Instructor’s Written Feedback in Emergency Remote Teaching: EFL Learners’ Perspectives

In language education, instructor’s feedback is considered to be of high value as it provides learners with individualized attention. Regarding the absence of personal interaction between learners and instructors in remote teaching, it is expected that instructor’s feedback plays a more significant role compared to the case in face-to-face education because it does not only help to increase learners’ performance in the target language and but it also serves as a tool in building a strong relationship between learners and instructor. Based on this, the present paper which was designed as a case study attempted to reveal university level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ perspectives on written feedback given by their instructor on their writing assignments on the distance education platform of the university in emergency remote teaching. The data were collected through interviews conducted with eight English preparatory class students and the instructor’s research diary. Thematic analysis was carried out on the collected data. The findings showed the interviewees had positive viewpoints about the instructor’s written feedback. They stated that the instructor’s feedback had an interpersonal side, gave them affective support and helped them improve in the target language. Moreover, the use of online distance education platform for giving feedback was found to be useful by the interviewees in that it provided the learners with the opportunity to have access to the feedback documents whenever they wanted. The results may imply new insights into the way foreign language instructors give written feedback. Dil eğitiminde öğretmenin geri bildirimi, öğrencilere bireyselleştirilmiş ilgi sağladığından oldukça değerli kabul edilir. Uzaktan eğitimde öğrenciler ve öğretmen arasında kişisel etkileşim yokluğu hesaba katıldığında, öğretmen tarafından sağlanan geri bildirimlerin yüz yüze eğitime göre daha önemli bir rol oynaması beklenir. Çünkü bu geri bildirimler sadece öğrencilerin performansının artmasına yardımcı olmakla kalmaz, öğrenciler ve öğretmen arasında güçlü bir ilişki kurmak için de araç görevi görür. Buna dayanarak, vaka çalışması olarak tasarlan bu makalede, üniversite düzeyinde yabancı dil olarak İngilizce öğrenen öğrencilerin, acil uzaktan öğretimde üniversitenin uzaktan eğitim platformundaki yazı ödevlerine öğretmenleri tarafından sağlanan yazılı geri bildirimlere ilişkin bakış açıları ortaya konulmaya çalışılmıştır. Veriler, sekiz İngilizce haz