The effectiveness of standardised feedback when L2 students revise writing

Abstract

Despite an ongoing debate about the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of feedback on student writing, the practice prevails in educational settings. Louw (2006) hypothesises that the concept of feedback is sound, but the practice needs refinement. One such attempt is standardising written feedback on student writing. This article reports on an experiment which tested the relative effectiveness of normal feedback techniques against a standardised method of providing feedback. The aim was to determine which technique was more effective when students had to revise texts based on the feedback. The results indicate that the standardisation of feedback solves certain problems associated with feedback on student writing, but it also highlights certain underlying problems with regard to teacher focus, learner attitude and learner focus.

Keywords:

• CALL (computer-assisted language learning)
• comprehensive marking
• feedback
• L2 writing
• marking
• minimal marking
• revision
• student writing