Teachers Helping EFL Students Improve Their Writing Through Written Feedback: The Case of Native and Non-native English-Speaking Teachers' Beliefs

Abstract

Although the efficacy of teacher written feedback has been widely investigated, relatively few studies have been conducted from feedback practitioners' perspectives to investigate teachers' beliefs regarding it, particularly compare beliefs held by teachers with different sociocultural and linguistic backgrounds. Consequently, much remains to be known about teachers' conceptions about written feedback, who has different first languages (L1). To bridge such a gap, we conducted this qualitative study to examine the similarities and differences between native English-speaking (NES) and non-native English-speaking (NNES) teachers' beliefs in Chinese University EFL settings. We analyzed the in-depth interviews with eight teachers through thematic analysis. The findings showed that NES and NNES teachers espoused a range of beliefs in relation to the five themes of written feedback: Purpose, scope, focus, strategy, and orientation. While they shared similar beliefs with regard to feedback focus, their beliefs differed in terms of feedback scope. Important implications are discussed for educational practices.

Exploring the perceptions and experiences of university lecturers on corrective feedback in students' research project supervision: a case for computer-mediated mode

“…This finding negates that of Cuban (2005) who asserts that lecturers had a negative perception and were resistant to the use of educational technology. In recent times, there has been an increased clamour for the adoption of technology in teaching-learning concerns (Cheng and Zhang, 2022; Vinagre and Muñoz, 2011).…”

“…It can be implemented synchronously (during class) or asynchronously (after class) (Bahari, 2021) while boosting students' writing skills (Adrefiza and Fortunasari, 2020; Hanan et al ., 2022). Feedback reforms lecturers' supervision competence and students’ learning (Algiraigri, 2014; Cheng and Zhang, 2022).…”

Exploring native and non-native English speaker teachers’ perceptions of English teacher qualities and their students’ responses

“…In this study, the term “alignment” indicates teachers’ instructional processes, intended outcomes, and assessments in accordance with students’ demands and interests. In contrast, misalignments between teachers and students can cause problems such as students feeling frustrated that teachers fail to meet their needs and affect students’ learning outcomes and their evaluations of teachers ( Rao, 2010 ; Yang, 2018 ; Cheng and Zhang, 2022 ).…”

“…However, research has shown that NESTs’ views of effective teaching are often viewed as misaligned with local Chinese EFL teachers and students. For example, NESTs’ teaching styles conflicted with Chinese EFL students’ learning styles, and their preferences for writing feedback differed from local Chinese teachers ( Rao, 2010 ; Cheng and Zhang, 2022 ). These findings indicate that NESTs in China have introduced teaching methods that might have succeeded in other settings but have not adapted their teaching to the students’ cultural and linguistic contexts.…”

“…Even though previous studies have investigated the different perceived positive and negative characteristics of NESTs and NNESTs ( Zhang, 2004a , b ; Javid, 2016 ; Cruz and Auman, 2018 ; Nomura and Mochizuki, 2018 ; Kiczkowiak, 2019 ; Wang and Fang, 2020 ; Zhang and Zhang, 2021 ; Qiu and Fang, 2022 ), few studies have investigated their perceptions of effective teacher qualities. In addition, most studies in China have concentrated on the response of either students or English teachers ( Rao, 2010 ; Ma, 2016 ; Huang, 2017 ; Wang and Fang, 2020 ; Cheng and Zhang, 2022 ). The student participants often consist of non-English majors instead of English majors.…”