Chapter I. The role of feedback in learning english as a second language

2.3 The methods used by teachers to give feedback 
T1 and T2 preferred the correction method 
underline. 
The reason they 
give for preferring this method is because experience has shown them that it 
is how the students best improve their vocabulary skills. T3 prefers another 
correction method, namely 
underline and describe 
and she also explains 
that her experience has shown her that this is the method that helps 
students best improve their vocabulary skills. The methods that the teachers 
claimed to use most often are 
underline 
and 
underline and describe
, both 
of which are indirect feedback methods. A reason for preferring indirect 
methods could be that they are less time consuming than other methods. A 
legitimate question could be to what extent the teachers are affected by the 
time factor. The advantage with indirect correction methods is that they do 
not only “engage the students in guided learning and problem solving”, 
but they also lead to “reflection about linguistic forms that may lead to 
long-term acquisition”.
9
Other studies suggest that indirect corrective 
feedback will not result in new learning but it may “strengthen already learnt 
but not fully internalized forms. 
8
(Chandler, 2003: 164, 292) 
9
(Ferris, 2001: 163, 164; Chandler, 2003: 291) 

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The best strategy is to use both indirect and direct feedback methods
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, which the 
participating teachers in this study say that they do. 
This section will account for the results of the student questionnaire. 
When it comes to vocabulary errors, the majority of the students in class 
1 preferred the correction method 
underline and describe
. Most of the students 
in class 2 preferred the correction method 
direct correction
, closely followed 
by the correction method 
underline and describe
. In class 3, the majority of 
the students preferred the correction method 
underline and describe
. The 
results showed that none of the students preferred the correction method 
describe
. This kind of correction method is cognitively demanding because 
learners need to identify an error without location and this might be the reason 
why none of the students preferred this method.
One interesting finding is that most of the students in class 1 said that they 
prefer the method 
underline and describe
, whereas the teacher claimed that she 
uses the corrective feedback methods 
underline 
and 
direct correction 
when she 
corrects vocabulary errors in her students' essays. The teacher in class 3 claimed 
to use the corrective feedback methods 
underline and describe 
and 
direct 
correction. 
In this class, one student claimed that he preferred the correction 
method 
underline, 
which this teacher said she does not use
. 
That students said 
they prefer a feedback method that is not used by their teacher could be due to 
the fact that some of the students were not aware of what correction feedback 
method their teacher uses when it comes to vocabulary errors. Another 
explanation is that these students do not understand the differences between 
these correction methods, even if they were explained before they answered the 
questionnaire. None of the students added any reasons of their own why they 
preferred the alternative they marked, although there was an opportunity to 
elaborate on this question. The results of what feedback methods the students 
prefer are shown
in Table 2. 
10
(Sheen, 2012: 47) 

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Class 1 Class 2 
Class 3 
Total 
(N=10) (N=23) 
(N=6) 
(N=39) 
Underline
1 4 1 6 
Underline and describe 
6 9 4 19 
\Direct correction 3 10 1 14 
Describe 0 0 0 0 

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Table 2 shows that the majority, 19 students out of 39, preferred 
the indirect feedback method 
underline and describe
, which agrees with 
Ferris and Roberts'. According to them, indirect correction where the teacher 
marks the error and labels it with an error code is preferred by most student 
writers. In Chandler's study , a majority of the students preferred the 
direct 
correction 
method because it is the easiest way for them to correct their 
errors, but they also experienced that 
underline and describe 
helps them best 
to avoid making those errors in future assignments. 
This study investigated whether students have to post-edit the essays 
after the teacher has given them feedback and to what extent the students 
actually apply the given feedback in their written assignments. According 
to the three teachers, their students have to correct vocabulary errors in 
their essays after the feedback is given back to them. In class 1, four students 
answered that they correct their vocabulary errors after the teacher returned 
their essays with the feedback. Six students answered that they sometimes 
post-edit their essays after the feedback is given back to them. According to 
T1, her students have to correct vocabulary errors in their written texts 
after they have received her corrective feedback but the students do not 
appear to post-edit their essays all the time. According to their teacher, the 
students in class 2 have to post-edit their essays but also in this class the 
students seem not to be aware of this fact. Twelve out of 23 students said 
that they correct their vocabulary errors after the given corrective feedback 
as they are supposed to. Two students claimed that they do not post-edit 
their essays after their teacher has given them feedback and nine students 
said that they sometimes correct their vocabulary errors in their essays.The 
students in class 3 also have to post-edit their essays after the feedback is 
given to them according to the teacher. Four out of six students claimed that 
they correct their vocabulary errors in their essays. One student said that he 
does not post-edit his essays and another student answered that he post-

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edits his essays sometimes. Table 3 shows the results of the classes 1, 2 and 
3 regarding the question whether students post-edit their essays according to 
themselves. 
Table 3: Do students post-edit the essays after the teacher has given them feedback? 
Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Total 
N=10 N=23 N=6 N=39 
Yes 4 12 4 20
No 2 1 3 
Sometimes 6 9 1 16

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The results in Table 3 show that half of the students say that they 
post-edit their essays. A question arises whether the students in the three 
classes understand that they are supposed to correct their vocabulary errors 
every time after the feedback is handed to them or whether what the teachers 
said does not agree with what they actually do. Another question that 
comes to mind is whether the post-edited essays are read by the teacher. This 
seems to be an important factor when it comes to students' motivation to 
revise their text, as can be seen in Köhlmyr's study. If the answer is no on 
one or both of these questions, then one might wonder what purpose the 
feedback has and for what reason the teacher gives corrective feedback 
on students' vocabulary errors in their essays. 
In class 1, six out of ten students said that they experience an 
improvement in their vocabulary skills based on the feedback they get. Twenty-
one students in class 2 answered that they experience that they improve their 
vocabulary skills. All the students in class 3 said that they feel that they learn the 
right word or expression from post-editing their essay after feedback is given to 
them. It needs to be pointed out that one student in this class mentioned that he did 
not correct vocabulary errors after receiving feedback. Table 4 shows the results 
for the three classes on this question. 
Table 4: Do the students in class 1, 2 and 3 experience that they improve 
their vocabulary skills based on the feedback they get? 
Class 1 
Class 2 
Class 3 
(N=10) 
(N=23) 
(N=6) 
Yes 
6 
21 
6 
No 
4 
2 

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As many as 33 out of 39 students claimed that they experience an 
improvement in their vocabulary skills based on the feedback they get. 
These findings agree with the findings of other studies. Students seem to 
want, expect to get and value feedback from their teacher: they believe 
feedback to be useful and necessary to develop their English 
skills.
(Köhlmyr, 2003: 186; Ferris, 2001: 166)