Engagement with the Feedback

One of the themes that is drawn from the interview is students’ engagement with the feedback. Students said in the interview, they are capable of understanding their teachers’ verbal feedback. Which I also, noticed through the observations as the students were able to show their ability to handle and process information they received, which helped in the way they improved their writing skills as it became better, clearer, more organized and more analytics.

Furthermore, through the face-to-face feedback the students got an opportunity of challenging and simulating thinking activities. Therefore, feedback is a viable and effective mechanism for providing learners with the information they need about their writing skills since they have a propensity to be more alert and attentive in class.

Drawing on educational literature on students’ engagement (Handley, Price and Millar, n.d.), engagement with feedback involves two important levels that are really needed. These levels are:

1- Readiness to engage: this level involves eagerness and ability to pay attention to and act upon feedback.

2- Active engagement: this level involves the behavioural component of engagement, ranging from an individual reflection on feedback to interaction with peers and tutors aimed at making sense of the feedback given

Students’ engagement with feedback is certain to be affected by the context in which it is received. Students' responses to the interview point to some interesting findings in this respect.

One of the students said ‘’ I will focus more in face to face feedback. Also, the teacher will give me the important points instead of just written feedback when the teacher cannot provide the students with a target comments or appropriate feedback; because teachers have a lot of students and need to correct a lot of papers which is , for them , very hard and time consuming as well as exhausting. So, in this case teachers will may either write just general comments or do not comment because of the reasons mentioned. However, when a teacher talks with students about writing, s/he can point out and draw attention to the main problems in the writing and a student has a chance to ask the teacher for clarification and therefore face to face feedback is really helpful’’.

Also another student said that ‘’ oral feedback is very important for students to learn from their mistakes especially when the teacher points out the students’ mistakes in class in general without mentioning the names of students or, the teacher should give each student feedback a lone in order not to be impressed in front of others’’.

Based on the previous quote, some students prefer general feedback to learn from other students’ mistakes as well as theirs and to avoid embarrassment; whereas some students do not mind receiving constructive criticism and being told about their mistakes as they see it as a step to improve their work. Generally, students believe that by getting feedback especially the face-to-face one, they would strengthen their abilities in university writing because they can be familiarized with the writing demands.

A table below illustrates the students’ ways of handling feedback in treatment group (10 participants in interview)

Table 5.12: students’ ways of handling feedback in treatment group

Reaction Yes No Notes

Reading written feedback 30% 70% The majority of students do not pay attention to the written feedback they are given and sometimes some do not even look at the paper unless it has been evaluated (graded).

Feeling shy to discuss 30% 70% Students, who feel shy and uncomfortable to discuss their thoughts, prefer to have teacher- students’ discussion in group in order not to be the focus.

Prefer to have one to one discussion (student/ teacher)

50% 50% Students who favour one to

one discussions to written feedback believe that teachers will provide more details about their work. Also they think that it gives them the opportunity to ask questions freely as they have time on a one on one basis, Whereas for the students who don’t prefer one to one discussions it is because they are either shy or they don't feel very comfortable to respond to questions and comments made by their tutor as they feel they are put in the spot light. So when they are in a group they think they can respond more comfortably because

there is no focus on only one student.

Prefer to have discussion with their teacher in a group

60% 40% The 60% of students who

prefer to have discussions in groups feel that they learn more from other students’ mistakes and that gives them the opportunity to see different opinions and ideas especially when the topic is new for them as they can learn new vocabulary. On the other hand the 40%think that having a one to one or a group discussion isn't the issue as long as they learn something

5.5 Chapter Summary

This chapter presents the findings of the study and how the data in this study were analysed.

The findings of this study revealed a statistically significant difference in students’ performance in writing between the experimental and control groups. The scores of both experimental and control groups were similar in the pre-test. However, after applying the treatment, which is face-to-face feedback, the post-test scores in the experimental group were higher than the control groups’ scores. Based on that, it can be concluded that providing feedback on students’ writing via teacher-student face-to-face has a positive impact on the overall improvement of students’ writing and more importantly a great positive impact than that of written feedbck. As Orsmond et al highlight that “ feedback was seen to enhance learning by being used as guidance to improve an assignment or assignments and thereby indicating that students have contextualised the feedback and so developed some wider awareness’’ (2002:6)

Therefore, the first research question about whether face-to-face feedback has an effect on students’ writing (post-test scores) was answered positively by the study. In other words, improvement in the content of writing was noticeable.

The second question: ‘’Will EFL/ESL Libyan students who participate in the study (experimental group) hold a positive attitude toward face to face feedback as investigated by an interview?’’ was answered through using the semi-structured interviews and observation. The data gained showed that participants responded positively to face-to-face feedback, as well as expressed that written feedback is insufficient if it is used as the only method of feedback. Based on the observation, constructive criticism was noticed, where the students were told what is wrong and also what to do about it. Thus, there was a positive connection between improved writing activities and motivation.

The main findings in this study are the following

 Students acknowledge the importance of feedback and its effect in writing.

 Students pay more attention to face-to-face feedback (face to face) than written feedback for various reasons.

 Students’ samples of writings show that the revision is better than the first draft which confirms the effectiveness of feedback on writing.

 Observation showed the active engagement of students with their teacher during face-to-face feedback either individually or in groups.

In general, the result (findings) can be discussed and interpreted within Vygotsky’s theory of constructivism which states that a real dialogue about writing to get assistance from real readers is constructive.

The following chapter will provide a discussion of this study. The discussion will go over the findings and offer a detailed clarification.

Chapter Six: Discussions of Findings

‘’Without feedback from their teachers, low students cannot know how well they are doing’’ (Thomas.

L. Good)