dc.description.abstract | Writing has long been considered challenging among native and nonnative speakers. Even with years of instruction, language learners, particularly those in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) contexts, still find it difficult to produce works with satisfying quality. Therefore, teacher feedback has played a vital role in helping student writers to improve during the writing process. With the need for instructional alternatives to English writing that EFL learners long deem challenging, researchers and educators seek instructional innovations that lead to enhanced learning motivation and outcomes. Since technology has been widely integrated into language teaching and learning, researchers have probed into how technology could be optimized to facilitate the provision of teacher feedback and to further enhance student learning. Studies have shown that the positive effects of asynchronous written feedback and synchronous oral feedback on English writing. Nevertheless, the optimal way to respond to student writing has remained undetermined, and the extent to which diverse forms of computer-mediated teacher feedback affected EFL learner’s writing performance has remained inconclusive. Such issue is even more problematic to non-English-majored graduate students.
Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to address the aforementioned research gap observed in current EFL writing education. Special attention was given to EFL leaners’ writing outcomes (overall performance, global/local aspects of writing) as the result of two computer-mediated teacher feedback designs in a naturalistic setting; that is, the single feedback design consisting of asynchronous teacher written feedback versus the dual feedback design including both asynchronous teacher written feedback and synchronous teacher oral feedback. Focuses of written and oral teacher feedback were also respectively examined. Furthermore, perceptions about the computer-mediated teacher feedback among the Taiwanese students as well as thoughts about the writing instructional design among the American teacher partners were also explored.
The Taiwanese participants were 32 non-English-major graduates from two intact English Writing courses in northern Taiwan. One class was randomly assigned as the experimental group (i.e., receiving dual teacher feedback), while the other was the control group (i.e., having single teacher feedback). A total of four writing teachers from the ESL Program in a public university in the Midwestern region of the United States were invited to give Taiwanese students feedback on their compare and contrast essays. Each American teacher was paired with eight Taiwanese students (four from the experimental group and four from the control group). In the writing instruction, all of the students (1) reviewed learning materials and instructional videos, (2) answered comprehension check questions before physical class meetings, and (3) finished a compare and contrast essay concerning the differences in plagiarism between Taiwan and America. After uploading the essays to the designated platform, all Taiwanese students received written comments from the American teacher partners, with which they revised their papers accordingly. The students in the experimental group were further engaged in interaction with their American teacher partners in teacher-student writing conference and received synchronous oral feedback. Thus, the focus of the study lied in how two computer-mediated teacher feedback designs affected writing outcomes, and how the participants (both Taiwanese students and American teachers) perceived the writing instructional design.
Multiple sources of data were collected to examine the effectiveness of the two computer-mediated teacher feedback designs and to explore perceptions from the Taiwanese students and American teachers. These included the compare and contrast essays (the first draft, second draft, and final draft) and reflective journals. The major findings were as follows:
1. Both computer-mediated teacher feedback designs (i.e., single and dual teacher feedback) significantly enhanced the writing performance of Taiwanese student. The dual teacher feedback deign, compared with the single teacher feedback design, contributed to significantly higher writing performance among students.
2. The students receiving the dual teacher feedback deign outperformed those receiving the single teacher feedback design in the global aspects of writing including introduction/thesis statement, body paragraphs, conclusion, overall organization, and response to the prompt.
3. Asynchronous teacher written feedback covered both global and local aspects of writing, while synchronous teacher oral feedback in writing conferences focused more on meaning clarification and macro-level suggestions.
4. Most of the Taiwanese students found the computer-mediated teacher feedback to be a beneficial resource for English writing.
5. The American teachers were positive about the overall writing instructional design.
Successful implementation of this study provides researchers, English instructors, and curriculum designers with a better understanding of how computer-mediated teacher feedback affected non-English-major learners’ writing performance. Furthermore, the potential effects of the writing instruction identified by this study provide directions for future practice, and pave the way for further research and for integration of innovative instructional designs in an EFL setting.
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