Impact of Written Corrective Feedback on Malaysian ESL Secondary Students’ Writing Performance

Abstract

The teacher plays a crucial role in providing good written corrective feedback (WCF), especially in Malaysia's education system. Numerous studies were conducted on its effectiveness and students' perceptions, but most were meant for tertiary education. This mixed method study identified the types of WCF provided by teachers during their English as a Second Language (ESL) writing pedagogical practices in five Malaysian secondary schools, and analysed the perceptions of 482 students and 15 teachers towards the provision of WCF. A questionnaire survey was administered to collect quantitative data from students, and focus group discussions were conducted among the teachers to collect qualitative data. Students highlighted that, teachers gave unfocused, metalinguistic WCF, and only held discussions much later. Students preferred teachers to mark all errors, and perceived WCF as important in improving their writing skills. Teachers reported, that they are in the habit of providing unfocused, indirect, and metalinguistic WCF, and held discussions with students only after marking the scripts. They perceived WCF as beneficial in enhancing students' writing skills and teachers' pedagogical practices. In this vein, it is construed, that the perceptions of teachers and students are mostly aligned. Teachers need to be aware of the existing types of WCF and incorporate the appropriate ones in their teaching practices. This study is significant in enriching ESL teachers' pedagogical practices of teaching writing to secondary school students by providing the best practices of WCF, taking into account students' interest, and ultimately create a more significant impact in the ESL writing classroom.

Exploring EFL female teachers' and undergraduate students' perceptions regarding written corrective feedback

“…More specifically, the students and teachers held different views from their colleagues. In a recent study, Ganapathy et al (2020a) examined the attitudes of instructors and learners regarding WCF usage in Malaysia. The perceptions mostly aligned in terms of the importance and effectiveness of WCF and diverged in terms of the amount of feedback.…”

“…2.5 Teachers' perceptions of WCF EFL/ESL teachers' preferences for delivering WCF have been the subject of a sizable amount of research, and the findings have revealed variations in how feedback is provided. Generally speaking, writing teachers agree on the value of their written comments as part of their teaching strategies for writing, leading students to better achievement of the syllabus objectives (Ganapathy et al, 2020a). Similarly, Lee et al (2017) argue that instructors believe that WCF can enhance learning writing and feel obliged to use it to justify the grades they assign.…”

Do Teacher Questions Function as Assessment for Learning?

“…Along this line of statement, strategy, context of learners, instruction methodology, interaction types such as teacher-student and student-student are vital elements in AFL. Those aspects, through questioning, are of benefit to have diagnostic information, change, and adapt teachers' instruction regarding students' needs (Choi & Li, 2012;Ganapathy et al, 2020;Nassaji, 2016;Park, 2018;Sarandi, 2016;Sritrakarn, 2018).…”

“…Questioning and Assessment for Learning (AfL) are inseparably related. Following the pattern of IRF/E as claimed by (Ganapathy, Ai, Tan, & Phan, 2020;Laeli & Setiawan, 2019;Lee, Mak, & Burns, 2015;Nassaji, 2016), teacher questioning is widely acknowledged as crucial technique in classroom discourse and is used evaluate the specific learning goals (Black & Wiliam, 2009;Gattullo, 2000;Jiang, 2014;Milawati, 2017;Widiastuti & Saukah, 2017). Focusing on feedback activity, teachers utilize questions to make their students more active resulting from meaning negotiation process both through explicit and implicit.…”

Exploring ESL Teachers’ Insights on Corrective Oral Feedback in a Malaysian Secondary Education Context

“…(Vasu et al, 2016;Mahmood et al, 2020). Furthermore, most of the studies found only focused on students' perception instead of teacher's perception (Ganapathy et al, 2020;Vasu et al, 2016;Saeb, 2016;Sobhani & Tayebipour, 2015). Thus, this study aims to fill the gap by investigating Malaysian secondary ESL teachers' perception of oral feedback.…”