Abstract:
EFL teachers are keen on planning various strategies that can help students improve their
writing skills. One way of improving students’ writing is teachers’ feedback. As the past studies
indicated, both teachers and students gave credit for teachers’ written feedback in EFL
classroom. However, in my school contexts, students have low writing proficiency. They were
unable to write even a word, let alone write a sentence or a paragraph level. This might be that
something went wrong with the implementation of teachers’ written feedback in EFL classroom.
Hence, the main purpose of the study was to explore the practice of teachers’ written feedback
on students’ writing: the case of grade 9 students at Sanka Secondary and Preparatory School.
To achieve the objectives of the study, an exploratory research design was employed along with
mixed approaches (i.e. both qualitative and quantitative approaches). A sample of 120 students
was drawn from out of 400 students in 9 sections using simple random technique (lottery
method). Thus, the researcher utilized three data gathering instruments such as questionnaire,
interview and document analysis checklist. The questionnaire was administered to 120 students.
The data obtained from them were organized, tabulated and analyzed using simple descriptive
statistics such as number, percentages and mean values. In addition, six EFL teachers were
selected for interview using purposive sampling technique. The data was recorded and analyzed
thematically. To look into whether EFL teachers provided written feedback in EFL classroom,
the researcher collected a sample of students’ note books and writing assignments. The findings
of the study indicated that teachers did not provide the appropriate written feedback in the EFL
classroom. Moreover, teachers’ written feedback mainly focused on language form (such as
grammar and words/expressions) than content and organization. The study also indicated time
constraints, large class size, and students’ poor language proficiency were the major factors that
hindered the implementation of written feedback. The study ends with recommendations to
improve the current practices and to sketch avenue for future research