Teachers’ and Learners’ Beliefs about Corrective Feedback and Error Correction in Writing at a Spanish Secondary Education Institution

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate English-as-a-foreign language teachers’ and students’ beliefs and concerns regarding corrective feedback in writing. This paper also includes the teachers’ actual practices of error correction and feedback provided in writing compositions in two different courses at a high school in Spain. In order to obtain accurate data, a questionnaire was delivered to both the teachers and the learners. First, teachers completed their questionnaires, and after that, they explained their responses in depth in a following non-structured interview. Second, learners of the two courses filled out their questionnaires. After analysing the results, an interview in both courses to know the students’ thoughts on the questionnaires’ statements was carried out. The findings revealed that there were discrepancies between the teachers’ beliefs and their actual feedback practices. Although there was a common belief in the ideal participation of the learners in the error correction process in writing, most teachers did not spend class hours to clarify or explain their learners’ written errors. Accordingly, the teachers stated that it was more practical and less time-consuming to provide the students with the correct form of their written errors. Concerning the students’ findings, surprisingly, they advocated for participating more actively in the error correction and feedback process in class. Finally, the results of the study suggested that the students’ and teachers’ beliefs did not match due mainly to an absence of communication.