Examining the Relationships between Feedback Practices and Learning Motivation

While classroom feedback has been shown to be a key mediating factor in students’ learning process and performance, the bulk of current research on feedback in the field of foreign language education has largely focused on how teachers respond to students’ linguistic errors. Published research on how students in a foreign language context respond to different kinds of classroom feedback practice has been sparse. Even less frequently reported is how different forms of classroom feedback practice may cater to students’ motivation in learning. Taking stock of theoretical perspectives concerning feedback and motivation in both educational psychology and language acquisition, this study intends to fill these gaps by investigating what classroom feedback practices tertiary foreign language students experienced, and how these feedback practices were associated with student foreign language learning motivation. Student self-feedback was found to be the most powerful predictor of their motivation for English learning. The results suggest that there is a need for a qualitative change in feedback practices in university foreign language classrooms in order that feedback processes can be deployed more effectively to benefit students’ learning.