ESOL Student’s Portfolio Writing Practice: Studying Corrective Feedback With Formative Assessment to Enhance L2 Outcomes in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Corrective Feedback with Formative Assessment (CFFA) could be a vital component in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). It is a coherent approach to enhance ESOL students' writing skills. The aim of this study is to analyze heterogenous outlines, quantitative congeniality, and the effectiveness of WF (Written Feedback) with one-on-one corrections. The EFL writing portfolios include the CFP (Corrective Feedback Planning), WFD (Writing the First Draft), and EFD (Evaluating and Improving the First Draft). It also includes using the CFFA to teach EFL skills based on various modules of authentic ESOL course material selected for teaching at the lower-to-elementary levels of ESOL learning students. The quantitative data from simultaneous questionnaires affirmed the efficacy and relevance of CFFA with the students' composition of descriptive and expository texts within the Preparatory Year English writing courses at three different campuses of a university in Saudi Arabia. 351 students from various groups and individual instructors in charge of the RW (Reading and Writing) courses responded to correlated questionnaires, and task outlines were collected for stylistic analysis. Besides being an effective teaching practice, CFFA involves an informal instructor-student exchange and written remarks. Although not summative, they aim to enhance students' writing skills. The students merely perceived their errors as part of the recurrent practice required in the elaborate but formulaic methodology of the instructional techniques of EFL writing. In turn, the absence of summative grading reduced student anxiety. The results demonstrated that the well-defined written CFFA aligns with students' levels and course objectives.