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!"#$%#&'()*+#,-./0123456 7889 Feedback on Free Composition -An Analysis in terms of Learners’ Perception- Nobuko OSATO Students constantly learn through interaction with others. In this study I focused on teacher feedback on students’ free composition and investigated how learners respond to the teacher feedback. The results are as follows: 1. The order of the preference is Direct error correction > Commentary on the language itself > Commentary on the content of the essay > Error indication > Stamping 2. The order of the perception of usefulness is Direct error correction > Error indication > Commentary on the language itself > Commentary on the content of the essay > Stamping Learners welcome teacher commentary on the content of their writing but at the same time they are not satisfied with this kind of feedback alone. Teachers do not have to hesitate to give error feedback because learners themselves think they need it. Further investigation concerning peer feedback is needed to find out what good mutual learning could be possible in every day English classrooms. Key words: teacher feedback, peer feedback, preference, the perception of usefulness 1 Introduction Not only EFL teachers but also teachers of every subject surely believe that students learn a lot of things through interaction with others. Mutual learning can be possible in every aspect of learning in classrooms. In this study, I put my focus on feedback on their free composition. At first I intended to investigate peer feedback on their free composition. However, it was revealed that learners usually valued teacher feedback a lot more. Thus, before conducting research investigating the usefulness of peer feedback on developing learners’ English proficiency, especially writing skill, here in this study, I endeavored to find out how learners perceive the feedback on their free composition from their own teacher because teachers are the nearest others from whom every student can learn a lot. Many of the EFL teachers think that the main purpose of the teacher feedback on students’ writing is to increase the students’ writing skill. Not a few studies concerning teacher feedback on students’ writing have already been done. Many of those are about the difference of the performance of the students’ writing after teacher feedback; that is they are the studies to see whether the students wrote more fluently or accurately after teacher feedback. Those studies have tried to investigate the effectiveness of teacher feedback. The researchers’ main interest has been how learners’ writing skills have : ;9< :

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Page 1: -An Analysis in terms of Learners’ Perception-

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Feedback on Free Composition-An Analysis in terms of Learners’ Perception-

Nobuko OSATO

Students constantly learn through interaction with others. In this study I focused on teacher feedback on students’ free composition and investigated how learners respond to the teacher feedback. The results are as follows: 1. The order of the preference is Direct error correction > Commentary on the language itself > Commentary on the

content of the essay > Error indication > Stamping 2. The order of the perception of usefulness is Direct error correction > Error indication > Commentary on the language itself >

Commentary on the content of the essay > Stamping Learners welcome teacher commentary on the content of their writing but at the same time they are not satisfied with this kind of feedback alone. Teachers do not have to hesitate to give error feedback because learners themselves think they need it. Further investigation concerning peer feedback is needed to find out what good mutual learning could be possible in every day English classrooms.

Key words: teacher feedback, peer feedback, preference, the perception of usefulness

1 Introduction Not only EFL teachers but also teachers of every subject surely believe that

students learn a lot of things through interaction with others. Mutual learning can be possible in every aspect of learning in classrooms. In this study, I put my focus on feedback on their free composition.

At first I intended to investigate peer feedback on their free composition. However, it was revealed that learners usually valued teacher feedback a lot more. Thus, before conducting research investigating the usefulness of peer feedback on developing learners’ English proficiency, especially writing skill, here in this study, I endeavored to find out how learners perceive the feedback on their free composition from their own teacher because teachers are the nearest others from whom every student can learn a lot.

Many of the EFL teachers think that the main purpose of the teacher feedback on students’ writing is to increase the students’ writing skill. Not a few studies concerning teacher feedback on students’ writing have already been done. Many of those are about the difference of the performance of the students’ writing after teacher feedback; that is they are the studies to see whether the students wrote more fluently or accurately after teacher feedback. Those studies have tried to investigate the effectiveness of teacher feedback. The researchers’ main interest has been how learners’ writing skills have

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improved, to what extent their writing ability has developed after a certain type of feedback. In other words, these studies have investigated learners’ linguistic aspects. In those investigations the term ‘feedback’ was used in various ways, but in some research the term ‘feedback’ has almost the same meaning as ‘error correction.’ Those researchers’ main interest was mainly on whether teachers should correct errors or not. In other research, the term ‘feedback’ was used in another meaning. It contained not only ‘error correction’ but also comments by the teachers. In either case, however, only a few researches have been done to ascertain students’ beliefs and attitudes regarding teacher feedback.

There have not been many studies about the feedback from the students’ point of views, that is, studies about how students feel about the feedback from their teachers on their writing. However, it is very important for EFL teachers to understand their students’ perception about their feedback because it is not the teachers but the students who learn the language. In this study, I endeavored to find out how Japanese junior high school students thought about the feedback which they received from the following two points of view:

1. What kind of feedback do Japanese junior high school students like? 2. What kind of feedback do Japanese junior high school students think useful for

their further learning, especially writing? It is true that the students have chances to receive various feedback from their peers. However, it is their teachers who have strong influences on the students. Many students believe they need the feedback from their own teachers because they are professional (Leki, 1991, Ferris, 2004), and I think teacher feedback is one of the good ways to help the students to become independent learners and so it is worth investigating preceding peer feedback.

2 Background: Teachers’ Attitude toward Feedback on Writing It is commonly said that teachers change their feedback style according to the

students. Judging from their teaching experience and common sense, teachers give different types of feedback to their students consciously or unconsciously according to the academic levels and characters of their students. For example, teachers point out very tiny mistakes of the compositions written by high-level learners and encourage them to write more sophisticated English, sometimes referring not only to their mistakes but also to their writing style. On the contrary, the same teacher gives totally different feedback to low-level learners. In that case, teachers usually do not point out or correct all the mistakes of such learners. They only point out or correct some global errors or those which are easy to point out for teachers and easy to understand and correct for learners. Teachers tend to praise low-level learners for some good parts of their writing. Teachers emphasize the good points because they always try to figure out a good way to encourage the low-level learners. Thus, it can be said that many Japanese teachers of English respond somewhat differently to students of varying ability.

However, does each student really appreciate such feedback? In fact, what type of feedback does each student really want and need to receive from their teachers? (The

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first question) In respect of the teachers, what factors make them decide their feedback style

which they think is the most appropriate for each student? As I mentioned earlier, is the students’ English proficiency the main factor? Is the teachers’ attitude toward the feedback on writing influenced by their consideration for the low-level learners? Teachers always care about the students’ affective side of learning. Not only in studying a foreign language, but in every aspect of learning, it is natural that teachers are concerned about students’ affective factors. It has not been revealed how much praise by the teachers makes a good impression on the students. I am quite interested in how learners feel about positive comments by their teachers and what types of positive comments give learners a good impression.

Teachers always try to seek out ways of encouraging students to learn willingly and effectively. This might be the main factor for teachers when they decide the feedback style for each student. If so, does such feedback really suit that which students really want and need? (The second question)

Besides, when there is a gap between the teachers’ and students’ perception offeedback, which feedback is better for the students and for the teachers? Is it always right that teachers should give the feedback which they believe is worthwhile and necessary for the students because teachers are professionals? Can we take it as a matter of fact that it leads to the improvement of the students’ English writing proficiency? Is it right that teachers ignore the students’ preference of the feedback on their own writing because it merely gives the students emotional satisfaction and that has no relation to their English development? Should teachers give students the feedback which teachers believe useful and important for their students even though the students feel uncomfortable? (The third question)

These three questions have not been clearly answered so far. To find answers to each question, it is indispensable to know the students’ reaction toward the feedback which they receive from their teachers. When there is a gap in the perception of feedback between teachers and students, it is meaningful for teachers to realize the gap because it can be a good opportunity for them to explain to their students why they give such feedback. Furthermore, they can give their students the feedback which they have hesitated to give.

In order to answer the previous three questions, the first step was to find out what kind of feedback students really preferred, wanted and thought necessary for their English improvement. For this reason, in this study, I investigated how each learner felt about the teacher feedback on his/her own writing. That will lead us to better feedback for both students and teachers and we will have chances to have some clues to a better peer feedback. (The investigation for the first question)

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3 Research Design of the Present Study 3.1 The Purpose of This Study

The main purpose of the present study was to do a fact-finding survey upon what Japanese junior high school students thought about the teacher feedback which was given on their own free compositions.

In association with the main purpose, I had the following four research questions:

RQ1. What type of feedback do Japanese junior high school students want from their teachers?

RQ2. What type of feedback do they think is useful for further learning, especially to improve their writing skill?

RQ3. Are there any differences between their preference and their perception of usefulness of the feedback? RQ4. Are the answers to the above three questions different according to the

students’ English proficiency level? However, in this paper, from the practical reason, I discuss only RQ 1, RQ2

andRQ3.

3.2 Material 3.2.1 Free Composition

I decided the topics of the free compositions in this study. Before conducting the main research, the students wrote five free compositions in class. The topics were those which were closely connected to their real lives. The topic of the composition used in the present study is “My Hobby / What I Like To Do.”

3.2.2 Five Types of Feedback The following five types of feedback were used.

Type A: Direct error correction I corrected the students’ grammatical and/or spelling errors.

Type B: Error indication I did not correct the students’ grammatical and/or spelling errors directly.

Instead, I underlined or put a “V” on the spot (Word missing). Feedback Type A and Type B were done exactly on the same spot to avoid other variables. For example, with an incorrect sentence such as

She like tennis. I gave two separate types of feedback as follows:

She likes tennis. Type A: Direct error correction She like tennis. Type B: Error indication

Type C: Commentary on the content of the essay I did not refer to the students’ errors at all but made comments on the content of the essay. In general I tried to empathize with the students in order to encourage and motivate them. Basically I wrote my comments in English but when I tried to express something a little complicated, I switched to

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Japanese. Type D: Commentary on the language itself

I did not make comments on the content of the students’ essay at all. I referred to the quantity and/or quality of the participants’ English. I tried to find good points and give positive comments. In this case, not only English but also Japanese was used when needed as in Type C.

Type E: StampingThe stamp below, which means ‘I have read it.’, was used.

3.2.3 Dependent Variables The participants were requested to do two different tasks by being shown five

photocopies of their own English essays which had five different types of teacher feedback. (Appendix1) One was to decide which type of feedback they liked the best and the other was to decide which type they thought was the most useful by giving points from one (the lowest) to five (the highest). In other words, I investigated both learners’ affective and cognitive sides toward teacher feedback. Because of their age, they might judge the same feedback differently such as “I don’t like this feedback but I think it is useful.” Knowing the different reactions of the students toward feedback will surely be meaningful to the teachers.

3.3 Participants The participants were 145 students of this school. Seventy-two were male and

seventy-three were female. They were divided according to their scores on a proficiency test conducted in May, with 53 in a high, 45 in a middle and 47 in a low group. However, here I put my focus on the participants as a whole.

3.4 Method On July 12th students wrote essays, the topic of which was “My Hobby / Things

I Like To Do” in about 30 minutes during class and it was used for the experiment. I made five photocopies of each essay and gave one type of feedback on each

photocopy (Appendix 1). In total one essay received five different types of feedback. This was finished in two days.

On July 14th and 15th, all the students received five photocopies of their own essays with the different types of feedback during the class. They read their own essay once again and also read five types of feedback.

Then they answered the following questions:

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1. Which feedback do they like best? 2. Which feedback do they think is useful? The participants graded each type of feedback from ‘one’ to ‘five’ according to their judgment. They also wrote the reason why they gave those scores and some other comments concerning their judgment.

3.5 Data Analysis 3.5.1 Quantitative Analysis

3.5.1.1 Quantitative Analysis of the Preference The participants gave one (the lowest) to five (the highest) points for each type

of feedback according to their judgment. A one-way ANOVA was used to see whether there were significant main effects in the mean scores among the feedback types A, B, C, D and E. When significant differences were found, post hoc Bonferroni analysis was conducted for multiple comparison to determine where the differences were.

3.5.1.2 Quantitative Analysis of the Perception of Usefulness Like the analysis of the preference, they gave one (the lowest) to five (the

highest) points for each type of feedback according to their judgment, but this time from the viewpoint of their perception of ‘usefulness.’ A one-way ANOVA was used to see whether there were significant main effects in the mean scores among the feedback types A, B, C, D and E. When significant differences were found, post hoc Bonferroni analysis was conducted for multiple comparison to determine where the differences were.

3.5.2 Qualitative Analysis I carefully read all of the comments written by the participants to find out what

seemed important, interesting and influential to the students’ writing performance, attitude and motivation. I found some insightful comments and some clues in order to understand the participants’ reaction and response to teacher feedback in more detail.

4 Results and Discussion 4.1 Results of Quantitative Analysis

In this section, the results of the quantitative analysis are presented to address the following two aspects: 1. Overall results of preference of feedback 2. Overall results of the perception of usefulness of feedback The order of the preference is A>D>C>B>E regardless of their English proficiency. The order of the perception of usefulness is A>B>D>C>E regardless of their English proficiency.

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4.1.1 Overall Results of Preference Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics for learners’ preference of the five

feedback types. (See Figure 1 for a graphical representation of the mean scores on each feedback type.)

Figure 1. Mean Scores of the Preference of Five Feedback Types – All participants

As Table 1 shows, Type A “Direct error correction” was preferred most by the students, followed by Type D “Commentary on the language itself,” Type C “Commentary on the content of the essay,” Type B “Error indication,” and then Type E “Stamping.”

A>D>C>B>E

A one-way ANOVA was used to see whether there were any statistically significant main effects among the average points of the five feedback types. Table 2 shows the results of the analysis.

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Learners’ Preference

FB type A B C D E

Mean 4.17 3.21 3.53 3.86 3.42

SD .938 1.11 1.08 1.12 .663

N = 145, Score = 1-5, with 5 high

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Table 2. Results of ANOVA (one-way: within-subjects factor) - Preference

Factor SS df MS F

Feedback type 675.117 4 168.186 157.186 p<.01

Subjects 97.159 144 .675

Error 618.483 576 1.074

Total 1390.759 724 169.935

It revealed that there was a statistically significant within-subject main effect in the score (F [4, 576] = 157.186, MSe = 1.074, p<.01). Thus, for multiple comparison, post hoc Bonferroni analysis was conducted in order to locate the difference. It was then found that there were significant main effects in the preference of feedback as follows (p<.05):

A>B, A>C, A>E, B>E, C>E, D>B, D>C, D>E

Type E “non-feedback” was significantly lower than all the other four feedback types. There was no significant difference between “Direct error correction” and “Commentary on the language itself” nor between “Error indication” and “Commentary on the content of the essay.” This is the answer to Research Question 1 “What type of feedback do Japanese junior high school students want from their teachers?”

4.1.2 Overall Results of the Perception of Usefulness Table 3 provides the descriptive statistics for learners’ perception of usefulness

of the five feedback types. (See Figure 2 for a graphical representation of the mean scores on each feedback type.)

Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of Learners’ Perception of Usefulness

FB type A B C D E

Mean 4.44 4.14 2.54 3.01 1.38

SD .832 .887 .935 .950 .718

N = 145, Score = 1-5, with 5 high

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Figure 2. Mean Scores of the Usefulness of Five Feedback Types – All participants

As Table 4 shows, Type A “Direct error correction” was thought to be the most useful by the participants, followed by Type B “Error indication,” Type D “Commentary on the language itself,” Type C “Commentary on the content of the essay,” and then Type E “Stamping.”

A>B>D>C>E

A one-way ANOVA was used to see whether there were any statistically significant main effects among the average points of the five feedback types. Table 4 shows the results of the analysis.

Table 4. Results of ANOVA (one-way: within-subjects factor) - Usefulness

Factor SS df MS F

Feedback type 892.179 4 223.045 278.915 p<.01

Subjects 82.441 144 .573

Error 460.621 576 .800

Total 1435.241 724 224.41

It revealed that there was a statistically significant within-subject main effect in the score (F [4, 576] = 278.915, MSe = 0.800, p<.01). Thus, for multiple comparison, post

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hoc Bonferroni analysis was conducted in order to locate the difference. It was then found that there were significant main effects in the perception of usefulness of feedback as follows (p<.05):

A>C, A>D, A>E, B>C, B>D, B>E, C>E, D>C, D>E

Like preference, Type E “non-feedback” was significantly lower than all the other types. Every feedback type is significantly different from each other except between Type A “Direct error correction” and Type B “Error indication.” This is the answer to the Research Question 2 “What type of feedback do they think is useful for their learning, especially to improve their writing skill?”

Thus, for Research Question 3, I had an answer indicating that learners had a different impression of the preference and the perception of usefulness of the feedback. In both preference and the perception of usefulness, they scored “Direct error correction” highest and “Stamping” lowest. However, in preference, they ranked “Commentary on the language itself” the second highest, followed by “Commentary on the content of the essay,” and then “Error indication.” On the other hand, in the perception of usefulness, they ranked “Error indication” the second highest, followed by “Commentary on the language itself,” then “Commentary on the content of the essay.”

This is the difference of the perception that the participants have on the preference and the usefulness of the teacher feedback.

4.2 Discussion of Quantitative Analysis 4.2.1 Discussion of Quantitative Analysis Concerning Preference

Concerning preference, when we look at the participants as a whole, the most remarkable point is that regardless of their proficiency, almost all the participants ranked Type E “Stamping” the lowest of all. In fact 95 participants, that is, 60% of all participants, gave it one point (the lowest) and 42 participants (26%) gave it two points (the second lowest). It means most of the students do not like it. One of them made the following remarks:

“I don’t know whether my teacher really read the essay or not. That makes me uncomfortable.” (Male, hereafter M)

In Hatori et al. (1990) and Kanatani et al. (1993), the participants of the stamp group, especially junior high students, became able to use more complex structures every time they wrote an essay. Judging from this fact, the participants of those studies did not seem to dislike stamping. Then why did the participants of this study show a strong dislike toward stamping? The reason might come from the characteristics of the participants. They are students of a junior high school attached to a university, that is, most of them are so-called elite students. When we consider this, we can not say that they represent average junior high school students. Most of the participants here are eager to learn English as well as other subjects. Stamping alone can not satisfy those

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motivated learners. They want practical and helpful feedback from their teachers. That might explain why “Stamping” is not liked at all.

With regard to the other four feedback types, it is notable that half of the participants gave five points to Type A “Direct error correction.” Although they liked “Direct error correction” best, there was no statistically significant difference between this and the second-most-preferred feedback, Type D “Commentary on the language itself.” One possible interpretation of this result is that learners want to know how good or how poor their language ability is. Here ‘language ability’ signifies mainly grammar knowledge. Why are the participants so conscious about language correctness? Needless to say, as their teacher, I recognize the importance of grammar and pay much attention to it when teaching, but overall development of the learners’ communicative abilities is my main concern. They have experienced various communicative activities such as chatting, short skits and free compositions. Still they are so nervous about their language correctness. One of the reasons may be due to the present educational environment surrounding them. Even though the participants have been encouraged to improve their overall communicative skills such as speaking and writing and the English classes have been set up as such, the influence of cram schools, to which many of the participants go in order to pass high school entrance examinations, is quite inevitable. There the instructors’ main focus is on grammatical accuracy. They do not give much value to communicative ability. Students have not been encouraged to write longer, more detailed essays or stories without being so nervous about language mistakes. Instead, when they practice writing English there, they are taught to be careful about grammatical mistakes and mechanical mistakes such as spelling. Most of the writing tasks have been translation of Japanese into English. In these situations it is natural that students become not content-conscious but language-conscious when they write English. This can help explain that although Type A “Direct error correction” was ranked higher than Type D “Commentary on the language itself,” the difference was not statistically significant. Both are liked by the participants because both directly referred to the learners’ language usage. The following is one of the typical opinions of the participants who supported “Direct error correction”:

“I can know not only my errors but also how to correct the errors. There are some errors which I can not correct by myself, so I really appreciate this feedback (Type A ). I can write the correct sentences the next time after I get this feedback.” (Female, hereafter F)

The following opinions are typical ones by the participants who gave five points to Type D “Commentary on the language itself”:

“I like Type D because the teacher acknowledged the good points of my writing and it makes me happy.” (F)

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“I like Type D because it can tell me the good points of my language use. It gives me confidence to write English.” (F)

“With Type D the teacher praised my language use a lot and it encourages me.” (M)

We can clearly see that the learners want to have the information about their language correctness from the comments above. However, at the same time those comments tell us that learners like to receive recognition from their teachers, and praise for the good points of their language use heightened their confidence.

On the contrary, Type B was not as highly ranked as Type A or Type D, although it also concerned the language itself. The reason might be that it gave the participants a mechanical and cold impression because there were not any words but only underlines and marks such as a “?” or “V.” Adding to that, those underlines and marks were difficult for some of the participants to understand. That may be why it was not liked by the participants. Two of the participants wrote:

“I don’t like this (Type B) at all. I can’t understand this and it makes me confused.” (M)

“Type B can not give me encouragement. It has a cold impression.” (M

Contrary to my hypothesis, Type C “Commentary on the content of the essay,” was not supported so much by the learners. This might also be due to the characteristics of the participants as I mentioned earlier. Such highly-motivated learners as the participants of the present study might not care much about comments on their content. What is more appealing for them is feedback that directly refers to their language and can help decrease their errors. One of them wrote:

“I am not happy because this feedback (Type C) does not tell me anything about my errors at all. With this feedback I don’t know whether I wrote correct English or not. I want my teachers to correct the errors.” (F)

When we think about the reason why learners ranked their preference this way, as mentioned earlier, we can not ignore the strong influence of the present educational circumstances surrounding the participants. Even though emphasis is put on developing their overall language ability at school, students are unavoidably forced to put their focus on a Japanese-English translation type of writing outside school.

4.2.2 Discussion of Quantitative Analysis Concerning the Perception of Usefulness

A similar thing appears in their perception of usefulness. They thought

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“Stamping” the least useful. A typical comment is as follows:

“With only stamping, I think I will never read my essay again. If I have some more feedback, I will read my essay again.” (M)

As they felt in the preference section, they thought “Direct error correction” to be the most useful. It is easy to imagine why they ranked this as the best. As explained previously, they have a strong eagerness to be able to write error-free composition. The content of the essay is their second concern. So it is quite logical that they ranked “Direct error correction” as the best. The following is a typical opinion:

“Type A is the most useful because the teacher corrected my mistakes. I want to know the correct sentences. I think “Commentary on the content of the essay” is the least helpful. Teacher comments are not enough to improve my writing skill.” (F)

In fact 88 participants gave five points (the highest) to Type A “Direct error correction.” That means 61% of them thought it was very useful. At the same time, we need to pay attention to the second- and the third-ranked feedback. We can easily imagine that they would have ranked Type D “Commentary on the language itself” as high as Type B “Error indication” because both concern language itself, yet the mean score of Type B was significantly higher than that of Type D this time. The number of the participants who gave five points to Type D “Commentary on the language itself” was only 7, while eight times as many participants (56 participants) gave five points to Type B “Error indication.” Here is a possible interpretation of this.

The participants’ main concern must be their language correctness. For them Type A “Direct error correction” is the most appropriate and fastest way to improve their writing skill. In this research, Type D “Commentary on the language itself” gave participants mostly positive feedback such as praise for an increase in the amount of writing or for a decrease in the number of surface errors, although I also had to write negative comments. My first priority was to encourage learners to write a lot of English sentences. Many of the participants might not be satisfied by this type of feedback because “Commentary on the language itself” is too vague, that is, it does not give them any concrete information such as the location of incorrect expressions. In contrast, Type B “Error indication” showed learners directly where their errors were even though they had to correct the errors themselves. I believe this is the reason why participants thought Type B to be almost as useful as Type A “Direct error correction,” although they ranked Type B low when they were asked about their preference. The following shows a typical opinion of the participants who ranked Type B higher than Type A:

“Type A seems very useful because we can know the right answer instantly. The teacher corrected almost all the mistakes. However, at the same time, if I have this kind of feedback every time, it will prevent me from thinking

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and trying to figure out the correct expression by myself.” (F)

Another student wrote:

“From my experience I know that it is very important to find the correct answer myself and to know why I made the mistake, so I think Type B is the most useful.” (M)

To sum up what we have seen thus far, unlike many of the similar studies overseas, learners want to have corrective feedback, and they think it leads to the improvement of their writing skill. They would like teachers to respond to the content that they wrote, but at the same time they think the feedback type which directly emphasizes their errors is more useful. Only 19 participants (13%) gave five points to “Error indication” when they were asked about their preference, but 56 participants (39%) gave five points to it when asked about the usefulness. We have to keep this fact in mind.

4.3 Results and Discussion of Qualitative Analysis In this section I would like to introduce some insightful comments from the

participants though they were not reflected on the quantitative results. As was previously mentioned, teacher commentary was not supported as much as I

had expected from the viewpoint of both preference and the perception of usefulness. However, both types of teacher commentary were not disliked by the participants. In fact, there were no participants who said that they disliked this type of feedback. The fact is that learners thought that in order to improve their writing skills, feedback concerning their language errors was more useful than teacher commentary, especially on the content of the essay. Also, they preferred “Direct error correction” and “Commentary on the language itself” to “Commentary on the content of the essay,” though they liked “Commentary on the content of the essay” better than “Error indication.” It may be because “Error indication” was not easy to understand and gave a somewhat cold impression to the learners.

However, there were quite a few participants who appreciated “Commentary on the content of the essay” by their teacher. This can not be ignored. Some of the participants wrote:

“I can communicate with my teacher through this type of feedback (Type C) and I will be looking forward to reading my teacher’s comments every time I write an essay.” (F)

“I felt happy when I saw my teacher’s comments on the content of my essay, especially when she responded to my question.

It has encouraged me to write more and better next time.” (F)

“I can have confidence that I can succeed in communicating

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by having teacher feedback on my essay.” (M)

“I am glad to have my teacher write a response in English. I had a sense of achievement of writing English.” (F)

Comments like the ones above tell us that appropriate teacher commentary surely gives the learners confidence and a lot of motivation. This is essential for the learners to become better writers. Therefore, even though it was not statistically supported, it is beneficial for the students if teachers give specific comments about the content of their essays. By doing so, some students will surely be motivated to write more and it will lead to further development of their writing skill.

5. Conclusions and Pedagogical Implications As was revealed in this present study, “Stamping” was not welcomed by learners at

all. “Stamping” is an easy way of feedback for teachers, but from the results obtained in the present research, it cannot motivate learners. Judging from the fact that motivation plays an important role in learning, not just stamping but stamping plus something, for example, short comments and/or double or single circles, which signify ‘Good’ or ‘Very good’, will work better.

It was also revealed that teacher feedback concerning learners’ errors was ranked higher than teacher commentary on the content of the essay both in their preference and the perception of usefulness regardless of their proficiency. Although the participants preferred “Commentary on the content of the essay” to “Error indication,” there was no statistically significant difference, and “Commentary on the language itself” was ranked significantly higher than “Commentary on the content of the essay.” This result shows that learners like, want and need error feedback. From another point of view, it can be said that teachers need not feel that it is their duty to give some comments on the content of the students’ free compositions. If this obsession makes some teachers hesitate to assign their students free compositions, they should not worry about not giving them enough comments. What is more important is to give their students a lot of opportunities to write free compositions.

The results also clearly show that regarding feedback, there is a difference in learners’ perception between their preference and usefulness. Learners like to read teacher commentary, but it does not necessarily mean that they think it is useful. They think that commentary alone, especially commentary on the content of their essay, is not enough to improve their writing skill and that corrective feedback is essential. Therefore, teachers should not have a stereotyped image of learners, for example, less proficient learners usually do not welcome error feedback. On the contrary, we can say that teachers need not hesitate to give error feedback, worrying about its bad effect on the motivation of less proficient learners. Those learners think that error feedback from the teachers is essential to improve their writing skill. So, when teachers judge that corrective feedback is necessary, they should give it to their students without hesitation.

More detailed research focusing on the different stages of learners’ writing should

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be conducted. In this present study, learners received teacher feedback only on their first draft, but did not necessarily make any revisions. Because ‘process writing’ is not widely done in many English classrooms in Japanese junior high schools now, and I had not taken it in my own English class, I did not give all the students a chance to revise their first draft in this research although I advised them to revise their writing. This means that some students got teacher feedback on their first draft, whereas others got feedback on their final draft. The preference and the perception of usefulness might be different when the research is conducted on each stage of their writing.

In this study, teacher feedback was focused on, but when we think about the present school education system, it is quite difficult for teachers to give abundant feedback to all the students every time they write an essay. Because most of the English classes consist of about 40 students, I think peer feedback is worth trying more often. It is beneficial for teachers because it is less time-consuming. As for learners, peer feedback gives them several opportunities to read their peers’ essays, from which they can learn a lot. They can develop the ability to judge what a good essay is by giving and receiving feedback. This is the very reason why learners have a lot of benefit in learning not alone but in the English classrooms. Further research which will support the value of peer feedback must be conducted.

References Ferris, D. (2004). Treatment of Error. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press

Leki, I. (1991).The Preference of ESL Students for Error Correction in College-Level Writing Classes. Foreign Language Annals, 24(3), 203-218

Hatori, H., Itoh, K., Kanatani, K., & Noda, T. (1990). Effectiveness and limitations of instructional intervention by teacher – writing tasks in EFL

Kanatani, K., Itoh, K., Noda, T.,Tono, Y., & Katayama, N. (1993). The Role of Teacher Feedback in EFL Writing Instruction

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