Effects of Teacher Response on Learners’ Writing Development, Ideal L2 Writing Self, and Writing Engagement

Research on responding to students’ writing in the second language (L2) domain has grown enormously over the past twenty years and has expanded to include studies that examine how teacher responses affect language learners’ affective states. Following this line of research, the current study investigated the effect of different types of teacher response on L2 learners’ writing development as well as their ideal L2 writing self (IL2WS) and writing engagement. A total of 103 intermediate students of four intact classes were recruited, each receiving either feedback, feedforward, feedback and feedforward, or no response. Participants received their respective responses on five writing assignments, completed the IL2WS questionnaire and Writing Engagement Scale, and wrote two assignments as pretest and posttest. Data analysis indicated that all three experimental groups developed their writing proficiency from pretest to posttest. It was found that the Feedback+Feedforward group performed significantly better than all other groups, and the Feedback and Feedforward groups could outperform the Control group but not each other. Moreover, the results showed that groups receiving feedforward alone and in combination with feedback improved in terms of IL2WS and engagement. These results imply teachers should be familiarized with the concept of feedforward and encouraged to employ feedforward in tandem with feedback to help learners make greater learning gains.