Teacher Feedback In College EFL Writing:Students' Views

Despite high interest in second language writers' processes, few studies have examined how learners perceive or incorporate expert feedback into their revisions. In order to come up with a sound pedagogy of feedback in the writing classroom, it is important to understand the issues students face, their beliefs and their concerns. It is hoped that through obtaining such information, effective measures to cope with such a painstaking task can be found. With this objective in mind, the present study was conducted to find out students' attitudes, their reactions and their problems regarding teacher feedback. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study shows there is a misfit between what students receive and what they really want. Students reported that they received most feedback on vocabulary, followed by grammar, mechanics, organization and content. However, students strongly wanted teacher comments on organization, followed by content/ideas, vocabulary, mechanics and grammar. Other information concerning students' beliefs and revision strategies is also reported. Although tentative, evidence from these complementary studies may suggest some meaningful information for teachers of ESL/EFL writing.