Written corrective feedback in Hong Kong secondary school English writing classrooms : teachers' practices and learner engagement

Abstract

Written corrective feedback (WCF) is a ubiquitous instructional tool in EFL writing classrooms and one of the most heavily researched topics in SLA. After 45 years of research, studies have found that WCF plays a role in promoting language accuracy. However, many quasi-experimental studies, mainly taking a cognitive perspective, have neglected the social aspects of WCF, such as individual differences and contextual factors; therefore, the research findings have had a rather narrow ecological relevance, and many questions have been only partially answered. Addressing this shortcoming while expanding the knowledge regarding the effects of WCF, this thesis is a qualitative multiple case study aiming to draw a comprehensive picture of WCF activity through the lens of sociocultural theory (SCT) by investigating teachers’ WCF practices and students’ engagement with WCF. Two English teachers from the same Hong Kong secondary school and six students from two classes with varying academic achievements participated. Data included qualitative surveys involving the whole English panel and two classes, the six students’ writing drafts containing teachers’ WCF and revision drafts, semi-structured interviews with teachers and students, students’ retrospective verbal reports, instructional materials of writing lessons, classroom observation notes, and school documents. The two teacher cases indicated that a comprehensive WCF approach with mixed strategies was adopted in two writing classrooms. The current WCF practice was largely attributed to the interactions of individual and contextual factors. Notably, while the school’s WCF policy and teacher’s prior experience had a significant impact on the scope of the WCF, Teacher’s student-related beliefs about learner’s ability and willingness, shaped the explicitness of the WCF. Six student cases revealed that all students showed some engagement with the WCF but mostly at the surface level. Only one high-performing student demonstrated relatively more extensive engagement with WCF. The cross-case patterns further suggested that the interactions of learner factors, i.e., students’ L2 proficiency, beliefs, and motivation, with contextual factors, i.e., WCF practices, institutional instructions and the examination culture resulted in different levels of individual engagement. More importantly, taking the sociocultural perspective, the findings extend the theoretical understanding of the impact of current WCF practices. As teacher-centred comprehensive WCF may not provide a mediated learning experience, most learners demonstrated incomplete engagement with the WCF. This study contributes to the existing research by proposing a tentative model that aims to capture the dynamic interrelationship of teacher provisions of, and learner responses to, WCF in the writing classroom. The model illustrates that both teachers and students bring their particular perspectives to WCF situations, and the two parties’ perspectives are dynamically reinforced and shaped by factors embedded in multiple layers of contexts. It explains individual variations of the two teachers’ WCF practices and the six students’ cognitive, behavioural and affective responses to the WCF. Specifying the individual and contextual mediating factors furthers our understanding of the social aspects of WCF. Also, it represents potential ways forward for different stakeholders (e.g., teachers, students, and school administrators) to work collaboratively to implement more promising WCF practices to facilitate effective language development in the current research context and other similar EFL contexts.