Teachers’ and Students’ Beliefs About Responding to ESL Writing: A Case Study

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The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL instructors’ feedback techniques and the rationales behind these techniques, to explore ESL students’ beliefs about the relative effectiveness of various types of feedback, and to compare students’ beliefs with those of their instructors. A university-level ESL instructor and two of her students participated in this case study. Data were collected by think-aloud protocols and semistructured interviews, and results revealed four major catego- ries: (a) types of feedback the instructor emphasized, (b) the instructor’s beliefs about teaching writing, (c) students’ beliefs about learning to write, and (d) students’ views on the effectiveness of teachers’ feedback strategies. Because some of the instructor’s beliefs seemed to conflict with her students’ views, it was concluded that teachers should make an effort to explore their students’ beliefs about writing, feedback, and error correction and to try to bridge any gap between their own and their students’ expectations.