn‟t benefit from teachers all the same. Some of my teachers write their

feedback in a very clear way others don‟t. Teachers may indicate the error by

underlining it and ask you to look for the right answer. If I did my part and looked for

answer and was successful‟ then that‟s great. If I couldn‟t, then the teacher would

interfere.

R: Which one do you prefer?

M: Well, the first gives me the corrections directly and therefore reliable. Sometimes,

he may use other ways like giving us symbols with a description of what does it mean.

R: So, you prefer „direct feedback‟?

M: Yes.

R: In your questionnaire, you strongly agreed with teachers being correcting „every‟

error. Why that‟s so?

M: As a student for a second language, it‟s very important to avoid every possible

linguistic error. That will help me know my problems and solve them later.

R: Help you in which way?

M: Help me in the form. Once the teacher corrects my errors, I won‟t commit them

again. I think it‟s a common sense that unless someone awares me of my errors, I‟ll

keep committing them.

R: From your questionnaire, it seems that you don‟t like praise and appreciate

constructive criticism. Why?

M: May be because as adult students, we know that insincere praise does not help

especially in situations where final assessment won‟t take these statements of praise

into the consideration.

R: That‟s all. Thanks a lot.

M: You‟re welcome.

Appendix E

Students’s Interview Schedule (2)

Interviewee: Yousef Al Dewish Intended duration: 45mins

Date: Thursday, 26 August 2004 Interview began: 09:03

Interview finished: 10:44

Location: The researcher‟s room.

Actual duration: 41 mins.

R: Hi Yousef.

Y: Hello.

R: Can you give me a brief description of your educational background?

Y: I have been learning English for seven years so far. Six years in public school and

this is my first year in the university, English department.

R: During your years in public school, what type of English learning did you take

place in?

Y: It‟s like general English which included all the four skills (reading, writing,

listening, and speaking)

R: Can you tell me something about your writing classes? I mean things like what

were the concerns of you and your teacher, the kind of writing tasks you were

involved in, … etc?

Y: Ahhh, I believe we were doing short pieces of writing following a model. The

teacher corrected errors in grammar, punctuation and alike.

R: How about the content? Did the teacher correct your ideas?

Y: Sometimes. For me, I believe both grammar and ideas are very important.

R: All have the same degree of significance?

Y: I think comments regarding ideas are more general while linguistic errors are more

specific.

R: What do you think of form feedback taking into account being an ESL student?

Y: It‟s very important. I still commit many errors that are all related to form accuracy.

Therefore, I will really appreciate teachers correcting my errors.

R: Do you think that this type of feedback is beneficial?

Y: Definitely yes.

R: Why?

Y: How can I know my mistakes if the teacher doesn‟t show them to me? I really get

something from the teacher every time he corrects my mistakes.

R: So do you think that indicating the error will be enough? I mean just giving you a

hint but not the whole answer?

Y: It depends on the error itself. If I‟m familiar with the error then I think it will be

enough to locate it but if the type of error is unknown then I‟d like to have the right

answer as well.

R: Regarding the style of feedback, do you prefer praise to criticism for example and

why?

Y: For criticism, I believe that this has a very negative effect on students‟ self-

confidence. This is why I don‟t like plain criticism and would prefer if it can be

alleviated.

R: You mean like the use of hedges (the use of question forms and modals)?

Y: Yes exactly. For praise, I really appreciate this attitude from the teacher but I‟m

also aware that too much praise may have a negative effect as well. What I‟m saying

is that teachers have to encourage their students but in the same time have to

familiarize them with their weaknesses.

R: Thank you Yousef.

Y: Never mind.

Appendix G

diffe rent teachers I have had given feedback in diffe rent ways/ by using different

methods

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

1 2.8 2.8 5.6

4 11.1 11.1 16.7

22 61.1 61.1 77.8

8 22.2 22.2 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly disagree

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

some teachers are very good at giving feedback

4 11.1 11.1 11.1

2 5.6 5.6 16.7

4 11.1 11.1 27.8

10 27.8 27.8 55.6

16 44.4 44.4 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly disagree

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

teachers' corrections help me learn and improve my English

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

2 5.6 5.6 8.3

1 2.8 2.8 11.1

11 30.6 30.6 41.7

21 58.3 58.3 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly disagree

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

it is important for teachers to correct every e rror

5 13.9 13.9 13.9

3 8.3 8.3 22.2

10 27.8 27.8 50.0

18 50.0 50.0 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

I be lieve that the application of symbols (e .g. vt: Verb Tense , Sp: Spe lling, Pro:

Pronoun se lection) is quite use ful.

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

3 8.3 8.3 11.1

9 25.0 25.0 36.1

12 33.3 33.3 69.4

11 30.6 30.6 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly disagree

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

It is more he lpful to give clear, direct instructions about my writing e rrors than

suggesting a correction.

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

4 11.1 11.1 13.9

10 27.8 27.8 41.7

11 30.6 30.6 72.2

10 27.8 27.8 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly disagree

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

I always pay close attention to my teacher's written feedback on my writing.

2 5.6 5.6 5.6

4 11.1 11.1 16.7

2 5.6 5.6 22.2

11 30.6 30.6 52.8

17 47.2 47.2 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly disagree

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

I do not make the same error once the teacher corrects it

4 11.1 11.1 11.1

3 8.3 8.3 19.4

9 25.0 25.0 44.4

20 55.6 55.6 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

It is bette r to write the feedback in the margins than at the end

5 13.9 13.9 13.9

5 13.9 13.9 27.8

14 38.9 38.9 66.7

12 33.3 33.3 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

disagree

I don't know

agree

strongly agree

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Direct correction

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

6 16.7 16.7 19.4

14 38.9 38.9 58.3

15 41.7 41.7 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

locating and symbols

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

8 22.2 22.2 25.0

17 47.2 47.2 72.2

10 27.8 27.8 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

symbol

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

1 2.8 2.8 5.6

15 41.7 41.7 47.2

11 30.6 30.6 77.8

8 22.2 22.2 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

locating only

3 8.3 8.3 8.3

2 5.6 5.6 13.9

10 27.8 27.8 41.7

11 30.6 30.6 72.2

10 27.8 27.8 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

criticism

2 5.6 5.6 5.6

4 11.1 11.1 16.7

7 19.4 19.4 36.1

12 33.3 33.3 69.4

11 30.6 30.6 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

indirect feedback

2 5.6 5.6 5.6

4 11.1 11.1 16.7

11 30.6 30.6 47.2

14 38.9 38.9 86.1

5 13.9 13.9 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

suggesting the answer

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

3 8.3 8.3 11.1

18 50.0 50.0 61.1

10 27.8 27.8 88.9

4 11.1 11.1 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

combination of praise and criticism

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

3 8.3 8.3 11.1

9 25.0 25.0 36.1

18 50.0 50.0 86.1

5 13.9 13.9 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent

praise only

1 2.8 2.8 2.8

1 2.8 2.8 5.6

15 41.7 41.7 47.2

7 19.4 19.4 66.7

12 33.3 33.3 100.0

36 100.0 100.0

strongly not appreciated

not appriciated

I don't know

appreciated

stongly appreciated

Total

Valid

Frequency Percent Valid Percent

Cumulative

Percent