Video inclusive portfolio (VIP) as a new form of teacher feedback in teaching writing

Abstract

Feedback provision is an important duty of foreign language writing teachers. Yet, the attitudes of teachers and the feedback channels they use might affect the amount of correction students can incorporate into their written work. For example, learners incorporate more correction when they have the opportunity to have short conferences with their teachers. However, holding conferences with the learners might not always be possible due to crowded classroom settings. Then, writing teachers provide their learners with feedback traditionally, mostly by indicating learners’ errors and mistakes, and commenting on their written work. While some learners utilize teacher feedback delivered traditionally, some others cannot benefit from the teacher feedback equally as it either includes too much metalinguistic explanation, learners interpret teacher comments incorrectly, correction symbols are confusing, or etc. Therefore, this study investigated whether a new form of teacher feedback delivered through videos might be an alternative to traditional feedback. To explore whether computer technology might be used as a new method, the researcher formed two groups of learners: an experimental group and a control group. The sample included students in the foundation course at Kadir Has University, the researchers home institution. While the experimental group received video feedback, the control group received traditional feedback for five of their weekly assignments. Since the feedback videos were part of a portfolio writing task, the researcher named the feedback videos “Video Inclusive Portfolio” (VIP). The data were collected and analyzed in three steps. Firstly, the amount of overall correction incorporated by the experimental group and the control group was calculated and analyzed with a Mann-Whitney U test. The findings revealed that video feedback helped learners incorporate more correction into their subsequent drafts. Secondly, the study also investigated whether video feedback helped learners incorporate more correction for feedback from different categories (e.g., explicit feedback, simple mechanical, complex mechanical, and organizational feedback). A second Mann-Whitney U test analyzed how learners of the two groups utilized feedback from different categories. The findings indicated that while the form of feedback (video feedback or traditional feedback) did not exhibit any statistically significant difference for explicit feedback category, video feedback enabled learners to incorporate more correction in terms of simple mechanical, complex mechanical, and organizational feedback. Finally, learners’ perceptions were investigated through a questionnaire administered to the experimental group at the end of the study. The findings of the questionnaire also confirmed that video feedback might be an alternative to traditional feedback in teaching writing skill. Key Words: Video Feedback, Teacher Feedback, Feedback in Teaching Writing