- Email: [email protected]
Investigating the Effects of Interactional Feedback on EFL Students’ Writings
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
International Conference on Current Trends in ELT
Investigating the Effects of Interactional Feedback on EFL Students' Writings Samaneh Abdollahifama,*
Azarbaijan University of Sahid Madani, Tabriz – Maragheh Road, Tabriz , Iran
Abstract Providing feedback and its appropriate types on learners' L2 writing have been a controversial matter for over 20 years where much research has been carried out about various modes of corrective feedback on form. Although recent innovations encouraged teachers to offer feedback on cohesion and organizational structures of the content, very few studies have regarded feedback as an interactional enterprise in EFL classes. Interactional competence seems to be ignored in writing process as if the learners do not indeed have any intended interlocutors in mind. This study hence seeks to discover the possible effects of teachers' interactional feedback on the learners' performance and motivation. A group of 20 intermediate learners was randomly divided into experimental and control group. The control group received only corrective feedback on form and organizational structure, whereas the experimental group also received additional comments from the teacher about the ideas involved in the writing, her personal idea about the topic and in some cases request for further elaboration. The study was successful to indicate the positive effect of interactional feedback both on the performance and motivation of the learners with a better teacher-learner rapport witnessed. © Authors. Published © 2014 2014 The Abdollahifam. PublishedbybyElsevier ElsevierLtd. Ltd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran. Keywords: interactional feedback; teacher-learner rapport; EFL writing; corrective feedback; interactional competence
1. Introduction Whenever students hand in their pieces of writings, they are expecting a reaction from the teacher. Reacting to students' writings has been a controversial issue for many years. These reactions have mainly been of an evaluative and didactic nature and that is why the most famous type of feedback is corrective feedback which, as put by Lightbown and Spada, “an indication to the learner that his or her use of the target language is incorrect” (1999, p.172). Thus, CF is interested in correcting the errors in student produced texts which are considered as written texts
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +989367291368; E-mail address: [email protected].
1877-0428 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.383
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
in the present study. Many researchers however, have questioned the usefulness of CF in development of accuracy in student's L2 writings (e.g. Kepner, 1991; Truscott, 2007; Sheppard, 1992). Even in some extreme cases scholars like Krashen (1982) not only reject any usefulness of CF, but also regard it as a serious mistake which has affectively harmful outcomes for learners. Other scholars have advocated CF given by the teacher and have considered it as a valuable aid for development in learning (e.g. Lalande, 1982; Fathman & Whalley 1990; Ferris & Roberts 2001; Chandler, 2003; and Robb et al., 1986). CF has also been studied in terms of feedback on form which includes grammatical and collacational points and feedback on content which is concerned with regulations of writing in discourse level and idea development. The result mostly show that in leaving feedback attention must be paid to both content and form (e.g. Sheppard, 1992 ; Krashen,1982). Although didactic aspects of feedback have been investigated in length, a few studies have been also interested in affective layers of feedback and studied L2 students' reactions to teacher feedback and their preferences (e.g. Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Cohen, 1987; Leki, 1991; Lee, 2008). However, this attention has mostly revised just the appearance of corrective feedback and the nature of teacher feedback has been still the same. In other words, the studies like these suggested new strategies to mitigate the harshness of feedback in a way that doesn't hurt learners affectively. Very few studies have assumed the teacher as a real audience rather a mere judge who just scans the writing for errors. 2. Review of literature 2.1. Research evidence against CF Some scholars have questioned the positive effect of written CF on the development of students' L2 accuracy (e.g., Kepner, 1991; Sheppard, 1992; Truscott, 1999, 2007). For instance, Sheppard (1992) compared the effects of CF and holistic comments in the margins and he concluded that those receiving holistic comments outperformed the group that received CF. Other scholars distrust the methodology used in studies advocating CF. For example, Truscott (1999) has criticized that the fact that students can eliminate their errors in subsequent drafts cannot be held as a proof for learning. In other words the effects of feedback should be tested on a new piece of writing or a delayed post-test. Some of the researches supporting CF which are present in literature even lack a control group. In a recent survey Truscott (2007) claims that: “the best estimate is that correction has a small harmful effect on students’ ability to write accurately” (p. 270). 2.2. Research evidence for written CF Although previous written CF research was rather unsuccessful in proving the usefulness of the CF due to problems in methodology, more recently a few studies have eliminated the present problems in conducted studies with control groups and which were examining the influence of CF in new pieces of writing (e.g., Bitchener et al., 2005; Ellis et al., 2008; Sheen, 2007). 2.3. Research on learner response to teacher feedback More recent studies have put learner on the spotlight in feedback process and concluded that teacher feedback is not only useful but also desirable for learners (e.g., Bitchener et al., 2005; Ellis et al., 2008; Sheen, 2007) since it is the best way to foster a one-to-one communication between the teacher and each student. The other advantage of feedback for learners is being in contact with a real audience and getting an awareness of reader's expectations. (Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1994). Survey studies of L2 students’ reactions to teachers’ feedback (e.g., Cohen, 1987; Radecki and Swales, 1988; Cohen and Cavalcanti, 1990; Leki, 1991; Enginarlar, 1993; Saito, 1994; Ferris, 1995; Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1994, 1996) reported that L2 students value the feedback they receive on their errors in writing. Grami (2005) studied the reactions of English major Saudi students to teacher feedback and found that students really liked their
17
18
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
teachers' feedback and were expecting it. A similar study done by Lee (2008) re-established findings of Grami's study. Hyland & Hyland (2006) suggested that students are more likely to find teacher feedback useful when it engages student writer and when it is contextualized. 3. Method 3.1. Participants The 20 students evolved in this study were undertaking an intermediate EFL course in Fardaye No language school in Maragheh. The course book practiced in the course was American English File 3. The standard ….. test was given in advance to prove the homogeneity of the learners in English proficiency, then they were placed into experimental and control groups with ten learners in each group. The researcher divided the learners so that there were five female and five male individuals in each group and neither group was skewed regarding the age phenomenon. Students' ages ranged from 16 to 26. The participants all shared the same linguistic background, Turkish native speakers with Farsi as their second language. Both classes were taught by the same teacherresearcher. 3.2. Procedure In both groups students were asked to write four compositions throughout the semester. Each composition was assigned every four sessions where one unit was completely covered and practiced. Topics were also designed to elicit the grammatical structure covered in the unit. All of the writings were considered as homework assignment and were not written in the classroom. After collecting the compositions, on the following session those in control group received their papers back with feedback on grammatical points, and also on content including organizational correctness and idea development. Those in experimental group received additional interactional feedback including comments from the teacher about the ideas involved in the composition, her personal idea about the topic and ideas present in the learners' compositions and in some cases she asked for further elaboration. The teacher-researcher regulated her comments in a way to show her interest in the participants' ideas. In order to draw the students' attention to teacher's comments, different colour pens were implemented in experimental group. The compositions of both groups were given a score out of 40 based on the accuracy of using targeted structures, i.e. conditionals and articles, and fluency of idea development. 3.3Data collection At the end of the course, students were asked to write a free composition about one of the topics discussed in their course books as a part of their final exam and 40 marks was appropriated for writing section. Topics were regulated in a way to elicit conditional structures. The number of the words in each student's composition was also counted. Finally, the students were interviewed individually and they were asked to provide their general ideas and attitudes towards teacher's feedback and decide how useful it was. 3.4. Scoring and analysis All of the compositions were corrected and commented by the same teacher-researcher in order to ensure the homogeneity of the comments, feedbacks and corrections. Each paper was given a score out of 40 based on the accuracy of using target structures and other grammatical mistakes were neither regarded in scoring nor in commenting and leaving feedback. The final writings were also corrected based on the same rubric by the same teacher. Descriptive statistics were calculated for each set of data to make comparison easier and the data more meaningful. The number of words was counted for each composition. These numbers also went through descriptive statistics and their results helped to discuss fluency and motivation of learners in writing. All the interviews were transcribed and then analysed qualitatively. In order to make some quantitative inferences possible, learner comments on feedback fell into four broad categories: those who liked the feedback and considered it useful, those
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
who didn't like it but admitted its usefulness, those who didn't like it and thought it was not useful and finally those who didn't pay any attention to teacher feedback. 4. Results and discussion 4.1. Effects on accuracy Table 4.1. presents the means and standard deviations of the scores given to each writing for experimental group and control group. The positive effect of feedback can be proved by comparing the means of writings with previous scores. Mean of scores in writing 1 was 32.5 for experimental group which increased to 35.9. This 3.4 increase in the mean of the marks was due to feedback students received during the semester. The scores of control group have also increase by 1.4. Comparing these two amounts, one can figure out that those in experimental group outperformed those who had received only CF. Findings of this study are consistent with Bitchener and Knoch (2009) where CF was proved in developing accuracy. Table 4.1. Means of the scores of each group for each writing Groups
Writing 1
Writing 2
Writing 3
Writing 4
Final writing
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Experimental
32.4
3.8
33.9
4.2
35.4
2.7
35.2
2.5
35.9
2.4
Control
32.5
4
33.2
2.7
33.8
3
33.9
2.6
33.9
2.99
As illustrated in Figure 4.1 the scores increased gradually after each feedback was given. The fact that those in experimental group benefit better than those in control group may be because of the interesting feature of additional interactional feedback which made CF more appealing for learners.
Fig, 4.1, Means of the scores of each group for each writing
19
20
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
4.2. Effects on writing length Table 4.2 presents the means for the length of each writing. This is not an indication of quality of writing but does indicate that teacher treatment of errors does affect quantity of writing which can be considered as influence on fluency. ( Fathman and Walley, 1990). It can also be claimed that the more motivated students write longer writings. Findings show that the length of writings in experimental group has increased from 345 words to 370. Interactional feedback was motivating in nature and learners eagerly wrote longer writings. Not only the writings were longer, the students also inserted some pictures and graphs in their writings which can be attributed to motivation as well. Table 4.2. Means of the number of words in each writing Groups Experimental
Writing 1 345
Control
340
Writing 2
Writing 3
Writing 4
Final writing
360
365
370
370
335
345
345
350
4.3. Students’ affective reactions to teachers’ written feedback Table 4.3 illustrates the learners' attitudes toward teacher feedback. In experimental group 80% of the learners liked teacher feedback and benefit from it. Some of the students stated that they were looking forward to seeing the teacher's comment on their compositions. Some others also considered teacher feedback as a very good ground for communicating with the teacher. In other words when feedback is contextualized and personal students like it and pay more attention to it.(Hyland and Hyland, 2006). One of students stated that she always compared the amount of comments on her writing with her friends and she expressed that she liked to get more comments from the teacher on her ideas. The findings are parallel to those study done by Lee (2008) where students wanted more feedback from the teacher. Only one student in experimental group didn't like the feedback, he explained that he doesn't like other people comment on his personal ideas. There was another student who told the only important part of the feedback was the score. She told that she had just glanced on her score and ignored the other comments. no one denied its usefulness. However, in control group there where three students who didn't pay any attention to feedback. They believed it was boring and they just looked at their mark. The number of those who enjoyed the feedback was considerably fewer than those in experimental group. It can be found that interactional feedback acts as a motivation attracting students pay attention to feedback comments. There were 3 other students who considered it boring and did not like it but admitted its usefulness. Whereas, in the case of experimental group just one person was in this category. Table 4.3, Students' affective reactions to teachers' written feedback Attitude towards teacher feedback
Experimental group
Control group
Didn’t liked but considered useful
1
3
Liked and considered useful
8
3
Didn't pay any attention to teacher feedback
1
3
Neither liked nor considered useful
0
1
5. Conclusion This study mainly attempted to discover the usefulness of the interactional feedback on students' learning, motivation and feelings. It should be mentioned that the study suffered from some limitations such as the low number of participants in the study which decreases the generalizability of the study. The validity of the study could have been increased if type of the CF was decided in terms of directness. However, regardless of the limitation, the
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
study successfully proved the positive effect of interactional feedback on learners' accuracy, motivation and the rapport between teacher and learners.
References Bitchener, J., & Knoch, U. (2009). The relative effectiveness of different types of direct written corrective feedback. System, 37, 322-329. Bitchener, J. Young, S. & Cameron, D. (2005). The effect of different types of corrective feedback on ESL student writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14, 191-205. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2005.08.001, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2005.08.001 Cohen, A. (1987). Student processing of feedback on their compositions. In A. L. Wenden & J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner strategies in language learning (pp. 57–69). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Cohen, A., & Cavalcanti, M. (1990). Feedback on written compositions: Teacher and student verbal reports. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom (pp. 155–77). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chandler, J. (2003). The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in the accuracy and fluency of L2 student writing. Journal of Second Language Writing 12, 267–296. Ellis, R., Sheen, Y., Murakami, M., & Takashima, H. (2008). The effects of focused and unfocused written corrective feedback in an English as a foreign language context. System, 36, 353-371. Enginarlar, H. (1993). Student response to teacher written feedback in EFL writing. System, 21, 193-204. doi:10.1016/0346-251X(93)90041-E, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0346-251X(93)90041-E Fathman, A., Whalley, E. (1990). Teacher response to student writing: focus on form versus content. In: Kroll, B. (Ed.), Second language writing: Research insights for the classroom. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 178–190. Ferris, D.R. (1995). Can advanced ESL students be taught to correct their most serious and frequent errors? CATESOL Journal 8, 41–62. Ferris, D.R., Roberts, B. (2001). Error feedback in L2 writing classes: how explicit does it need to be? Journal of Second Language Writing 10, 161–184. Grami, M. (2005). The effect of teachers’ written feedback on ESL students’ perception: a study in a Saudi ESL university-level context. Annual Review of Education, communication and Language Sciences, 2. Hedgcock, J., & Lefkowitz, N. (1994). Feedback on feedback: Assessing learner receptivity to teacher response in L2 composing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 141–163. Hedgcock, J., & Lefkowitz, N. (1996). Some input on input: Two analyses of student response to expert feedback in L2 writing. The Modern Language Journal, 80, 287-308. doi:10.2307/329437, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/329437 Hyland, K., & Hyland, F. (2006). Feedback in second language writing: Contexts and issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kepner, C. G. (1991). An experiment in the relationship of types of written feedback to the development of second language writing skills. Modern Language Journal 75, 305–313. Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon. Lalande, J.F. (1982). Reducing composition errors: an experiment. Modern Language Journal 66, 140–149. Lee, I. (2008). Student reactions to teacher feedback in two Hong Kong secondary classrooms. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(3), 144164. doi:10.1016/j.jslw.2007.12.001, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2007.12.001 Leki, I. (1991). The preferences of ESL students for error correction in college level writing classes. Foreign Language Annals, 24, 203-218. doi:10.1111/j.1944-9720.1991.tb00464.x, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.1991.tb00464.x Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned (3rd Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radecki, P., & Swales, J. (1988). ESL student reaction to written comments on their written work. System, 16, 355–365 Robb, T., Ross, S., & Shortreed, I. (1986). Salience of feedback on error and its effect on EFL writing quality. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 83–91. Saito, H. (1994). Teachers’ practices and students’ preferences for feedback on second language writing: a case study of adult ESL learners. TESL Canada Journal, 11, 46-70. Sheppard, K., (1992). Two feedback types: do they make a difference? RELC Journal 23, 103–110. Sheen, Y. (2007). The effect of focused written corrective feedback and language aptitude on ESL learners’ acquisition of articles. TESOL Quarterly 41, 255–283. Truscott, J. (1999). The case for ‘‘the case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes”: a response to Ferris. Journal of Second Language Writing 8, 111–122. Truscott, J. (2007). The effect of error correction on learners’ ability to write accurately. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16, 255-272.
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ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
International Conference on Current Trends in ELT
Investigating the Effects of Interactional Feedback on EFL Students' Writings Samaneh Abdollahifama,*
Azarbaijan University of Sahid Madani, Tabriz – Maragheh Road, Tabriz , Iran
Abstract Providing feedback and its appropriate types on learners' L2 writing have been a controversial matter for over 20 years where much research has been carried out about various modes of corrective feedback on form. Although recent innovations encouraged teachers to offer feedback on cohesion and organizational structures of the content, very few studies have regarded feedback as an interactional enterprise in EFL classes. Interactional competence seems to be ignored in writing process as if the learners do not indeed have any intended interlocutors in mind. This study hence seeks to discover the possible effects of teachers' interactional feedback on the learners' performance and motivation. A group of 20 intermediate learners was randomly divided into experimental and control group. The control group received only corrective feedback on form and organizational structure, whereas the experimental group also received additional comments from the teacher about the ideas involved in the writing, her personal idea about the topic and in some cases request for further elaboration. The study was successful to indicate the positive effect of interactional feedback both on the performance and motivation of the learners with a better teacher-learner rapport witnessed. © Authors. Published © 2014 2014 The Abdollahifam. PublishedbybyElsevier ElsevierLtd. Ltd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran. Keywords: interactional feedback; teacher-learner rapport; EFL writing; corrective feedback; interactional competence
1. Introduction Whenever students hand in their pieces of writings, they are expecting a reaction from the teacher. Reacting to students' writings has been a controversial issue for many years. These reactions have mainly been of an evaluative and didactic nature and that is why the most famous type of feedback is corrective feedback which, as put by Lightbown and Spada, “an indication to the learner that his or her use of the target language is incorrect” (1999, p.172). Thus, CF is interested in correcting the errors in student produced texts which are considered as written texts
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +989367291368; E-mail address: [email protected].
1877-0428 © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Urmia University, Iran. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.383
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
in the present study. Many researchers however, have questioned the usefulness of CF in development of accuracy in student's L2 writings (e.g. Kepner, 1991; Truscott, 2007; Sheppard, 1992). Even in some extreme cases scholars like Krashen (1982) not only reject any usefulness of CF, but also regard it as a serious mistake which has affectively harmful outcomes for learners. Other scholars have advocated CF given by the teacher and have considered it as a valuable aid for development in learning (e.g. Lalande, 1982; Fathman & Whalley 1990; Ferris & Roberts 2001; Chandler, 2003; and Robb et al., 1986). CF has also been studied in terms of feedback on form which includes grammatical and collacational points and feedback on content which is concerned with regulations of writing in discourse level and idea development. The result mostly show that in leaving feedback attention must be paid to both content and form (e.g. Sheppard, 1992 ; Krashen,1982). Although didactic aspects of feedback have been investigated in length, a few studies have been also interested in affective layers of feedback and studied L2 students' reactions to teacher feedback and their preferences (e.g. Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Cohen, 1987; Leki, 1991; Lee, 2008). However, this attention has mostly revised just the appearance of corrective feedback and the nature of teacher feedback has been still the same. In other words, the studies like these suggested new strategies to mitigate the harshness of feedback in a way that doesn't hurt learners affectively. Very few studies have assumed the teacher as a real audience rather a mere judge who just scans the writing for errors. 2. Review of literature 2.1. Research evidence against CF Some scholars have questioned the positive effect of written CF on the development of students' L2 accuracy (e.g., Kepner, 1991; Sheppard, 1992; Truscott, 1999, 2007). For instance, Sheppard (1992) compared the effects of CF and holistic comments in the margins and he concluded that those receiving holistic comments outperformed the group that received CF. Other scholars distrust the methodology used in studies advocating CF. For example, Truscott (1999) has criticized that the fact that students can eliminate their errors in subsequent drafts cannot be held as a proof for learning. In other words the effects of feedback should be tested on a new piece of writing or a delayed post-test. Some of the researches supporting CF which are present in literature even lack a control group. In a recent survey Truscott (2007) claims that: “the best estimate is that correction has a small harmful effect on students’ ability to write accurately” (p. 270). 2.2. Research evidence for written CF Although previous written CF research was rather unsuccessful in proving the usefulness of the CF due to problems in methodology, more recently a few studies have eliminated the present problems in conducted studies with control groups and which were examining the influence of CF in new pieces of writing (e.g., Bitchener et al., 2005; Ellis et al., 2008; Sheen, 2007). 2.3. Research on learner response to teacher feedback More recent studies have put learner on the spotlight in feedback process and concluded that teacher feedback is not only useful but also desirable for learners (e.g., Bitchener et al., 2005; Ellis et al., 2008; Sheen, 2007) since it is the best way to foster a one-to-one communication between the teacher and each student. The other advantage of feedback for learners is being in contact with a real audience and getting an awareness of reader's expectations. (Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1994). Survey studies of L2 students’ reactions to teachers’ feedback (e.g., Cohen, 1987; Radecki and Swales, 1988; Cohen and Cavalcanti, 1990; Leki, 1991; Enginarlar, 1993; Saito, 1994; Ferris, 1995; Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1994, 1996) reported that L2 students value the feedback they receive on their errors in writing. Grami (2005) studied the reactions of English major Saudi students to teacher feedback and found that students really liked their
17
18
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
teachers' feedback and were expecting it. A similar study done by Lee (2008) re-established findings of Grami's study. Hyland & Hyland (2006) suggested that students are more likely to find teacher feedback useful when it engages student writer and when it is contextualized. 3. Method 3.1. Participants The 20 students evolved in this study were undertaking an intermediate EFL course in Fardaye No language school in Maragheh. The course book practiced in the course was American English File 3. The standard ….. test was given in advance to prove the homogeneity of the learners in English proficiency, then they were placed into experimental and control groups with ten learners in each group. The researcher divided the learners so that there were five female and five male individuals in each group and neither group was skewed regarding the age phenomenon. Students' ages ranged from 16 to 26. The participants all shared the same linguistic background, Turkish native speakers with Farsi as their second language. Both classes were taught by the same teacherresearcher. 3.2. Procedure In both groups students were asked to write four compositions throughout the semester. Each composition was assigned every four sessions where one unit was completely covered and practiced. Topics were also designed to elicit the grammatical structure covered in the unit. All of the writings were considered as homework assignment and were not written in the classroom. After collecting the compositions, on the following session those in control group received their papers back with feedback on grammatical points, and also on content including organizational correctness and idea development. Those in experimental group received additional interactional feedback including comments from the teacher about the ideas involved in the composition, her personal idea about the topic and ideas present in the learners' compositions and in some cases she asked for further elaboration. The teacher-researcher regulated her comments in a way to show her interest in the participants' ideas. In order to draw the students' attention to teacher's comments, different colour pens were implemented in experimental group. The compositions of both groups were given a score out of 40 based on the accuracy of using targeted structures, i.e. conditionals and articles, and fluency of idea development. 3.3Data collection At the end of the course, students were asked to write a free composition about one of the topics discussed in their course books as a part of their final exam and 40 marks was appropriated for writing section. Topics were regulated in a way to elicit conditional structures. The number of the words in each student's composition was also counted. Finally, the students were interviewed individually and they were asked to provide their general ideas and attitudes towards teacher's feedback and decide how useful it was. 3.4. Scoring and analysis All of the compositions were corrected and commented by the same teacher-researcher in order to ensure the homogeneity of the comments, feedbacks and corrections. Each paper was given a score out of 40 based on the accuracy of using target structures and other grammatical mistakes were neither regarded in scoring nor in commenting and leaving feedback. The final writings were also corrected based on the same rubric by the same teacher. Descriptive statistics were calculated for each set of data to make comparison easier and the data more meaningful. The number of words was counted for each composition. These numbers also went through descriptive statistics and their results helped to discuss fluency and motivation of learners in writing. All the interviews were transcribed and then analysed qualitatively. In order to make some quantitative inferences possible, learner comments on feedback fell into four broad categories: those who liked the feedback and considered it useful, those
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
who didn't like it but admitted its usefulness, those who didn't like it and thought it was not useful and finally those who didn't pay any attention to teacher feedback. 4. Results and discussion 4.1. Effects on accuracy Table 4.1. presents the means and standard deviations of the scores given to each writing for experimental group and control group. The positive effect of feedback can be proved by comparing the means of writings with previous scores. Mean of scores in writing 1 was 32.5 for experimental group which increased to 35.9. This 3.4 increase in the mean of the marks was due to feedback students received during the semester. The scores of control group have also increase by 1.4. Comparing these two amounts, one can figure out that those in experimental group outperformed those who had received only CF. Findings of this study are consistent with Bitchener and Knoch (2009) where CF was proved in developing accuracy. Table 4.1. Means of the scores of each group for each writing Groups
Writing 1
Writing 2
Writing 3
Writing 4
Final writing
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Experimental
32.4
3.8
33.9
4.2
35.4
2.7
35.2
2.5
35.9
2.4
Control
32.5
4
33.2
2.7
33.8
3
33.9
2.6
33.9
2.99
As illustrated in Figure 4.1 the scores increased gradually after each feedback was given. The fact that those in experimental group benefit better than those in control group may be because of the interesting feature of additional interactional feedback which made CF more appealing for learners.
Fig, 4.1, Means of the scores of each group for each writing
19
20
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
4.2. Effects on writing length Table 4.2 presents the means for the length of each writing. This is not an indication of quality of writing but does indicate that teacher treatment of errors does affect quantity of writing which can be considered as influence on fluency. ( Fathman and Walley, 1990). It can also be claimed that the more motivated students write longer writings. Findings show that the length of writings in experimental group has increased from 345 words to 370. Interactional feedback was motivating in nature and learners eagerly wrote longer writings. Not only the writings were longer, the students also inserted some pictures and graphs in their writings which can be attributed to motivation as well. Table 4.2. Means of the number of words in each writing Groups Experimental
Writing 1 345
Control
340
Writing 2
Writing 3
Writing 4
Final writing
360
365
370
370
335
345
345
350
4.3. Students’ affective reactions to teachers’ written feedback Table 4.3 illustrates the learners' attitudes toward teacher feedback. In experimental group 80% of the learners liked teacher feedback and benefit from it. Some of the students stated that they were looking forward to seeing the teacher's comment on their compositions. Some others also considered teacher feedback as a very good ground for communicating with the teacher. In other words when feedback is contextualized and personal students like it and pay more attention to it.(Hyland and Hyland, 2006). One of students stated that she always compared the amount of comments on her writing with her friends and she expressed that she liked to get more comments from the teacher on her ideas. The findings are parallel to those study done by Lee (2008) where students wanted more feedback from the teacher. Only one student in experimental group didn't like the feedback, he explained that he doesn't like other people comment on his personal ideas. There was another student who told the only important part of the feedback was the score. She told that she had just glanced on her score and ignored the other comments. no one denied its usefulness. However, in control group there where three students who didn't pay any attention to feedback. They believed it was boring and they just looked at their mark. The number of those who enjoyed the feedback was considerably fewer than those in experimental group. It can be found that interactional feedback acts as a motivation attracting students pay attention to feedback comments. There were 3 other students who considered it boring and did not like it but admitted its usefulness. Whereas, in the case of experimental group just one person was in this category. Table 4.3, Students' affective reactions to teachers' written feedback Attitude towards teacher feedback
Experimental group
Control group
Didn’t liked but considered useful
1
3
Liked and considered useful
8
3
Didn't pay any attention to teacher feedback
1
3
Neither liked nor considered useful
0
1
5. Conclusion This study mainly attempted to discover the usefulness of the interactional feedback on students' learning, motivation and feelings. It should be mentioned that the study suffered from some limitations such as the low number of participants in the study which decreases the generalizability of the study. The validity of the study could have been increased if type of the CF was decided in terms of directness. However, regardless of the limitation, the
Samaneh Abdollahifam / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 98 (2014) 16 – 21
study successfully proved the positive effect of interactional feedback on learners' accuracy, motivation and the rapport between teacher and learners.
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