Oral Versus Written Feedback: Attitudes of Female Saudi University Students

Abstract

Oral and written feedback have been found to be useful in learning English as a Second Language (L2). Yet it is not clear what form of feedback L2 learners prefer. This study therefore investigated 47 Saudi female university students’ attitudes to both oral and written feedback. The data was collected by an online questionnaire consisting of three constructs: a) attitudes to written feedback; b) attitudes to oral feedback; and c) attitudes to written versus oral feedback. In terms of the first, the results showed that most participants expressed positive attitudes to written feedback, which they would be happy to receive on all the mistakes they make in their writing. Most participants were also positive about oral feedback and wanted their teacher to correct all their speaking errors, including errors of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. However, participants did not want to be corrected in front of other students as this could make them nervous. Overall, most participants agreed that oral feedback helped them improve their English skills more than written feedback. But despite such a positive attitude, most participants still found oral feedback embarrassing. Knowing students’ perceptions of corrective feedback (CF) is vital, because negative attitudes to feedback could harm the language learning process.