Exploring L2 students’ experiences with an integrated teacher written and spoken feedback strategy

Abstract

AbstractThis qualitative case study explores second‐language (L2) students’ experiences through their sequential exposure to teacher written and spoken feedback that was offered from a meaning‐making perspective (i.e., the perspective that highlights the relationship between language resources and meaning). The study drew on L2 students’ interviews, reflections, their sequential interactions with teacher written and spoken feedback, and their writing pieces collected from an English writing course at a Chinese university. The study showed that meaning‐making‐based teacher written feedback afforded L2 students time to independently digest and address their writing issues related to the relationship between language and meaning, despite the observable confusions students encountered. Echoing teacher written feedback, teacher spoken feedback, as a follow‐up, further highlighted writing as a meaning‐making process, dynamically helping the students to understand or challenge the written feedback and mitigating contextual constraints on their uptake of teacher written feedback. These findings underscore the usefulness of sequentially implementing teacher written and spoken feedback, especially from a meaning‐making perspective, to sensitize L2 students to the relationship between language and meaning and to enhance their success in writing.