Abstract This study investigates how formative feedback provided from teachers to students in academic writing can enhance students’ writing skills, and what strategies teachers can use to motivate students and provide effective and timely feedback at upper secondary education in English as a Second Language (ESL) context. Many researchers have claimed that giving formative feedback is essential for the improvement of students’ writing skills. Several studies have also shown that English as an L2 students tend to appreciate effective and qualitative feedback. For this study, data were collected through searches from educational databases to examine this area within an ESL context and provide an overview of how formative feedback given from teachers can improve L2 students’ writing skills and what strategies teachers should use to give effective feedback. The overall results indicate that giving formative feedback in writing plays an important role in the improvement of the students’ writing skills and learning. The findings show that there are several strategies that should be used for the formative feedback to be effective and beneficial.  Key terms: formative feedback, writing skills, effective feedback, timely feedback.

This essay approaches the different kinds of feedback that teachers in Spanish give to their secondary level students in Sweden. The purpose of the study is to investigate how feedback is perceived by students and how students would like feedback to be. Classical studies about assessment divide feedback into two categories: formative feedback and summative feedback. Our study intends, on the one hand, to analyze if students perceive receiving one of these kinds of feedback more than the other. On the other hand, the study intends to find out if students prefer summative or formative feedback. Furthermore, we aim to analyze if there is a link between the students´ perceptions and preferences and their level of proficiency in the Spanish language. The study was carried out with 190 students from Småland (Sweden) that were studying Spanish as a foreign language at school. We used questionnaires in order to gather information about the feedback they get in their Spanish lessons and the feedback they personally prefer. The results of the study show that students do perceive receiving more summative feedback than formative feeback. The students who perceive a higher reception of formative feedback are those who have a higher proficiency in Spanish, and this fact was proved to be statistically significant. The results of the study show as well that students like to get formative feedback as much as summative feedback. Nevertheless, the higher achivers do prefer getting formative feedback in a higher grade than the lower achievers, even though this could not be proved as statistically significant.

This study investigated teacher supervision methods in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the absence of state mandated requirements. The literature supports the use of formative and summative feedback, multiple data sources and methods, collaboration between teacher and supervisor, professional growth goals linked to school improvement, and measures of student learning.A web-based questionnaire was used to survey 229 public elementary school teachers across Virginia regarding which teacher supervision methods are used, teacher perception toward those methods, and whether teacher perceptions vary with the method, supervisor's leadership style, or teacher characteristics. The data suggest that a majority of school division supervision programs in Virginia used formative and summative methods with an emphasis on formative, and multiple data sources that measures of student learning and standardized test scores. A majority of supervision programs also emphasize collaboration between supervisor and teacher, and individual professional growth goals. Weak to moderate correlations and significant differences were found between measures of the dependent variable, teacher perceptions of supervision, and measures of the independent variable, method of supervision and aspects of the supervisor's leadership style.

This sequential mixed methods study addressed the need for research that both described and explained how teachers of varying experience respond to administrative evaluative feedback. Formative evaluation theory of Scriven and professional growth models of Steffy and Fessler served as theoretical models for data analysis. An online survey asking teachers how they changed their practices and what accounted for their response was received from 270 teachers in 1 Midwestern state. Of these, 9 teachers of varying experience were interviewed. The quantitative data showed that most teachers do not change practices on the 8 state teaching standards in response to feedback. An independent sample t test revealed statistically significant differences between teachers of varying experience in 3 standards: support of district goals, classroom management, and instruction. . An ANOVA found no significant effect between teaching experience and the length of time since the feedback was provided to the teacher. Qualitative data found a variety of social, personal, organizational, and student-based needs that accounted for teachers' response to feedback. In teachers that made changes to practices, administrator suggestion was the most important factor, but conversations with colleagues were also important. However, most teachers did not receive formative feedback. Organizational factors such as state initiatives to change instruction influenced teachers of more experience than novice teachers. These findings can help administrators improve the formative effect of their feedback. Understanding how evaluative feedback leads to changes in teaching practices should improve feedback systems in schools across the nation which subsequently should lead to in more effective teaching practices.

This research focuses on a Knowledge Building pedagogical approach and investigates ways to boost students’ competencies in knowledge creation processes, specifically their ability to contribute productively to high-level explanation-seeking discourse. This study uses a design-based methodology to explore how pedagogical and technological innovations can enhance students’ ways of contributing to knowledge building discourse, and examines whether expanding students’ contribution repertoire helps them to advance community knowledge in general. Gains associated with a Knowledge Building approach for secondary and post-secondary students are widely documented. This research adds to this body of literature by showing how a Knowledge Building approach can be productively engaged at the early primary level. This work also contributes to studies exploring automated feedback and assessment tools that can help boost student capacities for building new knowledge. The research was conducted in three main phases. The first phase mapped the ways that students from Grades 1-6 (n = 102) contribute to their naturally occurring Knowledge Building discourse in order to provide baseline data for subsequent design experiments. The following two phases corresponded to two design iterations that involved work in Grade 2 science and that tested different types of formative feedback. Design Cycle 1 (n = 42) focused on testing supports to boost low-frequency contribution types. Design Cycle II (n = 43) aimed to reproduce and improve results from the first iteration. In both design cycles, pedagogical supports included whole-class metadiscourse sessions, while technological supports consisted of contribution and content-oriented feedback tools that offered students a meta-perspective on their own discourse, including Word Clouds (Cycle 1), Concept Clouds (Cycle 1-2), visualizations produced by the Metadiscourse Tool (Cycle 1-2), and verbal scaffolds (Cycle 1-2). Analyses of data revealed that these supports helped students to significantly increase their engagement with targeted contribution types, diversify their general contribution repertoire, and advance collective knowledge beyond that attained by their peers in prior years. This research provides empirical evidence that Knowledge Building inquiry can be effectively engaged at the primary level, and offers usable artifacts tested and shown to be conducive for helping young students raise the level of their Knowledge Building discourse.

The syllabus for English 5 through 7 in Sweden states that students should learn to understand and write different types of text, one being academic papers. Therefore, teachers are required to guide students in their academic writing process as they transition to formal written English.  Through this study, we aim to investigate the best practices of formative feedback from instructors on L2 academic writing and see the attitudes of students and teachers when it comes to given and received feedback. Moreover, we also aim to connect the results that are found through research to the Swedish national curriculum. This will be done through educational databases such as the Malmö university library database and ERIC. We have found a total of ten empirical studies that touch upon the two aforementioned aims. Research in the field of formative feedback displays how students have a healthier attitude towards oral communication as they may directly communicate with the instructor at the cost of time. In contrast, instructors disagree by claiming that it is not as efficient as written feedback where they may take on a larger number of students in a shorter amount of time whilst providing more accurate responses. Teachers ought to be aware that while efficiency is important, it is not as vital as student progression in academic writing. Also, it would be interesting to examine the attitudes and levels of comfort of students in regards to peer reviewing and self-feedback with a focus on L2 learners.

Although academic writing skills are central in the core content of the Swedish nationalcurriculum for English, Swedish upper-secondary school pupils struggle withcomposing academic texts. Both international and national research have formulatedseveral models for effectively constructing ESL (English as a second language)academic writing modules. However, these models in the school are often notimplemented or misinterpreted in the Swedish school. Therefore, to find a best practiceexample that can be implemented in the English upper-secondary classroom, this studyinvestigates the research-based design of a beginner ESL academic writing course atMalmö University with focus on constructive alignment and instructor feedback. Thedata included three data sets: i) lectures and other course materials, ii) ten studentpapers across three drafts, 30 draft submissions in total, and iii) instructor feedback onthe first two drafts. All data was subjected to different types of content analysis. Afeedback classification system synthesized from previous research was specificallydeveloped for the data analysis of instructor feedback. The main findings were that theacademic writing course investigated was in-fact constructively aligned providing thestudents with qualitative academic writing instruction; therefore, it may arguably serveas a model for academic writing interventions also in the school. Furthermore, themulti-dimensional feedback classification system developed for this study may guideeducators’ reflection over their feedback practices.

The study, designed as a case study, aimed to explore an EFL teacher’s process of producing individualised written formative feedback to further the English language development of the diverse student body of one eighth-grade class in southern Sweden. The research questions were approached from a teacher’s perspective. (1) What are the characteristics of written formative feedback on the written performance of individual students in a diverse ELT classroom? (2) How does the teacher reason when adapting formative written feedback to the needs of individual students? The Quadrant model, applying aspects of sociocultural theory, helped interpret the data collected from the think-aloud protocol, follow-up interview, and the written feedback provided to the students. Two main characteristics were identified for the teacher’s written feedback comment. First, the teacher aspired to provide feedback within each student’s engagement zone, which was also found to be a vital part of the teacher’s reasoning when adapting his feedback to students. Secondly, the written comment consisted mainly of motivating and explanatory comments to encourage further development, which also mirrored the teacher’s reasoning when adapting feedback to each student’s needs. The reasoning reflected the teacher’s aspiration of balancing the amount of support and challenge each student needed to support their development within their Zone of Proximal Development.

Providing feedback on students’ written tasks is a common aspect in today’s classrooms. Feedback affects students’ written language learning by either enhancing it or hindering it, depending on what, how and when it is given. The purpose of this degree project is to research how teachers perceive students’ writing process, how they give feedback on students’ written tasks in a primary EFL classroom, and the reasons behind their chosen strategies. Semi-structured interviews with two English teachers teaching years 4-6 were used as a method for this study. To support and analyse the data from the interviews, this project contains an overview of the fields of written language learning, formative assessment, effective formative feedback and writing as a process using literature and previous research. The literature and research show that teaching writing in a foreign language should focus on enhancing students’ interest in writing by supporting their curiosity and willingness to become writers. This can be done by focusing on content of a text instead of grammar or spelling, as this does not support young learners in their writing process. Teachers therefore need to provide feedback on aspects such as content, coherence and structure and give students information on how they can proceed in and improve a task. That is when the feedback will have the most positive effect on students’ learning. Further, the process-based approach of writing is argued to be beneficial for students’ learning as it encourages students to take an active part in their writing process. The major conclusions of this study are that the two teachers prefer to give informal and oral selective feedback on students’ writing tasks during the task. They give feedback once or twice on a task and often in the middle, to scaffold a progression. However, this is not in alignment with process-based writing. The study also shows that the two teachers are not aware of the theories underpinning writing as a process. Instead, they are well trained in ways of formative assessment and scaffolding language learning, but not the process-based approach of writing.

Corrective feedback (CF) is regarded as a controversial topic when it comes to writing in the L2 classroom. Some researchers have found it to be both meaningless and harmful, while others have researched the effects of different types of CF and found it to be good for language development in several ways. This made us interested in conducting a study focusing on what attitudes grade 3-5 (age 9-11) teachers have concerning CF, and if they themselves use it for their L2 students’ writing. The study was conducted through five semi-structured interviews with teachers working in Lund, Sweden. The aim of the study was to investigate compulsory school teachers’ experiences of and thoughts on CF as a teaching method for improving young L2 learners’ writing. The results revealed that the teachers believe CF to be an irreplaceable part of language learning but that it should be adapted to each individual’s needs. Although all interviewed teachers acknowledged CF’s potential harm on learners’ motivation and willingness to write, no one believed that it could be left out completely.