Abstract
Teacher written feedback (TWF) has long been regarded as a necessary pedagogical tool for improving the writing proficiency of ESL/EFL learners, while student responses to this feedback can often reflect its effectiveness. This paper reviews 64 articles appearing in high-ranking journals during 2010–2021 in terms of research methodology, theoretical framework and main findings. Analysis of these articles reveals few studies adopted any theoretical frameworks to examine learner responses to TWF and suggests a need for longitudinal naturalistic studies adopting mixed methods and some theoretical framework such as sociocultural theory of mind (SCT) to better explain learners' dynamic engagement in response to TWF. The main findings of these previous studies reveal the diverse responses among learners at different language proficiency levels and in various sociocultural contexts. The results of the review indicate that future research could take classroom-based mixed-method research design to investigate learner variables.
Highlights
Teacher Written Feedback (TWF) has been recognized as an important way to improve student learning (Hyland and Hyland, 2006a,b)
These excluded journal articles were coded into eight primary themes: effects of feedback (N = 47); wrong year (N = 1); not English as a second language (ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) learners as participants (e.g., Spanish) (N = 5); a survey unrelated to any specific L2 writing courses or experience of receiving TWF (N = 5); unclear methodology description (N = 3); focusing on teacher written feedback practices or oral feedback or peer feedback (N = 9); automated writing evaluation (N = 2); others (N = 24)
The results are discussed with the help of the sociocultural theory of mind perspective; implications are provided for future research regarding three aspects: methodology, theoretical frameworks, and students’ responses to TWF
Summary
Teacher Written Feedback (TWF) has been recognized as an important way to improve student learning (Hyland and Hyland, 2006a,b). The present review mainly focuses on TWF, and to further narrow the catchment of studies, the review is confined to ESL/EFL students’ English compositions It first briefly explains the key term learner responses/engagement. Based on Fredricks et al (2004) and Ellis (2010), Han and Hyland (2015) redefined the framework and established a multi-dimensional framework of learner engagement with WCF by adding sub-constructs to specify each dimension Behavioral engagement includes both revision operations and observable strategies on raising writing accuracy and language competence. Learner responses to some extent may be equal to learner engagement in TWF according to these studies These definitions and dimensions provide directions for researchers to investigate teacher corrective feedback (both oral and written), they are not solely designed for teacher written feedback. The results focusing on this aspect could only inform researchers and educators whether this type of feedback might work for certain group of students and naturally ignore the learners’ thoughts behind their motive; the focus of this review is on learners’ responses
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