Cheng Xiaolong, Zhang Lawrence Jun
School of Foreign Languages, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, China.
Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Front Psychol. 2021 Feb 4;12:629921. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.629921. eCollection 2021.
While previous studies have examined front-line teachers' written feedback practices in second language (L2) writing classrooms, such studies tend to not take teachers' language and sociocultural backgrounds into consideration, which may mediate their performance in written feedback provision. Therefore, much remains to be known about how L2 writing teachers with different first languages (L1) enact written feedback. To fill this gap, we designed an exploratory study to examine native English-speaking (NES) and non-native English-speaking (NNES) (i.e., Chinese L1) teachers' written feedback practices in the Chinese tertiary context. Our study collected 80 English as a foreign language (EFL) students' writing samples with teacher written feedback and analyzed them from three aspects: Feedback scope, feedback focus, and feedback strategy. The findings of our study revealed that the two groups of teachers shared similar practices regarding feedback scope and feedback strategies. Both NES and NNES EFL teachers used a comprehensive approach to feedback provision, although NNES teachers provided significantly more feedback points than their NES peers and they delivered their feedback directly and indirectly. However, their practices differed greatly with regard to feedback focus. Specifically, when responding to EFL students' writing, NES teachers showed more concern with global issues (i.e., content and organization), whereas NNES teachers paid more attention to linguistic errors. With a surge in the recruitment of expatriate NES and local NNES English teachers in China and other EFL countries, our study is expected to make a contribution to a better understanding of the two groups of EFL teachers' pedagogical practices in written feedback provision and generate important implications for their feedback provision.
虽然之前的研究考察了第二语言（L2）写作课堂中一线教师的书面反馈实践，但这类研究往往没有考虑教师的语言和社会文化背景，而这些背景可能会影响他们在提供书面反馈时的表现。因此，对于不同母语（L1）的第二语言写作教师如何实施书面反馈，仍有许多有待了解的地方。为了填补这一空白，我们设计了一项探索性研究，以考察在中国高等教育背景下，以英语为母语的（NES）教师和非英语母语的（NNES）（即母语为中文）教师的书面反馈实践。我们的研究收集了80份有教师书面反馈的外语（EFL）学生写作样本，并从反馈范围、反馈重点和反馈策略三个方面进行了分析。我们的研究结果表明，两组教师在反馈范围和反馈策略方面有相似的做法。NES和NNES的EFL教师都采用了全面的反馈方式，尽管NNES教师提供的反馈点比NES教师多得多，而且他们直接和间接地给出反馈。然而，他们在反馈重点方面的做法有很大不同。具体来说，在回应EFL学生的写作时，NES教师更关注全局性问题（即内容和组织），而NNES教师则更关注语言错误。随着中国和其他EFL国家对外籍NES英语教师和本土NNES英语教师招聘的增加，我们的研究有望有助于更好地理解这两组EFL教师在书面反馈提供方面的教学实践，并为他们的反馈提供产生重要启示。
