Volume 16, Issue 2 August 2020, pp. 85–105 
Regular Papers
Postgraduate instructors’ formative feedback on EFL students’ assignments in email communication: A gender-based study
Ghaleb Rabab'ah1, Souad Belgrimet2
1 University of Sharjah, United Arab
Emirates 
2 The University of Jordan, Jordan
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29140/jaltcall.v16n2.188
Abstract
The present study seeks to delve into the intricacies of feedback strategies adopted by male and female Jordanian EFL postgraduate university instructors when responding to their students’ assignment submissions and inquiries via asynchronous communication mode, namely email communication, to see if there are any significant differences in their use of these strategies due to the gender of the instructors (male vs. female). A corpus of 180 emails was put under investigation (90 sent by male teachers and 90 sent by female instructors). These were analyzed quantitatively using a t-test to capture if there are significant differences in the use of formative feedback strategies between male and female Jordanian efl instructors. The analysis was couched within a set of frameworks which all provided different types of corrective feedback, namely, Schute (2008) and Narciss and Huth (2004). Subsequently, a qualitative analysis followed in order to show how and why teachers implement a given formative feedback strategy. The findings indicate that female instructors employed more formative feedback strategies in comparison with their male counterparts. The most frequently used strategy among female teachers was direct feedback, the provision of cues and information tutoring, while male teachers made more use of questioning and in a number of emails, they provided no feedback. In light of the findings of the present study, some pedagogical implications might come to the fore.
Copyright
© Ghaleb Rabab'ah, Souad Belgrimet
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Suggested citation
Rabab'ah, G., & Belgrimet, S. (2020). Postgraduate instructors’ formative feedback on EFL students’ assignments in email communication: A gender-based study. The JALT CALL Journal, 16(2), 85–105. https://doi.org/10.29140/jaltcall.v16n2.188
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