Feedback on EFL writing: Maximising Learner Uptake and Minimising Teacher Time.

Giving learners feedback on their ESL writing is central to the image of teaching held by the majority of both teachers and learners, (Hyland and Hyland, 2006, Bitchener and and Ferris, 2012). However, despite extensive research over the last 20 years and more, there are still a range of questions about how best to provide feedback, and how effective different kinds of feedback are in different contexts. (Ellis, 2009) Since providing feedback on writing is one of the most time-consuming tasks for teachers, the balance between time the effectiveness of the feedback and the time spent on giving it is one of the most important of these questions. (Ene and Upton, 2018) This presentation describes a study which explored feedback methods used in A2/B1 level classes with relatively large teacher-student ratios, with a special focus on reducing the overall time teachers needed to spend on feedback, while at the same time increasing the usefulness of that feedback to learners. These methods included targeted feedback, aggregated group feedback, online feedback, spaced-interval feedback, and indirect versus direct feedback. The paper will outline some general principles, and give concrete suggestions for time-efficient practice.