Effect of Teachers’ Written Corrective Feedback on EFL Students’ Paragraph Writing Performance and Students Attitude towards the Feedback: ‘Jireen’ Secondary School in Focus

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of teachers’ written corrective feedback on EFL grade 12 students' paragraph writing accuracy and fluency and students’ attitude towards the feedback with reference to ‘Jireen ‘high school. To achieve this objective, quasi experimental and descriptive research design, were used. Pre and post tests were the main instruments used to collect data from the participants and also questionnaire and interview were used in addition to this. Out of twenty sections of grade twelve, two classes were selected by using purposive sampling method. Next to this, the two sections were grouped in to two as control and experimental groups by using the same sampling method. The dependent and independent variables of this study were students’ paragraph writing accuracy and fluency, students’ attitude towards the feedback and teachers’ written corrective feedback respectively. To analyze the data, quantitative and qualitative methods (mixed approach) was used. The result of the study revealed that the experimental group students outperformed the control group students. This implies that, teachers’ written corrective feedback has positive effect on grade twelve ‘Jireen’ secondary school students’ paragraph writing accuracy and fluency. The results from the questionnaire and interview also showed that students have positive attitude towards the feedback. On the basis of the findings, it was recommended that to improve students paragraph writing accuracy and fluency more, EFL teachers have to use mixed teaching method, to keep the balance between accuracy and fluency while teaching their students. Also they have to use mixed approaches. Besides, they should consider learners’ attitude towards their feedback as these all can affect their students’ paragraph writing accuracy and fluency. When these and others added to providing specific, frequent, immediate and clear comments, students’ paragraph writing performance would be expected to improve