L2 Writing Teachers' Perceptions and Problems Regarding Written Corrective Feedback: Does Holding a TEFL Degree matter?

Abstract

SLA research has scarcely explored whether holding a TEFL degree affects teachers' beliefs about written corrective feedback (WCF). The present study was an attempt to survey the perceptions of 47 TEFL-degree holders (TDH) and 39 non-TEFL-degree holders (NTDH) teaching English for general purposes about different aspects of WCF as well as the problems they have putting their perceptions into practice. The participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire eliciting their perceptions about different aspects of written error correction. Ten TDH and 10 NTDH teachers were then randomly selected for the follow-up interview. The findings of the questionnaire and the interview revealed that compared to their counterparts, TDH teachers favored more selective and indirect types of WCF and tended to use more varieties of error correction techniques. Nevertheless, both groups of teachers complained that time constraints largely influenced their amount and type of feedback. The results further suggested that since it was often found baffling to language learners, most teachers did not use a marking code when providing WCF. This study implicates that teacher trainers should pay due attention to NTDH teachers' awareness of SLA theories for teaching grammar and acquaint them with different types of error correction techniques.