Teachers’ Beliefs and Practice about Written Corrective Feedback: A Case Study in a French as a Foreign Language Program

Abstract

Despite ample research examining second (L2) and foreign language (FL) teacher feedback, research situated in French as a foreign language (FFL) contexts is scarce, in particular studies that examine the beliefs and practices of corrective written feedback (WCF) among FFL teachers. The present study seeks to address this gap by investigating the WCF beliefs and practices of FFL teachers in an undergraduate program in Costa Rica. The participants in this study were five teachers teaching in an FFL program in the Modern Languages School at a large university in Costa Rica. Data were gathered using an online questionnaire, a semi-structured interview, and samples of students’ writing with teacher feedback. The findings revealed that the participants held common beliefs concerning writing, teaching writing, feedback provision in an FL, and the interdependent relationship among teaching, learning, and feedback in an FFL writing class. The results also showed that participants’ beliefs and practices regarding various aspects of written corrective feedback (CF) tended to be aligned, specifically in terms of the use of comprehensive indirect error-coded WCF and the use of evaluation grids. Implications and future research avenues are discussed.