Teachers' and students' perceptions of types of corrective feedback in writing

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate student and teacher perception of four types of feedback: 1) direct corrective feedback, 2) direct corrective feedback with written and oral meta linguistic explanation, 3) indicating and locating the students’ errors, and 4) indicating the students’ errors only. The study was conducted with 31 first-year university students and nine teachers at Koya University, College of Languages, English Department. The data were collected through a student questionnaire, which was filled in four times by the students after they had been given the four types of feedback, teacher and student interviews, and a journal, which was kept by the researcher while giving feedback. The results demonstrated that all the types of feedback were preferred by the students. However, there were some differences among them. According to the questionnaire direct corrective feedback was approved most by the students, but according to the student and teacher interview and the researcher’s journal, direct corrective feedback with written and oral meta linguistic explanation was liked most. Generally the two explicit types were preferred more than the implicit types. The study suggests that teachers ought to pay attention to the learners’ level of proficiency while giving feedback. In addition, it is worthwhile for teachers to provide a diversity of types of feedback to accommodate students’ preferences from time to time.