EFL Student-Directed Feedback for Improving Academic Writing Skills in Thailand

Abstract

Exploring how written corrective feedback can help learners optimize their writing skills has always been an interest to teachers in the field of English language teaching. This action research involves a group of 28 intermediate English as Foreign Language students in the English as a Foreign Language Grammar course with an emphasis on academic writing development at an international university in Thailand. The study focuses on two academic essays produced by the learners over a 14-week semester in which students are required to submit two drafts of each of the essays on the assigned topics. Student-Directed Feedback is used to allow the students to choose between various delivery formats for the feedback and ask some specific questions about their work to which the students need answering. With questionnaires also surveying students’ attitudes given at the end of the course, it is revealed that Student-Directed Feedback has had perceived positive effects on most of the students in terms of feedback particularity, personalisation and higher learner autonomy.