Abstract:
Within the general educational context and in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL) context, feedback is considered as one of the most powerful tools to improve student learning. Not all feedback, however, has the capacity to promote this improvement. While there have been a number of studies on feedback, little is known about the nature of teachers’ and students’ beliefs and practices of oral feedback and how these influence students’ spoken English language learning. Framed within a qualitative interpretive inquiry, this case study aimed to generate an in-depth understanding about oral feedback – more specifically, the beliefs and practices about oral feedback of three Year 11 teachers and six of their students (18 students in total) in three different senior high schools in Indonesia. Data were collected through semi structured interviews, a series of observations and artefacts. Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis and the datasets from observations were analysed using two frameworks to identify the types of feedback the teachers used and the students’ responses to this feedback. Findings revealed that teachers and students believed oral feedback had a key role to play in improving students’ spoken English language learning, and the way this improvement could be achieved was through the teacher’s corrections of mistakes and use of praise. Students thought of their teachers as knowledgeable experts whose role was to tell them about the correctness of their oral utterances. Collectively, these beliefs are closely linked to a traditional view of learning and feedback. Notwithstanding this finding, a number of students wanted opportunities to engage in dialogue with their teachers regarding the feedback they received– this suggested they may be developing a more contemporary understanding of feedback and a sense of feedback literacy.
