Effects of Feedback duringin English Teaching On METU Students’

Process of Learning Writing

1. INTRODUCTION

Learning English is not an easy process; therefore, teaching it requires great effort and time.

Feedback has been a controversial topic for many years; despite the number of teachers who

use it, only a few of them can help their students have a better performance in writing. This

study focuses on the writing aspect of English.

As writing allows interpersonal communication by means of various styles of language, it has

become one of the central measures for academic success (Bijami et al., 2013). As

Khadawardi (2021) stated, learners, organize their opinions and arrange their thoughts in

composition through the writing process. According to Boggs (2019), tasks required in second

language writing result in various content presented by learners, and this, as a result, requires

multiple types of feedback. The types of feedback explained in this study include:; direct

corrective feedback, indirect corrective feedback, content-based feedback, teacher-student

conferencing, and peer feedback. Whether students benefit more from written feedback or

oral feedback will also be discussed. Although many instructors and students do not see

feedback as a necessity, it has the power to change the whole course of teaching a language.

These instructors are responsible for their learners’ achievement in their level of writing;

otherwise, the readers will misunderstand these learners’ written texts. (Khadawardi, 2021).

For students to learn from their mistakes, they must have be given proper feedback. This

study’s findings are crucial for English Language Teaching practices, but especially for the

preparatory school students studying at METU since its main focus is to improve their writing

skills via feedback.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Throughout the history of education, there have been various feedback types and approaches

on teaching and studying writing. The two general approaches to studying writing are the

product-oriented and process-oriented approaches. The process approach focuses on the way

through to the result of writing the product, while the product approach focuses on the final

product and its evaluation. The product approach deals with the language and linguistic

structures besides more general traits like communicative effectiveness, syntactic length, and

related sentences in students’ writing. The process-oriented approach stresses writing activity

examines the writer’s approaches towards writing and emphasizes the way students follow

throughout their writing. Besides, the written texts are viewed as products of social

interactions, cultural practices, and power differentials.

The advantages and disadvantages of these feedback types have become topics to many kinds

of research, and these have been a guidepost to teachers, students, and other researchers. The

types of feedback which will be discussed in the following part are the types of feedback

METU prep school students encounter.

Direct corrective feedback occurs when the teacher shows the students where the mistake is

on their work, and the instructor should find the fault and help the students fix it. It requires a

significant amount of teacher involvement. Direct corrective feedback is constructive for

students since it helps them reduce their confusion, and the correction is directly provided so

that they can easily inspect the errors they made (Arifin et al., 2019).

Indirect feedback occurs when the teacher indicates in some way that an error exists but does

not provide the correction, thus leaving it to the student to find it (Eslami, 2014). Although

this feedback type may seem risky since it is not always certain whether the student will
understand his mistake and will be able to fix it, it is incredibly significant in that it increases

his problem-solving skills.

A content-based lesson’s objective is to learn about a certain topic; this could be anything.

They learn about this subject using the language they are trying to learn, rather than their

native language, as a tool for developing knowledge, and so they develop their linguistic

ability in the target language (Peachey, n.d.). This type of feedback has certain benefits, such

as practicing things for real life and the student’s active participation.

Teacher-student writing conferences are individual, one-on-one teacher-student conversations

about the students’ writing or writing process (Bayraktar, 2012). Individual attention given to

the student encourages them to do better and learn from their mistakes. Student-teacher

conferences empower students to identify, plan and set their own learning goals (Network

Support, n.d.).

Traditional academic assessments often cause negative feelings or anxiety among students. It

is essential to learn how to use this kind of assessment to enhance students’ progress and

avoid adverse effects (Liu & Lee, 2013). Peer feedback occurs when a student receives

feedback not from the teacher but from another peer. In peer feedback, learners take

responsibilities that proficient teachers or tutors generally take to get useful and practical

information on their writing by cognitive activity and experience evaluating and reviewing

with the teacher’s eye. Many researchers have claimed that peer feedback in writing classes is

helpful because of the cognitive and social benefits of peer feedback (Bijami et al., 2013).

Many researchers have conducted research regardingresearched feedback in writing. While

some discussed the effect of a specific feedback type, some have made comparisons between

particular types. Solhi and Eğinli (2020) questioned the effectiveness of oral feedback in

improving EFL learners. The research question was answered by comparing oral feedback
and written feedback. Both feedback types concluded in students getting higher points than

the beginning of the research, while students with oral feedback outperformed the students

with written feedback.

Zhang and Hyland (2018) used automated, and teacher feedback for their research showed the

differences between the two feedbacks and concluded that using both feedback in the

classroom environment can be beneficial. In conclusion, it can be said that feedback in class

can’t be limited to one, as multiple feedbacks are used together to give better results.

While preparing this study, it was clear that no previous research was about METU

preparatory students’ performance. This current study focuses on specific results of written

feedback in these students’ improvement of writing skills. We created a pool of METU

students who studied in preparatory school and asked them what type of feedback was the

most helpful for writing and how it helped them improve. The results can be used by the

instructors who work in the preparatory school of METU and can help future students have

better writing skills.

This research is beneficial, and the results hold significance for the education system in the

METU preparatory school. This school system and form are fundamental to the students in

METU, as they all have to have a certain level of English knowledge to pass and move on to

their major. With the research results, the effects of feedback students receive during their

preparatory period will be distinguishable to many, from administrators to students.

3. RATIONALE

This research aims to receive answers regarding the types of feedback used in preparatory

classes. In addition, the questions will give answers to the frequency and focus of different
types of these feedbacks. In order to see a better picture of the feedback methods used in the

aimed environment, the following research questions have been formulated:

1- What type of feedbacks do METU teachers use more often?

2- Have they given regular feedback and have these been beneficial in students’ writing

process?

3- Were the feedbacks students received focused more on grammar and technical correction

or writing assessment? If it is the first, how did the feedbackit affect their writing

improvement process?

4. METHOD

This study was carried out by mixed methods: a questionnaire survey facilitated by self-

report. According to Ponto (2015), this type of research helps gather participants, collect data

and utilize many methods of instrumentation. A questionnaire survey was designed involving

a small-scale exploratory self-report study to provide background information on the context

through the individuals' accounts. The questions in the survey vary in that their answer types.

Some are multiple-choice questions, while others are 1/10 scale questions. Some of the

multiple-choice questions included explanations in necessary places to avoid confusion. The

questionnaire aims to identify or narrow down the possible variables and find a valuable

source of ideas for the research findings through a variety of questions and evaluations.

The study was conducted with METU students who finished preparatory school. Thirty

students filled the questionnaire. This group was chosen because the study aims to strengthen

the writing part of preparatory classes in METU. Thus, it was significant that they all had

studied in preparatory school before studying in their departments. We believe that different

types of feedback may affect the students’ improvement of writing skills. Thus, we would like
to determine to what degree METU students who finished preparatory school are affected by

different types of feedback. All of the students who took part in this study are above the

upper-intermediate level to finish preparatory school, and they need a score of 75. The

participants all gave their permission to work with their data. They signed a consent form

before filling the survey, and they were aware that they could leave anytime they felt

uncomfortable. All the data collected would only be seen by researchers, and the participants

were informed about this.

REFERENCES

Arifin, M., Zaim, M., & Ningsih, K. (2019, March 14). The Effect of Direct Corrective

Feedback on Students’ Writing of Recount Text. Atlantis Press.

https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/icla-18.2019.49

Bayraktar, A. (2012). Teaching writing through teacher-student writing conferences.

Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences. 51(10), 709-713.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.08.229

Bijami, M., Kashef, S. H., & Nejad, M. S. (2013). Peer feedback in learning English writing:

Advantages and disadvantages. Journal of Studies in Education, 3(4), 91-97.

https://doi.org/10.5296/jse.v3i4.4314

Boggs, J. A. (2019). Effects of teacher-scaffolded and self-scaffolded corrective feedback

compared to direct corrective feedback on grammatical accuracy in English L2 writing.

Journal of Second Language Writing. 46, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2019.100671

Eslami, E., (2014). The effects of direct and indirect corrective feedback techniques on EFL

students’ writing. Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences. 98, 445-452.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.438

Khadawardi, H. A. (2021). The effect of implicit corrective feedback on English writing of

international second language learners. English Language Teaching. 14(1), 123-139.

https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v14n1p123

Liu, E. Z. F., & Lee, C. Y., (2013). Using peer feedback to improve learning via online peer

assessment. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology. 12(1), 187-199.

Network Support. (n.d.). Effective Student-Teacher Conferences. Professional Learning

Board. Retrieved December 7, 2021, from

https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/effective-student-teacher-conferences/

Peachey, N. (n.d.). Content-based instruction. British Council. Retrieved on December 8,

2021, from https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/content-based-instruction

Ponto, J. (2015). Understanding and evaluating survey research. Journal of the advanced

practitioner in oncology, 6(2), 168. https://doi.org/10.6004/jadpro.2015.6.2.9

Solhi, M., & Eğinli, I. (2020). The effect of recorded oral feedback on EFL learners' writing.

Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 16(1), 01-13.

https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.712628

Your
Elements Score
score
Introduction 10 9
Lit Review 35 25
Rationale 10 6
Method 25 20
Significance &
10
Conclusion 6
References 5 4
APA format 5 5
Total 100 75

The parts that you need to spend more effort on developing are Lit Review and Method.

Both parts need to have a clearer outline to guide the readers better. Your major purpose of

Lit Review is to show what have been done before, not only the concepts. Then in the end,

you should point out the uniqueness of your study compared to the previous studies that you

introduced. And you will also emphasize the importance of doing this current study. For the

method part, you need to use subheadding to clearly show which part is data collection, which

part is data analysis. There is little description regarding the signficance and conclusion part.