Focusing on form: student engagement with teacher feedback

This paper explores the relationship between teacher feedback and student revision in two academic writing classes. The study adopts a case study approach and looks at all the feedback given to six students over a complete course. Using data from teacher think aloud protocols, teacher and student interviews and student texts, it examines the extent to which teachers focused on formal language concerns when they gave feedback and the use that students made of this feedback in their revisions. Findings suggest that despite the teachers’ beliefs and teaching approaches, language accuracy was a very important focus for their feedback. While most of the students engaged with this feedback when revising their drafts, the extent to which they used it varied among the case study subjects. Two case studies who made consistent and sustained use of form-focused feedback are discussed in greater detail to examine student engagement with form-focused feedback over a complete course.