Saudi EFL Students' Responses to Written Corrective Feedback on Writing

Abstract

Despite research emphasis on learners' responses to teacher written feedback on writing, how students view the entire process of receiving feedback needs to be addressed from students' reflections and perspectives. The current study, therefore, aims to address how 20 Saudi EFL undergraduate students reflect on their actual processing of and reactions to feedback. Based on a qualitative analysis of learners' written reflections and oral follow-up interviews, the findings show that although most of the learners seemed to view feedback as a process of cognitive engagement with writing that enables them to figure out their errors in writing, they sometimes got confused and found it difficult to understand the messages of some written feedback. Moreover, the findings revealed students' positive evaluation of, reactions to and preference for teacher's feedback in the forms of suggestions and explicit comments. The study offers pedagogical implications for teachers in how to compose effective feedback that promotes students’ responses to it. It also suggests useful directions for future research on exploring feedback practices from students' perspectives in writing classroom.