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Taiwanese on the move: Intersections of Mobility, Language learning, and Overseas Study

Grace Chu-lin Chang

Supervisors: Prof. Ingrid Piller

& Dr. Kimie Takahashi

Exclusionary feedback? International students’ perspectives on the

feedback they get on their assignments

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Background

• The language learning experiences of Taiwanese higher education students in Australia.

• An ethnographic methodological approach

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Research question

• What kinds of practices, particularly in relation to language learning and language choice, do Taiwanese tertiary students in Australia engage in?

– A theme emerged: Academic writing

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Participants

• 16 participants• 15 master students, 1 undergraduate• Age: 21~33• Duration of arrival in AU: 6m~3 yr • Locations: Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne

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How to Align Assessment - Learning through a program approach. (2012). from http://staff.mq.edu.au/teaching/teaching_development/resources/

A theoretical effective assessment

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Findings

No feedback

• 6 out of 16 receive little or no feedback

“Honestly, I never got feedback from my assignments in xxx university. Maybe it’s a drawback of this uni. Now I’m in senior year and most of the assignments are essays, so I finished the assignment, uploaded it on iLearn, and I got a mark. I never got any comments. It’s not much helpful. I can only tell whether I did well or not by a mark.” (Linda, undergraduate, finance, 3rd yr.)

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Illegible Hand-written feedback

Can you read this easily?

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General comments that puzzled the participants

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• “他說他看不懂，這句話也非常 general!”

“The comment saying this is too general is general to me!” (Jack, postgraduate, Linguistics )

• “Comments such as ‘I don’t understand’ or ‘This is not clear’ are not helpful because I still don’t know why the teacher doesn’t understand. (Tim, postgraduate, Engineering Management )

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“I learned most from the process rather than the feedback, which was not very useful to me. Maybe it was because my work was not good enough, so the teacher mostly commented on the general things, such as references. My mark was on average. The feedback seemed to show my ideas were not well understood; it was not conversing with me. Of course I understand how limited time a teacher has, and there are so many students. Also, maybe our paper is not that easy to understand.”

(John, postgraduate, Environmental management)

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Helpful feedback

• Concrete and more specific feedback• Model examples (focus on principles)• Verbal delivery

– Group and individual student consultations

• Learning from peers– Group members in class

– TESOL buddy help/practice giving feedback

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Concrete and more specific feedback

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Taiwanese on the move: Intersections of Mobility, Language learning, and Overseas Study

Grace Chu-lin Chang

Supervisors: Prof. Ingrid Piller

& Dr. Kimie Takahashi

Exclusionary feedback? International students’ perspectives on the

feedback they get on their assignments