Abstract:

Danish schools are generally technology-rich, but one area where technology use seems to have been taken over sparingly is the area of written corrective feedback (WCF).

The present article reports on one part of an intervention study investigating 1) the potential changes in teacher beliefs and practices concerning the specific – and time-consuming – language-teacher activity of providing WCF and 2) potential changes in student attitudes when technology is used to mediate the feedback. At the core of the study is an eight-month intervention which was carried out with three teachers of English as a foreign language and their lower-secondary classes, requiring the teachers to make use of a specific program supportive of effective written corrective feedback in their provision of feedback to their students. The article will report on results pertaining to student attitudes to the changes brought about by the intervention, which changed both teacher and student practices.

Data was collected through student questionnaires concerning their views of the roles of written corrective feedback for foreign language acquisition, and also their views of and attitudes to their teacher’s normal practice were addressed in the questionnaire. Additionally, initial focus group interviews were carried out to allow for more in-depth information. At the end of the intervention, a second set of questionnaire data was collected, and a second round of focus group interviews was conducted to investigate if changes had taken place in students' attitudes and practices.

The preliminary findings of the study will be presented.

Keywords:

Feedback, language learning, english as a foreign language, secondary school, written feedback, technology and language learning.