Teacher Responses and Student Interpretations in an EFL Composition Classroom

Abstract

Lee, Younghwa. (2007). Teacher responses and student interpretations in an EFL composition classroom. English Teaching, 62(2), 101-121. This study addresses teacher responses to student writing and student interpretations of their teacher’s feedback in an EFL writing course at a university in Korea. The teacher responses were focused on the purposes and nature, and the linguistic features of the comments. The data comprise the collection of thirty-four students’ writing samples with the teacher comments and interviews with six students. The findings indicate that the teacher’s response to student writing has a powerful shaping effect on the nature and purposes of the comments, using different types of linguistic forms. The comments reflect the teacher’s approach for teaching EFL writing, alluding students’ grades with strengths and weaknesses, and an emphasis of encouragement in order to help the students’ writing. The six students showed different interpretations of the teacher responses: a frustration by detailed comments about grammar; a misunderstanding of a simple request for a meeting; a great admiration about guidelines for form and content; a suggestion of explicitness, and appreciation of positive comments. This study concludes that, while there will be strong individual differences, it is safest to assume that the majority of students value feedback, and that providing nothing more than grades deprives them of a valuable learning opportunity.