A mixed-methods study of feedback modes in EFL writing

As digital technologies have become ubiquitous thanks to the Internet, new modes of feedback in L2 writing have emerged, yet what remains unclear is how feedback given through alternative modes helps improve writing quality and how new feedback tools fit in the overall context of writing instruction. Therefore, the purpose of this embedded mixed-methods study is to assess how three online feedback modes help improve student writing. Thirty-three intermediate Turkish-L1 learners of English received written, audio and screencast feedback in Google Drive to improve their writing in a multi-draft essay-writing task and an essay-revision task with three parallel essays. The results indicated that it was the audio group that made the highest number of correct revisions in the essay-writing task, while there was not a significant difference among the three feedback modes in the essay-revision task. Semi-structured interviews and screen recordings provided qualitative data about their preferences and how they worked with each mode to address both microlevel and macrolevel problems. The participants did not uniformly prefer a particular feedback mode but highlighted the potential benefits and downsides of each mode

Second language writing online: An update

I last wrote an overview of developments in second language (L2) online writing 10 years ago (Godwin-Jones, 2008). Since that time, there have been significant developments in this area. There has been renewed interest in L2 writing through the wide use of social media, along with the rising popularity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and telecollaboration (class-based online exchanges). The recognition of writing as a social act has also led to a significant rise in interest in collaborative writing. This has been aided by the popularity of tools providing a shared writing space, such as Google Docs. The importance and recognition of genre in both student work and writing theory have grown considerably among practitioners and researchers. The increased practice of integrating multimedia into writing is reflected in the popularity of multimodal projects, such as digital storytelling. At the same time, digital tools for evaluating writing have become more widely available in the form of digital annotators and automated writing evaluation (AWE) software, which take advantage of advances in corpus linguistics and natural language processing (NLP). In addition, tools for processing and evaluating large data sets enable approaches from data mining that provide valuable insights into writing processes. The variety and, in some cases, the complexity of online writing environments has increased the need for both learner and teacher training

AN INVESTIGATION OF EFL LEARNERS ATTITUDES TOWARD COMPUTER-ASSISTED WRITING (CAW)

This dissertation studies attitudes of the Saudi university learners studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) toward using the Computer-assisted Writing (CAW) applications, e.g., up-to-date versions of word processing programs, for doing English writing assignments. Research has confirmed that CAW applications, e.g., up-to-date versions of word processing program, have been utilized in and out of the class to supplement, but not to replace, the methods of learning and teaching writing. Previous studies have revealed that students attitude towards writing improves when they use the word processor. The current study aims at examining the hypotheses that the EFL learners have effective attitudes towards CAW for writing assignments in EFL, and that they have perspectives about the effects of their attitudes on their writing accuracy and fluency. While the dissertation discusses EFL learners attitude, it also highlights the significance of employing computer technology, e.g., Learning Management Systems (LMSs), Computer-mediated Communications (CMCs) in EFL and in English as a Second Language (ESL) writing instructions. The researcher selected participants pursuing undergraduate English courses in the English Department at three different Saudi university campuses. The sample of the subjects was selected after they were surveyed in the first place for determining their prior knowledge and previous experiences of CAW applications and their ability to write at least a paragraph in English. A 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire, adapted from K. Cunninghams (2002) article, was responded by a total 150 subjects, and open-ended questions were answered by 50 of them to gather and analyze data about their attitudes and their attitude influences on their learning EFL writing. Key findings of the study, concluded after quantitative and qualitative analysis, revealed that the majority of students had positive attitudes toward CAW on their general English writing and on their EFL writing assignments and practice in particular. Key findings of the study included, but are not limited to, the fact that the students positive attitudes lead to raising significant awareness of their writing accuracy (i.e., mainly correcting grammar and spelling errors), writing fluency (i.e., vocabulary selection), and improving their writing ability and revision. The study concluded with several suggestions for future research studies

Interactions between text chat and audio modalities for L2 communication and feedback in the synthetic world Second Life.

This paper reports on a study of the interactions between text chat and audio modalities in L2 interaction in a synthetic (virtual) world and observes whether the text chat modality was used for corrective feedback and the characteristics of the latter. This is examined within the context of a hybrid Content and Language Integrated Learning design workshop. This course involved 17 students of architecture whose L2 was either French or English and for which the synthetic world environment Second Life was employed for distance language sessions. Using multimodal transcriptions of the interaction data from these sessions, it was found that text chat was employed for content-based interaction concerning the task as well as feedback concerning non-target-like errors in the audio modality. Feedback predominantly concerned lexical errors and was offered in the form of recasts. The multimodality of the environment did not appear to cognitively overload students who frequently responded in the audio modality to corrective feedback offered in the text chat. The study highlights the need to train language tutors who wish to exploit synthetic worlds to use the text chat in parallel with the audio to support learners' verbal production with respect to verbal participation and proficiency

A systematic review of written corrective feedback research in ESL/EFL contexts

In the past decade (2007-2017), research on written corrective feedback (WCF) has been proliferating in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) and English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) contexts, and new developments in this field of research are evident. To synthesize the latest advancement in WCF research, a systematic review of recent literature on WCF was conducted to identify current research trends and provide an agenda for future WCF studies. This study was conducted following the seven stages of systematicreview suggested by Petticrew and Roberts (2008). In this article, content analysis was conducted on abstracts of 41 WCF primary studies published between 1997 and 2017 in SSCI-indexed journals in the fields of TESOL, language learning, and technology andeducation using a text-mining tool called Leximancer. Twenty-two word-level concepts were identified, which were grouped into five themes: types of WCF, types of writing tasks, demographics of participants, research design/methods, and types of errors. Based on the systematic review, two research tasks are identified to provide an agenda for future research.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A model of factors affecting independent learners’ engagement with feedback on language learning tasks

In independent learning contexts, the effectiveness of the feedback dialogue between student and tutor or, in the absence of a tutor, the quality of the learning materials, is essential to successful learning. Using the voices of participants as the prime source of data through a combination of data-driven and concept-driven approaches, this investigation attempts to gain deeper insights into the dynamics of the learning process as students express emotional reactions to the learning environment and in particular the written feedback from their tutors and the learning materials. To account for the different ways in which adult learners studying independently engage both cognitively and emotionally with external feedback, we propose a model based on four key drivers: goal relevance, knowledge, self-confidence, and roles. We conclude that only when these key drivers are aligned with each other can learners in independent settings engage with external feedback and learn from it

Final Year Students' Perceptions on the Online Corrective Feedback Given by Teacher on Their Academic Paper

The emergence of Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of online corrective feedback on the students’ works. However, the contribution of such feedbacks on the students’ final papers which basically requires a thorough explanation remains under investigated. This study is aimed at analyzing the students’ perception of online corrective feedback given by the English teacheron their academic paper. To achieve the objective, the interviews were conducted to 4 final years students’ of English department to determine whether the use of online corrective feedback was practical in assisting learners to improve their writing from the first draft to the final draft. The findings showed that the students indicated diverse responses. Some students claimed that onlinecorrective feedback is effective and, while some others said no. Some who stated that online corrective feedback is effective have the reasons that it is caused by the time efficiency and accessibility. Meanwhile, the ineffectiveness is believed to be caused by the quality of the feedback that is not complete enough. This study provides the implication that the lecturer should focus more on the contents while delivering the online corrective feedback

Automated Error Detection for Developing Grammar Proficiency of ESL Learners

Thanks to natural language processing technologies, computer programs are actively being used not only for holistic scoring, but also for formative evaluation of writing. CyWrite is one such program that is under development. The program is built upon Second Language Acquisition theories and aims to assist ESL learners in higher education by providing them with effective formative feedback to facilitate autonomous learning and improvement of their writing skills. In this study, we focus on CyWrite’s capacity to detect grammatical errors in student writing. We specifically report on (1) computational and pedagogical approaches to the development of the tool in terms of students’ grammatical accuracy, and (2) the performance of our grammatical analyzer. We evaluated the performance of CyWrite on a corpus of essays written by ESL undergraduate students with regards to four types of grammatical errors: quantifiers, subject-verb agreement, articles, and run-on sentences. We compared CyWrite’s performance at detecting these errors to the performance of a well-known commercially available AWE tool, Criterion. Our findings demonstrated better performance metrics of our tool as compared to Criterion, and a deeper analysis of false positives and false negatives shed light on how CyWrite’s performance can be improved