Presenter: Icy Lee
PLENARY:
Feedback Literacy Development for EFL Writing Teachers
Icy Lee
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
In L2 writing, “feedback literacy” refers to teachers’ ability to use feedback
effectively to support student learning; it has a vital role to play in helping
teachers deliver useful feedback and in enabling students to utilize feedback
productively to improve their writing. Research, however, has shown that L2
writing teachers generally lack feedback literacy. In EFL contexts, feedback is
primarily error-focused and teacher-dominated; it does not usually have the
intended positive effect, and teachers themselves are ambivalent about the
value of feedback.
Drawing on my previous research on feedback in writing conducted in Hong
Kong classrooms, I examine how EFL teachers develop their feedback
literacy in their specific contexts, consider the factors that facilitate their
feedback literacy development, and discuss the issues and challenges they
face. Through problematizing conventional feedback practices and engaging
in reflective classroom inquiry, teachers can be helped to challenge common,
taken-for-granted assumptions about the purposes and roles of feedback in
EFL writing, and through undertaking small-scale classroom inquiry, teachers
may discover new meanings about feedback in student writing. While teacher
education is found to be a powerful facilitative factor for teachers’ feedback
literacy development, various impediments inherent in teachers’ work
contexts present great challenges to their ongoing feedback literacy
development. I conclude the presentation with implications for EFL writing
teacher feedback literacy development, teacher education, and future
research.
effectively to support student learning; it has a vital role to play in helping
teachers deliver useful feedback and in enabling students to utilize feedback
productively to improve their writing. Research, however, has shown that L2
writing teachers generally lack feedback literacy. In EFL contexts, feedback is
primarily error-focused and teacher-dominated; it does not usually have the
intended positive effect, and teachers themselves are ambivalent about the
value of feedback.
Drawing on my previous research on feedback in writing conducted in Hong
Kong classrooms, I examine how EFL teachers develop their feedback
literacy in their specific contexts, consider the factors that facilitate their
feedback literacy development, and discuss the issues and challenges they
face. Through problematizing conventional feedback practices and engaging
in reflective classroom inquiry, teachers can be helped to challenge common,
taken-for-granted assumptions about the purposes and roles of feedback in
EFL writing, and through undertaking small-scale classroom inquiry, teachers
may discover new meanings about feedback in student writing. While teacher
education is found to be a powerful facilitative factor for teachers’ feedback
literacy development, various impediments inherent in teachers’ work
contexts present great challenges to their ongoing feedback literacy
development. I conclude the presentation with implications for EFL writing
teacher feedback literacy development, teacher education, and future
research.