A MODEL OF FEEDBACK MADE ON STUDENTS’ WRITING Case of second year students at the University centre of Khenchela

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of content feedback on students’ writing performance. We hypothesize that using content feedback would improve students’ writing. The participants in this study are second year students in the department of English at the university centre of Khenchela. Our work is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, we provide the reader with an overview of the writing skill. We explore the writing process and identify the different activities characterizing it in addition to its different types. We end up with an overview of some approaches and views for teaching writing. We focus on the process approach since it gives importance to revising and providing feedback. In the second chapter, we introduce feedback on students' written work. We define it, explore its nature and shed light on its different types and some useful techniques. We also precise teacher's role and students' as well, answer important questions such as what should we correct? When to correct? How to correct? What should we focus on? We also consider students' responses and examine teachers and students preferences. In the third chapter, we will shed light on the different views concerning feedback according to different approaches used in teaching writing. We show the different views of product against process approach and cite some studies turning around form versus content. In the fourth chapter, we introduce the research design and the methodology used in order to test our hypotheses. An experimental design was implemented. Sixty second year students participated in this experiment divided into a control group and an experimental one. At the beginning of the experiment a pre-test was held for both groups under the same conditions. During a period of three months, the experimental group received content feedback on their written productions whereas the control group received no feedback. After the experimental iii treatment, again under the same conditions a post-test was held for the two groups. In the fifth chapter, we present the data collected from the experiment. The quantitative data from a control group and an experimental one are compared and analyzed. The comparison shows that students’ writing in the experimental group highly improves and the number of mistakes decreases due to content feedback. Thus, our hypothesis that the use of content feedback would improve students’ writing is clearly proved.