Spicing up Undergraduate Collaborative Writing Course through Feedback Dialogues

Abstract

Dialogic feedback, as opposed to unidirectional feedback that positions English language learners as mere receivers, is argued to be effective in promoting learners' self-regulated learning and active roles in feedback interpretation and negotiation. Despite the emphasis on dialogic feedback, empirical research on the how? question related to the processes of dialogues in feedback settings is limited. This paper, therefore, being positioned as part of this dialogic feedback approach, aimed to explore how feedback dialogues on the writing of fifteen pairs of undergraduates joining a writing class in a Saudi Arabia university are constructed. The data was collected from records of oral face-to-face (F2F) dialogues and digital or online written and audio interactions. The dialogues were analysed using an interactional analysis guided by several conceptual frameworks from previous research. Findings illustrated that dialogues are promoted and constructed within a four-dimensional process of cognitive, metacognitive, socio-affective, and structural activities. The assessment questions, hand-written codes and Google Docs-based highlights of errors in learners' drafts played a role in initiating F2F learner-learner dialogues which were extended to teacher-learner dialogues and to online dialogues. The study encourages writing instructors' shift to dialogic feedback in order to foster learners' active engagement with feedback and to motivate them to look for more effective strategies in promoting feedback dialogues with learners.