İngilizce öğretmeni adaylarının İngilizce yazma derslerinde verilen geri bildirim tercihleri

The main objective of this study is to interpret the results of a survey conducted oncandidate EFL teachers to reveal their preferences about error correction in writing classes. Toaccomplish this, 32 last-year students from AIBU(Abant Izzet Baysal University) and 28 lastyearstudents from HU (Hacettepe University) were surveyed using an instrument. The surveygathered information on forth-year foreign language education department students' feedbackpreferences by focusing on students' feelings about the importance of errors in general, andabout different kinds of errors; how often they looked carefully at comments in differentareas, including content and organization as well as language; how they wanted the teacher todeal with errors; and how they acted on feedback. Also, students' preferences for differenterror correction techniques were revealed.In addition to items investigating student preferences for different feedback techniques(i.e. using symbols or codes, underlining the mistakes, directly correcting of the written text,conferencing and showing students the reference to help them find their errors themselves),this survey includes items about various feedback foci (i.e. grammar, spelling, punctuation,vocabulary, content, and organization) on student compositions.Also, the question whether there is a relationship between gender and error correctionpreferences was analyzed.In analysis and presentation of the data derived from this study, SPSS 13 wasused. In analysis of the data, the Chi-square test was used.At the end of this study it was observed that there is not a significant differencebetween two universities in terms of feedback techniques and feedback focus. Both Hacettepeand Abant Izzet Baysal University's forth-year ELT students came up with similar responsesto the survey. No significant difference related to students' preferences at two universities wasseen on the following variables: grammar, spelling, vocabulary choice, punctuation,organizations, and content. It was revealed that AIBU and HU students' general beliefs abouthow they wanted the teacher to deal with errors; and how they acted on feedback show nodifferences. Moreover, AIBU and HU students have similar preferences of different correctiontechniques, which are "using symbols or codes, underlining the mistakes, directly correctingthe written text, conferencing, showing students the reference to help them find their errorsthemselves and no correction". Finally, it was proven that there is not a significantrelationship between gender and error correction preferences.The findings of this study give a general insight to researchers and teachers of EnglishLanguage in terms of preferred types of error correction and the focus given to certain errorsby the students. Researchers and educators might benefit from the results of this study whilegiving feedback to their students in their English writing classes.Key Words: error correctionlstudents' preferenceslfeedback