CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 183EFL/ESL Teaching and LearningStudent Assessment and FeedbackSecond Language Acquisition and Learning

Teachers' Practices and Students' Preferences for Feedback on Second Language Writing: A Case Study of Adult ESL Learners

Open access
Saito, Hiroko·1994·TESL Canada Journal
DOI 10.18806/tesl.v11i2.633
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

The first part of this study investigated the fit between teachers' practices and students' preferences for feedback and the students' strategies for handling feedback on their written work. The second part of this study focused on students' perception of "thinking prompts" for their writing, an innovative approach used in their ESL writing classes, following Bereiter and Scardamalia's idea of "procedural facilitation" (1987). Thirty-nine students in ESL intensive courses and an ESL Engineering writing class were asked to fill out a questionnaire concerning feedback and thinking prompts. In addition, three classes were observed to see how each teacher used feedback and thinking prompts in their classes and for responding to students' writings. The results show that students preferred teacher feedback (teacher correction, teacher correction with comments, error identification, commentary, teacher-students conferencing) to non-teacher feedback (peer correction and self correction), though the three teachers used non-teacher feedback frequently in their classes. These students' strategies for handling feedback varied depending on the type of feedback each teacher gave on the student's paper. Among the thinking prompts, students found the rule prompt most useful and the LUL2 comparison prompt least useful. The results suggest that the extent to which the thinking prompts are integrated in the class and students conceptualize them is reflected in their attitudes toward thinking prompts.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.18806/tesl.v11i2.633

Cites

1 of 1 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Written feedback motivates learners to revise their drafts and enhances their writing.

    “They found that written feedback motivates learners to revise their drafts (Saito, 1994;Zhang, 1995), and enhances their writing (Ferris, 1997(Ferris, , 2010)).”

    From A comparative study of the effect of teacher’s group and individual feedback on Iranian EFL learners’ learning of speech acts in apology letter writing (2020) · cites this paper as Saito, 1994

    The Discussion (page unavailable) says feedback that gives students clues can prompt them to correct errors and revise their papers. It also says students may merely read fully corrected work, and some did not rewrite even when assigned to do so; the claim therefore overstates the effect of written feedback generally. The separate claim about enhancing writing is cited to Ferris, not Saito. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Saito (1994) argues that teachers should pay heed to their students' beliefs about instructional methods and try to resolve differences in opinion appropriately if there are any.

    “Saito (1994) argues that teachers should pay heed to their students' beliefs about instructional methods and try to resolve differences in opinion appropriately if there are any.”

    From Error Correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What Do Students Think? (2005) · cites this paper as Saito (1994)

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

  • Responding to Student Writing

    Zamel, V. (1985) · TESOL Quarterly · doi:10.2307/3586773 · Cited by 763 · cited 3× · see citing works

    “…popular tools in writing instruction in L1 settings (Jacobs & Karliner, 1977; Murray, 1979, 1985; Carnicelli, 1980; Rose, 1982; Simmons, 1984; Zamel, 1985; Sokmen, 1988; Wong, 1988; Sperling, 1990), and recently, this approach has started to become popular in L2 situations as well (Goldstein…”
    BackgroundInfluential

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 30

  1. Bell, J. H. (1991). Using peer response in ESL writing classes. TESL Canada Jouma~8(2), 65-71.
  2. Cardelle, M. & Como, L. (1981). Effects on second language learning of variations in written feedback on homework assignments, TESOL Quarterly, 15(3),251-261.
  3. Carnicelli, T. A (1980). The writing conference: A one to one conversation. In T. R. Donovan & B. W. McClelland (Eds.), Eight approaches to teaching composition (pp.l01-131). Urbana, IL: NCTE.
  4. Cathcart, R. L. & Olsen, J. E. W. B. (1976). Teachers' and students' preferences for correction of classroom conversation errors. In J. Fanselow & R. H. Crymes (Eds.), On TESOL 76.
  5. Celce-Murcia, M. (1985). Making informed decisions about the role of grammar in language teaching. TESOL Newsletter, 19(1), 1-2 & 5.
  6. Cohen, A D. & Cavalcanti, M. C. (1990). Feedback on compositions: Teacher and student verbal reports. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second Language Writing (pp. 155-177). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  7. Cumming, A (1985). Responding to the writing of ESL students. In M. Maguire & A Pare (Eds.), Patterns of development (pp. 58-75). Ottawa: Canadian Council of Teachers of English.
  8. Cumming, A (Forthcoming). Fostering writing expertise in ESL composition instruction: Modelling and evaluation. To appear in D. Belcher and G. Braine (Eds.), Academic writing in a second language: Essays on research and pedagogy.
  9. Fathman, A K. & Whalley, E. (1990). Teacher response to student writing: focus on form versus content. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second Language Writing (pp. 178-190). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  10. George, D. (1984). Working with peer groups in the composition classroom. College Composition and Communication, 35(3), 320-326.
  11. Goldstein, L. M. & Conrad, S. M. (1990). Student input and negotiation of meaning in ESL writing conferences. TESOL Quarterly, 24(3), 443-460.
  12. Herrington, A J. & Cadman, D. (1991). Peer review and revising in an anthropology course: Lessons for learning. College Composition and Communication, 42(2), 184-210.
  13. Hillocks, G., Jr. (1986). Research on written composition: New directions for teaching. Urbana, Illinois: ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills and the National Conference on Research in English.
  14. Jacobs, G. (1987). First experiences with peer feedback on compositions: Student and teacher reaction. System, 15(3),325-33.
  15. Lalande, J. F. II. (1982). Reducing composition errors: An experiment. Modem Language Journal, 66(2), 140-149.
  16. McKendy, T. F. (1990). Legitimizing peer response: A recycling project for placement essays. College Composition and Communication, 41(1),89-91.
  17. Murray, D. M. (1979). The listening eye: Reflections on the writing conference. College English, 41, 13-18.
  18. Murray, D. M. (1985). A writer teaches writing (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  19. Radecki, P. M. & Swales, J. M. (1988). ESL student reaction to written comments on their written work. System, 16(3), 355-365.
  20. Robb, T., Ross, S. & Shortreed, I. (1986). Salience of feedback on error and its effect on EFL writing quality. TESOL Qumterly, 20(1),83-95.
  21. Rose, A (1982). Spoken versus written criticism of student writing: Some advantages of the conference method. College Composition and Communication, 33, 326-330.
  22. Rothschild, D. & Klingenberg, F. (1990). Self and peer evaluation of writing in the interactive ESL classroom. TESL Canada Journal, 8(1), 52-65.
  23. Semke, H. (1984). Effects of the red pen. Foreign Language AnnlUJls, 17(3),195-202.
  24. Simmons, J. A M. (1984). The one-to-one method of teaching composition. College Composition and Communication, 35(2), 222-230.
  25. Sokmen, A A (1988). Taking advantage of conference-rentered writing. TESOL Newsletter, 22(1), 1-5.
  26. Sperling, M. (1990). I want to talk to each of you: Collaboration and the teacher- student writing conference. Research in the Teaching ofEnglish, 24(3), 279-321.
  27. Takashima, H. (1987). To what extent are non-native speakers qualified to correct free composition; A case study. British Joumol of Language Teaching, 25(1), 43-48.
  28. Wingfield, R. J. (1975). Five ways of dealing with errors in written composition. English Language Teaching Jouma~29(4), 311-313.
  29. Witbeck, M. C. (1976). Peer correction procedures for intermediate and advanced ESL composition lessons. TESOL Qumterly, 10(3),321-326.
  30. Wong, I. B. (1988). Teacher student talk in technical writing conferences. Written Communication, 5(4), 444-460.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Saito, H.
Corresponding author
Saito, Hiroko
Venue
TESL Canada Journal
Publisher
TESL Canada Federation
Published
1994-06-26
Volume
11
Issue
2
Pages
46
ISSN
  • 0826-435X (ISSN-L)
  • 1925-8917
DOI
10.18806/tesl.v11i2.633
OpenAlex
W1589344233
Cited by
183
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 10
FWCI
11.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
TESL Canada Journal (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
  • Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
Keywords
second language writing, teacher feedback, peer correction, self-correction, error identification, adult ESL learners, engineering writing

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review