The role of redressing teachers’ instructional feedback interventions in EFL learners’ motivation and achievement in distance education

ABSTRACT

This study examined the influence of teachers’ use of face threat mitigation (FTM) strategies on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ state motivation, motivation to process instructional materials, vision of their ideal L2 self, and L2 achievement in a distance course. To this end, sixty-three EFL learners were assigned into one of the two conditions: high FTM condition and low FTM condition. In the high FTM condition, the teacher buffered the threats to the students’ face needs via the use of FTM tactics. In the low FTM condition, the teacher's interventions were, on the other hand, direct and without any efforts to mitigate the possible threats. The results indicated that teachers’ efforts to positively redress their instructional feedback interventions can positively influence EFL learners’ state motivation and motivation to process instructional materials, can promote their vision of their ideal L2 self, and can contribute to language learning success. The study concluded that the way EFL teachers communicate their feedback interventions is as important as, or even more subtle than the forms and the modality of feedback they select.

KEYWORDS:

• Face wants
• face threat mitigation
• state motivation
• motivation to process instructional materials
• ideal L2 self

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Amiryousefi is Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics (TESOL), Department of English, University of Isfahan, Iran. His main areas of interest include Task-Based Language Teaching and Learning, Computer Assisted Language Teaching and Learning, and Individual Differences in Language Teaching and Learning.

Renata Geld is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Head of SLA and TEFL section, Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She is Deputy Director of Doctoral Program in Foreign Language Education and Co-Founder of Zagreb Forum for cognitive science. Her main area of interest is interdisciplinary work pertaining tomarrying cognitive science and (language) education. She has conducted research on strategic meaning construal (monomodal and bimodal) in L2 speakers of English with a variety of L1s (Croatian, Spanish, Arabic, etc.) and with varying personal characteristics, such as congenital and adventitious visual impairment.