The Most Common Feedback Types Provided by EFL Teachers in Essay Writing Class

Abstract

Despite the importance of the perception behind teachers' feedback, it is astonishing to note that there are not many studies regarding how teachers provide feedback. Drawing upon Ellis’ (2009) typology of written Corrective Feedback (CF), this study explored the most common feedback types provided by EFL teachers. Moreover, the study aimed at finding out whether teachers’ teaching experience and learners’ proficiency level had any bearing on the type of feedback the teachers provided. Eleven teachers provided feedback on 301 descriptive essays written by EFL students in English. The findings revealed that teachers mostly tended to employ direct CF to correct their students’ linguistic errors. This was followed by indirect CF and metalinguistic CF, respectively. It came to light that focused CF, electronic feedback, and reformulation had no popularity among Iranian EFL teachers. The experienced teachers opted more for indirect feedback while the inexperienced ones preferred direct feedback. Teachers were more inclined to provide intermediate students with direct CF whereas they provided more indirect CF to the upper intermediate students. The results suggest that not all teachers’ perceptions about feedback can necessarily be rendered into classroom practices and various factors, including culture, society, learners and teachers themselves impact teachers’ beliefs and practices.

Keywords

• direct cf
• indirect cf
• reformulation
• teaching experience
• teacher feedback