Teachers’ Perceptions of Written Corrective Feedback in the English L2 Classroom in Sweden

Sammanfattning: Providing feedback on learners’ written production is an integral part of English as a second language (L2) teaching, and it is thus important that teachers know when and how to apply such feedback, and how it affects learners. In the current study, we use a semi-structured interview design focusing on the concepts of implementation, motivation and emotion to explore teacher beliefs regarding the usefulness and reception of written corrective feedback (WCF) in a Swedish, lower-secondary L2 English teaching context. Four lower-secondary school English L2 teachers who used WCF regularly in their work participated in the study. It was found that teachers consider WCF given in the form of metalinguistic feedback to be the most commonly used type of feedback. Metalinguistic feedback was seen as an effective way of giving feedback on repeated errors. WCF was reported as having a positive effect on some learners’ motivation. However, the teachers also expressed a concern that the feedback could demotivate weaker learners if it was too extensive and because of this reported choosing to limit or adapt their feedback in such cases. They also stressed the importance of teachers knowing the learners to help avoid evoking negative emotions when receiving their feedback. In light of these results, we argue that teachers should be mindful of factors that could affect their learners, both positively and negatively, in connection with providing WCF in the L2 classroom.