| Teachers' written comments on student writings have been investigated empirically over the last thirty years. Although the research has produced useful data, it is still far from conclusive. We need to know more about teacher written response as an instructional strategy for teaching writing.; The goal of my research was to investigate how Arab teachers of English responded to the writings of their students, and how those students reacted to the teachers' responses.; In particular, I examined the way EFL teachers approached the teaching of writing, the effect of their responses on the students' revisions, and the errors they tended to respond to most. Four subject teachers collected written texts (first drafts and revised ones) from their students. I analyzed those written texts as well as questionnaires and interviews of teachers and students.; The results of my study indicate that, despite the new trends in teaching writing, the teachers treated the students' errors in isolation from the text as a whole. In other words, they tended to respond to isolated local errors and disregard global aspects of the texts. Moreover, their responses implied the authoritative role of the teacher who knows what is wrong end how to correct it. This traditional role limited the learning situations in which the students could have communicated and learned from their errors. |
