Towards fostering Saudi EFL learners' collaborative engagement and feedback literacy in writing

Abstract

Learners may find it challenging to effectively engage with teacher feedback due to lacking peer support, especially in solitary engagement activities and learners’ inadequate feedback literacy. Therefore, the current study attempted to overcome these challenges by engaging 15 dyads of Saudi EFL learners in technology-mediated peer dialogue around teacher feedback at the review stage of collaborative writing of argumentative essays over one semester. The study analyzed dyads’ screencast records of immediate peer dialogue in the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, argumentative essays in Google Docs and follow-up interviews. The collaborative approach enticed learners to cognitively, socio-affectively and behaviorally engage with teacher's Google Docs-based feedback on their writing. Despite the dyads’ varying collaborative engagement according to the interaction of feedback manner and nature of errors and the interaction of cognitive processing and socio-affective relations, the learners’ reflection on the activities indicates that collaborative technology-mediated engagement sustained the opportunities for learners to appreciate feedback, make evaluative judgments and manage their negative effects. The study offers useful pedagogical implications for EFL writing instructors in promoting learners' engagement and feedback literacy with educational technology as a productive facilitator.