The Effective Feedback Practices in a Large EFL Writing Class in Indonesia

Providing Corrective Feedback (CF) on linguistic errors in second language (L2) students’ writing is one of the pivotal concerns for the L2 language teachers in Second Language (SL) contexts. CF methods comprises of Oral feedback-Written feedback, Direct feedback-Indirect feedback; Feedback on the first draft-Feedback on the final draft, Feedback on form-Feedback on content. In a teacher-centered approach, CF was often delivered by the teacher. However, in the recently developed student-centered learning, CF is also delivered by the peers. While there have been mixed opinions regarding the impact of teacher feedback and peer feedback on ESL writing skills, an empirical analysis of CF practices by teachers and peers in a large ESL class remains unexplored. In this regard, the purpose of this study is also to investigate and determine which of the Corrective Feedback methods is more beneficial in improving L2 students’ writing outcome (i.e., Teacher Feedback or Peer Feedback) in a large ESL L2 classroom in Indonesia. Specifically, the study tries to evaluate the feedback sources in the backdrop of types of feedback. The study demonstrates that even though L2 students preferred teacher feedback over peer feedback, peer feedback enabled to enhance the students L2 writing skills. Additionally, for teacher/peer feedback, the students preferred Direct feedback, Feedback on the final draft, and Feedback on form. But, L2 students preferred oral peer feedback and written teacher feedback.