Providing written corrective feedback in IELTS writing task 2: EFL teachers’ practices

Abstract

Written corrective feedback (WCF) is viewed as a strategy to improve students’ writing quality, so it is a pivotal part in teaching writing skills. The aim of this study is to delve into how EFL teachers used WCF in IELTS writing courses at five English language centers in Buon Ma Thuot City, Vietnam. Thirty teachers in charge of IELTS courses in these English language centers answered the questionnaire, ten of them took part in the interviews, and 100 essays were collected for textual analysis. The findings showed that more comprehensive feedback than selective feedback was used by the teachers although most of them believed that the use of the focus-based feedback is compatible with students’ level and the course’s aims. In terms of the clarity of feedback, furthermore, the teachers tended to provide direct feedback rather than indirect and meta-linguistic feedback to facilitate learners’ error correction.