Making the implicit explicit: Unpacking the revision process

Abstract

Providing feedback is an intrinsic component of writing instruction, and arguably one of the most important components when teaching a second language. Learners of English generally receive feedback on their written texts through teachers’ written comments or correction code symbols. Among these two ways of feedback provision, writing instructors often prefer giving feedback through correction symbols as it enables the students to process acquired knowledge and correct their own errors accordingly. Yet, the writing instructors have little or no idea about cognitive processes the learners experience while utilizing the correction code symbols. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate how students having different proficiency levels interpret and respond to the correction code symbols on their written output while revising their work. The study also sought to identify how useful the students find the use of correction code symbols while revising their texts. The research was conducted at a public university in Turkey with thirty two participants, who were chosen among intermediate and elementary level students on a voluntary basis. The data for this research were collected via the think-aloud protocols (TAPs) of the students while they were re-drafting their output according to the correction symbols, and retrospective interviews conducted following the TAPs. Qualitative data analysis from the TAPs and interviews indicated that the students employed certain strategies while interpreting the symbols for different error categories. The study also showed that, with the exception of syntactic errors, the intermediate level participants were able to correct their errors slightly more frequently than the elementary level students. Finally, despite some surface-level difficulties, the data retrieved from the interviews indicated that all the students regardless of their levels of proficiency found using correction code symbols helpful.