Exploring Wordless Feedback Mechanisms in an EAP course in an English-medium University: An Ethnographically-oriented Approach

Feedback is considered an integral part of the writing process. It has thus engendered the attention of scholars in discourse analysis, applied linguistics, language education, composition and rhetoric studies, and English for Specific Purposes. This attention, however, is heavily tilted towards worded feedback, at the expense of wordless feedback. Thus, this study explored the use of wordless feedback mechanisms in an EAP course in an English-medium university in Ghana. Thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine scripts of students’ essays, and interviews with academics and students constituted the datasets for the study. By doing a qualitative content analysis, we extracted wordless feedback codes from the scripts. The study yielded that teachers used tick, ring, vertical lines, arrows, question marks, carets, and underline as feedback mechanisms. The responses from the teachers and students on the use of these codes indicated that there were variations at three levels: inter-teacher, inter-student and teacher-student, which resulted to miscommunication in the feedback system. The study calls for a standardized feedback code, and education of teachers and students on this system of feedback for effective teaching and learning.