Abstract
Feedback is the most important aspect of the learning and teaching process. Through feedback, tutors/ lecturers provide an important intervention in teaching as students would always like to know where they did right or wrong in their written assessed work. Without feedback, learning is not complete. This article reports on the results of a major study on academic writing of first year English Second Language university students in open and distance learning context. The study probed both students’ perceptions and tutors’ practices in the provision of giving feedback. Marked students’ assignments were evaluated using document analysis method and interviews were held with students and tutors. The findings show that feedback provided to students is not always sufficient and therefore denying students’ opportunities to learn effectively as they would not know their weak and strong points.
Highlights
Feedback is very critical in learning and teaching
Some participants indicated that they value feedback and it helps them avoid repeating the mistakes in future writing tasks
The findings of this study do not differ much with the results presented by other studies
Summary
Feedback is very critical in learning and teaching. Without feedback, learning is like a ship without radar as there is no direction given to students regarding their written work. Data were collected using marked students essays by English for Academic Purposes students, as well as interviews with tutor-markers in an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) institution. The study found that marking of students’ assignments was not satisfactory and students did not benefit much from feedback. The article recommends a rigorous training of tutor-markers to ensure that they strengthen the weak link that exists in providing effective feedback to students in order to enhance learning and the teaching of writing. The article recommends training of both staff and students to produce effective feedback and adequately respond to feedback, respectively
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