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Teacher behaviour and student engagement with L2 writing feedback: a case study

Published/Copyright: November 7, 2023
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
From the journal International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching Volume 63 Issue 2

Abstract

Feedback is essential for student learning and engagement is key for its efficacy. Yet research on student engagement with feedback predominantly attributes it to learner factors, overlooking teacher influence. This case study explored how one writing teacher’s behaviours shaped a motivated undergraduate’s engagement with various types of feedback in a writing course over one semester. Data sources included interviews, class observations, and text analysis. Findings revealed the pivotal role of teacher feedback behaviours in shaping student engagement, often through complex interactions with learner factors and teacher non-feedback behaviours. While some feedback behaviours enhanced student engagement, most had negligible or detrimental effects, highlighting the contextual nature of “best practices”. Certain teacher behaviours also exerted lasting impacts on student engagement. Additionally, some teacher non-feedback behaviours, both teaching and non-teaching, also contributed to shaping student engagement. These findings have implications for both research and teacher education.

Keywords: L2 writing feedback; teacher behaviour; student engagement; teacher feedback behaviour; teacher non-feedback behaviour
Corresponding author: Na Luo, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China, E-mail:

Funding source: Double First Class University Plan Fund of Lanzhou University

Award Identifier / Grant number: 561119204

Appendixes

Appendix A: Student engagement coding scheme.

Dimension Definition Coding examples
Emotional engagement Attitudes and perceptions manifested in feelings like enthusiasm, satisfaction, nonchalance, and anxiety I’ve been looking forward to this chance for so long but it’s over so quickly, without any useful feedback. I felt bad. [code: negatively shifted emotional engagement]
Behavioural engagement Observable student participation, such as action, effort, persistence, and concentration So I took photos (of the PPT). Just like this one (pointing to a photo in her mobile phone), I tried to figure out its structure. [code: extensive behavioural engagement]
Cognitive engagement Students’ cognitive processing of knowledge and ideas, typified by strategy search, care, and willingness to participate I tried to figure out its structure. It’s about how technology influenced educational practices. (code: deep cognitive engagement)
Agentic engagement Students’ constructive contribution (e.g., offering input, asking questions, and communicating thoughts and interests) to their own learning opportunities I never asked her to explain those (the written feedback) I couldn’t understand. [code: lack of agentic engagement]

Appendix B: Teacher feedback behavior categorization FL = feedback literate, FI = feedback illiterate.

Feedback Teacher feedback behaviour Categories Criteria
FL FI
Teacher written feedback Requiring multiple drafts based on teacher written feedback √ Lee (2021), p. 1055: “encouraging revision in multiple-draft classrooms”
Providing feedback on both global and language issues √ Hyland (2003), p. 184: “Admonishments to teachers to avoid attention to form and focus on meaning therefore seem misplaced … Although teachers should not be excessively focused on eradicating errors, they should also be careful to avoid emphasizing ideas to the neglect of form.”
Given limited amount of written feedback √ Lee (2019): avoid overwhelming students by giving too much WCF
Justifying the limited written feedback √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: “Attending to personal and affective dimension”
Giving fuzzy written feedback with casual codes √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: “Providing actionable commentary that is concrete and text-specific”
Explaining the codes very late √ Winstone and Boud (2022), p. 660: “feedback information can come too late to be of use”
Withholding marks √ Winstone and Boud (2022), p. 657: “the grade or mark (a summative evaluation) might obscure students’ attention to the formative purpose of feedback information”
Long turnovers √ Lee (2021), p. 1056: “feedback occurs throughout the teaching-learning-assessment cycle in a timely … fashion”
Writing conference Inviting students to have writing conferences during recess time √ Lee (2021), p. 1056 – “written feedback followed by conferencing to clarify issues”
Asking the student to initiate the discussion. √ Lee (2021), p. 1056: “feedback literate teachers engage students actively in the feedback process”
When she was lost what to ask, letting her go quickly after brief comments. √ Lee (2021), p. 1056: “feedback literate teachers engage students actively in the feedback process” p. 1056
Setting aside a session for writing conference √ Lee (2021), p. 1056: “written feedback followed by conferencing to clarify issues”
Improvising on students’ shared problems √ Lee (2021): p. 1051 “Feedback literate teachers give feedback according to the needs of the context”
Exemplar Mobilizing resources beyond the textbook √ Boud and Dawson (2023), pp. 161–162: “Use available resources well”
Focusing on ideas, organization & transition √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: prioritizing “higher-order goals of communication without having to address every single issue”
Emphasizing words students need but beyond their ability √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: “Feedback literate teachers provide learner-focused feedback, meeting students in their ZPD to maximize their learning.”
Contrasting exemplar strengths with students’ weakness √ Carless et al. (2018). p. 109: “During the comparison of their own work with that of the exemplars, students see different ways of approaching the task.”
Not involving the students √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: “Feedback literate teachers do not dominate the feedback process but share responsibility with students”
AWE feedback Urging students to use computer-generated feedback in lieu of teacher feedback √ Li et al. (2015), p. 10: “they [students] can use AWE feedback to correct basic grammar errors, but need instructor’s help on larger issues such as organization and rhetorical strategies ”
Asking students about experience with computer-generated feedback √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: “Attending to personal and affective dimension”
Not responding to students’ negative experiences with computer-generated feedback √ Lee (2021), p. 1054: “Attending to personal and affective dimension”
Requiring students to use computer-generated feedback without getting involved √ Li et al. (2015), p. 14: “students need full support to process the AWE feedback”

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Received: 2023-06-17
Accepted: 2023-10-23
Published Online: 2023-11-07
Published in Print: 2025-06-26

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Unpacking the positioning of being “disengaged” and “disrespectful” in class through nexus analysis: an international student’s navigation of institutional and interactional university norms
  4. Assessing English language learners’ collocation knowledge: a systematic review of receptive and productive measurements
  5. The role of awareness in implicit and explicit knowledge
  6. Intensity of CLIL exposure and L2 motivation in primary school: evidence from Spanish EFL learners in non-CLIL, low-CLIL and high-CLIL programmes
  7. Promoting young EFL learners’ oral production through storytelling: coursebook adaptation in the Vietnamese classroom
  8. Applying embodied meaning of spatial prepositions and the Principled Polysemy model to teaching English as a second language: the case of to and on
  9. The impact of guessing and retrieval strategies for learning phrasal verbs
  10. Unraveling the differential effects of task rehearsal and task repetition on L2 task performance: the mediating role of task modality
  11. Examining L2 studentsʼ development of global cohesion and its relationship with their argumentative essay quality
  12. The construct of integrated group discussion (IGD) among undergraduate students: to what extent does group discussion performance reflect performance on IGD tasks?
  13. Discipline-specific attitudinal differences of EMI students towards translanguaging
  14. Relationship between second language vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning strategy use: a meta-analysis of correlational studies
  15. Evaluative language in undergraduate academic writing: expressions of attitude as sources of text effectiveness in English as a Foreign Language
  16. Investigating optimal spacing schedules for incidental acquisition of L2 collocations
  17. The association between socioeconomic status and Chinese secondary students’ English achievement: mediation of self-efficacy and moderation of gender
  18. Integrated instruction of Appraisal Theory and rhetorical moves in literature reviews: an exploratory study
  19. Scaffolding in genre-based L2 writing classes: Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices
  20. Exploring the professional role identities of English for academic purposes practitioners: a qualitative study
  21. The combined effects of task repetition and post-task teacher-corrected transcribing on complexity, accuracy and fluency of L2 oral performance
  22. Teacher behaviour and student engagement with L2 writing feedback: a case study
  23. The effect of an intervention focused on academic language on CAF measures in the multilingual writing of secondary students
  24. Which approach best promoted low-proficiency learners’ listening performance: metacognitive, bottom-up or a combination of both?
  25. Enhancing young EFL learners’ written skills: the role of repeated pre-task planning
  26. The mediating roles of resilience and motivation in the relationship between students’ English learning burnout and engagement: a conservation-of-resources perspective
  27. Student and teacher beliefs about oral corrective feedback in junior secondary English classrooms
  28. The effects of context, story-type, and language proficiency on EFL word learning and retention from reading
https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2023-0132
Keywords for this article
L2 writing feedback; teacher behaviour; student engagement; teacher feedback behaviour; teacher non-feedback behaviour

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Unpacking the positioning of being “disengaged” and “disrespectful” in class through nexus analysis: an international student’s navigation of institutional and interactional university norms
  4. Assessing English language learners’ collocation knowledge: a systematic review of receptive and productive measurements
  5. The role of awareness in implicit and explicit knowledge
  6. Intensity of CLIL exposure and L2 motivation in primary school: evidence from Spanish EFL learners in non-CLIL, low-CLIL and high-CLIL programmes
  7. Promoting young EFL learners’ oral production through storytelling: coursebook adaptation in the Vietnamese classroom
  8. Applying embodied meaning of spatial prepositions and the Principled Polysemy model to teaching English as a second language: the case of to and on
  9. The impact of guessing and retrieval strategies for learning phrasal verbs
  10. Unraveling the differential effects of task rehearsal and task repetition on L2 task performance: the mediating role of task modality
  11. Examining L2 studentsʼ development of global cohesion and its relationship with their argumentative essay quality
  12. The construct of integrated group discussion (IGD) among undergraduate students: to what extent does group discussion performance reflect performance on IGD tasks?
  13. Discipline-specific attitudinal differences of EMI students towards translanguaging
  14. Relationship between second language vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary learning strategy use: a meta-analysis of correlational studies
  15. Evaluative language in undergraduate academic writing: expressions of attitude as sources of text effectiveness in English as a Foreign Language
  16. Investigating optimal spacing schedules for incidental acquisition of L2 collocations
  17. The association between socioeconomic status and Chinese secondary students’ English achievement: mediation of self-efficacy and moderation of gender
  18. Integrated instruction of Appraisal Theory and rhetorical moves in literature reviews: an exploratory study
  19. Scaffolding in genre-based L2 writing classes: Vietnamese EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices
  20. Exploring the professional role identities of English for academic purposes practitioners: a qualitative study
  21. The combined effects of task repetition and post-task teacher-corrected transcribing on complexity, accuracy and fluency of L2 oral performance
  22. Teacher behaviour and student engagement with L2 writing feedback: a case study
  23. The effect of an intervention focused on academic language on CAF measures in the multilingual writing of secondary students
  24. Which approach best promoted low-proficiency learners’ listening performance: metacognitive, bottom-up or a combination of both?
  25. Enhancing young EFL learners’ written skills: the role of repeated pre-task planning
  26. The mediating roles of resilience and motivation in the relationship between students’ English learning burnout and engagement: a conservation-of-resources perspective
  27. Student and teacher beliefs about oral corrective feedback in junior secondary English classrooms
  28. The effects of context, story-type, and language proficiency on EFL word learning and retention from reading
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