Individual Face-To-Face Feedback and the Saudi EFL Learners: Evaluating Enhancement of Writing Skills

Abstract

This research analyzed Saudi undergraduate students’ writing before and after individual face-to-face feedback. The intervention was in the nature of individual written feedback on Saudi EFL students' paragraph writing. The participants were 23 EFL Saudi students exposed to a pre and post-test across six criteria that targeted to evaluate their writing with individual corrective feedback from the teacher. The intervention was one semester long. The study reported that individual corrective feedback plays an important role in developing students' writing skills. Results showed that development occurred in all the six criteria evaluation criteria adapted from Savage and Shafiei (2007), with significant statistical values (Sig. <.05). Furthermore, the criteria were ranked as: inclusion of specific words; inclusion of correct adjectives; writing good conclusion; writing good topic sentence; adding more descriptive details; and the use of background information. The study recommends making use of face-to-face corrective feedback in developing students' abilities in different language skills.