How Does that Make You Feel: Students’ Affective Engagement with Feedback

Abstract

Understanding how students engage with written feedback (WF) on L2 writing is crucial. Given the mediating role of learner perceptions and beliefs about WF (including in relation to teacher behaviour and perceived persona), our research explores learner perceptions and affective responses to – or affective engagement with –WF in a university context. Furthermore, because it has been shown that learners relate differently to native and nonnative English-speaking teachers, who themselves relate differently to WF, we investigate how Chinese students engage with WF given by a Chinese English teacher (CET) and a native English-speaking English teacher (NET). Ninety-nine Chinese undergraduates at an East China University participated in the study. They received anonymous feedback from three NETs and three CETs, and then completed a survey about their feelings and reactions regarding the feedback received. Our results indicate that student writers expect to receive feedback that is detailed without overwhelming with corrections. When the WF provided in this study met these requirements, it stirred positive feelings in the students. More and more detailed WF was associated with feeling “moved,” “touched,” and “motivated,” and seemed to encourage the students to follow up with revisions and other actions. In all the aspects investigated, the NETs’ WF and approach was appreciated more positively than that of the Chinese teachers. The latter provided less WF, which was also more unclear and included a higher proportion of written corrective feedback (WCF). We propose recommendations for increasing student-teacher interaction and communication about feedback to improve student engagement with feedback.