Written Corrective Feedback in Formatively-Assessed Academic Essays

In the context of assessment for learning (AFL), current second language writing research argues that writing assessment should underscore the importance of providing students with constant access to feedback, specifically, descriptive feedback on their written outputs. Further, the literature highlights a need for more research in an under-researched domain of AFL: students’ voices or affect in relation to teacher written corrective feedback (WCF). This descriptive research endeavors to determine which types of written corrected feedback in Ellis (2009) typology were used by the teacher in assessing the students’ forty six definition and argumentative essays. Moreover, this inquiry aims to find out the views or affect on formative feedback of the participants. The students’ essays and responses in the affective inventory are the data. The analyses of the essays showed that in general, the teacher tended to utilize direct corrective feedback in both types of essays. Metalinguistic and commentary feedback appeared to be the second and third most frequently used types, respectively. Indirect corrective feedback was the least used. This finding may imply pedagogically that the writing class paid attention to accuracy as an important component of the students’ writing skills. Moreover, it reflects a common practice in EFL writing context (Mahfoodh, 2017). As regards the result of the analysis of the survey data, in general the students’ affect towards the formative assessment measures in the classroom is positive. This is confirmed by the high degree of agreement of the students with the statements that the formatively-oriented progress monitoring mechanisms such as regular feedback boosted their eagerness to learn and sense of control over their learning.