Previous studies have shown that written corrective feedback (CF) addressing errors can help students to improve their language accuracy. In order to improve students' vocabulary skills, studies suggest that less explicit corrective feedback methods are more successful than more explicit ones. This small-scaled study tried to investigate what CF methods are used by three teachers concerning vocabulary errors in students' written assignments, what method is preferred by the teachers and the students in their classes and why, whether the students have to post-edit the essays after the teacher has given them feedback and finally, whether the students and their teachers believe they improve their vocabulary after the given feedback. The results show that all teachers used a varied set of corrective feedback types. The written corrective feedback method preferred by teachers in this study are underline and underline and describe. The method preferred by students are underline and describe and direct correction. In order for the feedback to be effective, the students need to work with the given corrective feedback. / Tidigare studier har visat att skriftlig korrigerande feedback som gäller språkfel kan hjälpa eleverna att förbättra sin språkriktighet. Studier tyder på att de mindre explicita korrigerande feedbackmetoderna är mer framgångsrika, när det gäller att förbättra elevernas ordförråd. Den här studien undersökte vilka feedbackmetoder på vokabulärfel i skriftliga texter tre lärare använder, vilken metod som föredras av lärarna och deras elever, om eleverna bearbetar sina texter utifrån lärarens feedback och slutligen, om eleverna och deras lärare tror att eleverna lär sig ny vokabulär utifrån lärarens feedback. Resultaten visar att alla lärare använde en varierad uppsättning av korrigerande feedbackmetoder. Den skriftliga korrigerande feedbackmetod som föredras av lärarna i denna studie är understrykning och understrykning med förklaring. Den metod som föredras av eleverna är understrykning med beskrivning och direkt korrigering. För att feedback ska vara effektiv måste eleverna bearbeta den feedback de fått av läraren.

PhD (English) / Department of English

Providing written feedback is a time-consuming part of an English teacher’s work life and there are many ways in which feedback can be provided. According to the Swedish National Agency of Education (2011), teachers must provide their students with feedback. Studies have been conducted investigating feedback provision and teachers’ feedback practices, but few studies have shed light on the students’ perception of feedback, especially in Swedish, and even Nordic, contexts. This study investigated students’ perception and use of teacher feedback on written assignments in an EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom in mid-Sweden. The study investigated both student perception of feedback, with specific focus on WCF (written corrective feedback), and students’ use of the feedback. The method used for data collection was a semi-structured internet survey containing 21 questions. The participants were 30 upper secondary school students. The results of the study showed that students mostly perceived feedback as important and useful, especially when it contained concrete tips and proposals for text improvement. They regarded CF and WCF as important as they wanted to become aware of what errors they made to avoid making those in future writing. Nevertheless, they reported that too extensive feedback (unfocused CF) was not preferred. Both positive and negative feedback were considered useful for future writing and a large majority read the feedback they received every time. Feedback provided together with a grade was also read by the students, as they wanted to have information about strengths and weaknesses in the text as well as motivation for the grade. To conclude, feedback was mostly perceived as important and useful, and the students used it to improve their writing.

No description available.

Cette étude quantitative vise à 1) mesurer les connaissances métalinguistiques des futurs enseignants, 2) décrire la qualité de la rétroaction corrective écrite (RCÉ) des futurs enseignants de français langue seconde (FLS), et 3) examiner la relation entre les connaissances métalinguistiques des futurs enseignants et la qualité de leur rétroaction corrective à l’écrit. Un groupe de 18 futurs enseignants de français langue seconde inscrit dans le programme de formation initiale des maîtres à Montréal a participé à l'étude. Les participants ont accompli 1) une tâche d’analyse de phrases pour mesurer leurs connaissances métalinguistiques, et 2) une tâche de rétroaction corrective écrite, pour évaluer la qualité de leurs pratiques rétroactives à l’écrit en termes de localisation d'erreur et d'explication métalinguistique fournie. Alors que les analyses descriptives sont effectuées pour répondre aux deux premières questions de la présente étude, des analyses de corrélation ont été réalisées pour déterminer s’il existe des relations entre les connaissances métalinguistiques des futurs enseignants et la qualité de leur rétroaction corrective à l’écrit. Les résultats indiquent que 1) la localisation de l'erreur de la RCÉ fournie est précise, mais 2) l'explication métalinguistique l’est moins, 3) il existe une relation entre les connaissances métalinguistiques des futurs enseignants et la qualité de leur rétroaction corrective à l’écrit. / The present quantitative study seeks to 1) measure pre-service teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge, 2) describe the quality of French as a second language (FSL) pre-service teachers’ written corrective feedback (WCF), and 3) examine the relationship between pre-service teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge and the quality of their written corrective feedback (i.e., teachers’ metalinguistic awareness). A group of 18 French as a second language pre-service teachers following the initial teacher training program in Montreal, participated in the study. Participants were assigned 1) a task of analytical abilities to measure their metalinguistic knowledge, and 2) a task of written corrective feedback provision to evaluate the quality of their written corrective feedback in terms of error location and the metalinguistic explanation provided. Descriptive analyses were undertaken to answer the first two research questions. Correlation analyses were performed to examine whether there exist any relations between pre-service teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge and the quality of their WCF. Among other things, results indicated that 1) while the error location of WCF provided was precise, 2) the metalinguistic explanation provided by the participants was not accurate, 3) there is a relationship between pre-service teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge and the quality of written corrective feedback.