Abstract

While recent research on written corrective feedback (WCF) has elaborated on the connection between teachers’ beliefs and practices, little research has investigated EFL teachers’ WCF as a multifaceted notion. Drawing on activity theory (AT), in this case, study, we aimed at presenting a picture of EFL teachers’ beliefs about WCF and how their beliefs interrelate with their WCF practices. To this end, we collected data from three EFL teachers working at a private language center in Iran. The data were collected from multiple resources including semi-structured interviews, teachers’ WCF on sample essays, and stimulated recall interviews. The results showed that teachers’ beliefs did not align with their practices as far as the scope and type of WCF are concerned. Teachers’ beliefs, on the other hand, corresponded to their practices regarding the types of errors they targeted. Teachers’ reasoning for (mis)alignments of their beliefs and practices were analyzed from an AT perspective and were then matched against an activity system diagram.

摘要

尽管最近对书面纠正性反馈（WCF）的研究详细阐述了教师的信念和实践之间的联系，但很少有研究将EFL教师的WCF作为多方面的概念进行调查。在本案例中，我们将基于活动理论（AT）进行研究，目的是展示EFL教师对WCF的信念以及他们的信念与WCF实践之间的相互关系的图片。为此，我们从在伊朗的一家私人语言中心工作的三位EFL老师收集了数据。数据是从多种资源中收集的，包括半结构化访谈，教师对样本论文的WCF和激发回忆访谈。结果表明，就WCF的范围和类型而言，教师的信念与他们的实践不符。另一方面，教师的信念 与他们针对他们所针对的错误类型的实践相对应。从AT的角度分析了教师对他们的信念和实践的（错误）调整的推理，然后将其与活动系统图相匹配。