The Effect of Feedback Styles on Students’ Willingness to Communicate in English

Abstract

This study looks at the effect of instructor directed feedback and peer directed feedback in a university-level English discussion class on students’ willingness to communicate in English. Willingness to communicate (WTC) in another language reflects the extent a person will readily use a second language in a variety of contexts and can be influenced by both individual character traits, the social situation, and perceptions of one’s own second language ability. Both instructor lead feedback and peer lead feedback can improve students’ WTC in a foreign language, and to determine which mode of feedback is best suited to this purpose, an experiment was conducted using groups of first-year English Discussion classes. During regular class periods, either instructor lead feedback sessions or peer lead feedback sessions were conducted across two distinct sets of classes. To evaluate the effectiveness of these feedback styles in improving students’ WTC in English, the results of WTC pre-test and post-test surveys were compared across both sets of classes. Results showed that there was no significant improvement in WTC for the group that received instructor lead feedback, while the improvement in WTC for the student lead feedback group was statistically significant. These results suggest that student directed feedback is superior with regards to increasing learners’ WTC in English.