Feedback literacy and student engagement with WCF by beginner JFL learners: a classroom study

Abstract While written corrective feedback (WCF) is intended to help learners build new knowledge, student engagement with WCF is not always satisfactory, partly due to a lack of sufficient feedback literacy. Despite recent advances in understanding students’ feedback literacy and engagement with WCF, two groups have received limited attention: learners of languages other than English (LOTEs), such as Japanese, and beginners. To address this gap, this study explores feedback literacy and engagement with WCF of three beginner learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). Data were collected through background questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, student essays, stimulated recall sessions, reflective accounts, classroom observations, and course documents. The findings reveal that feedback literacy is multi-faceted, emergent, and situated. Additionally, the participants drew on L1 writing experiences to address errors and used WCF to reflect on and adjust their writing processes due to their lack of writing experiences in Japanese. The students also displayed varying levels of cognitive, behavioral, and affective engagement with WCF.