Teacher Feedback on Grammar Errors: Stimulus for Learning or Confidence Breaker?

There is no universal view on written corrective feedback, the existing research does not agree on whether it is effective or not. Therefore, this degree paper aims to find out if teachers engage in written corrective feedback, and if so, then also how they do it. Moreover, this it gives an insight into the previous research on the area, which is compared to the findings of this paper. This study is based on a survey which 27 English teachers at the upper secondary school answered, and the follow-up semi-structured interviews with three of the 27 participants in the survey. The findings include that the teachers who participated in the survey of this paper do engage in written corrective feedback to a large extent. In addition, the teachers also reported that they do so most often through providing students with comments in the margin of the students’ texts. The three conclusions of this degree paper are as follows. Firstly, the interviewed teachers believe that their written corrective feedback improves their students’ proficiency. Secondly, the most common methods for providing written corrective feedback amongst the teachers are also the most time consuming alternative. Thirdly, when it comes to scaffolding, the most common method amongst the participating teachers is providing students with information where students can find the correct answer, as the teachers argue this creates a learning opportunity for the students