Using screen-cast to explore language learners’ engagement with teacher oral feedback across time

Abstract

Feedback engagement is believed to play a critical role in facilitating learning outcomes. Nevertheless, in contexts other than second language writing, little is known about how learners engage with teacher oral feedback over time or how it influences learning outcomes. This is associated with a lack of proper instruments to probe into the implicit process of engagement. In an attempt to address these questions, this study adopted a longitudinal perspective enabled by screen-casts to explore feedback engagement of three interpreting learners concerning their oral interpreting performance (i.e. simultaneous interpreting), and the relationships between engagement and learning outcomes. Based on multiple data sources of screen-casts, cued retrospective interviews, and tests, it was found that participants’ feedback engagement was imbalanced across three feedback foci: language, content, and voice, as well as across the three cycles of data collection. Specifically, their behavioral engagement with feedback on language peaked at the beginning and the end of data collection, while their cognitive engagement remained stable over time. Furthermore, participants’ self-regulation and a lack of interpreting proficiency mediated their cognitive and behavioral engagement, particularly at the beginning and the end of data collection. In addition, feedback engagement generally resulted in improved learning outcomes, with affective and cognitive engagement playing a more pronounced role. Consequently, more attention should be diverted to boosting learners’ behavioral engagement in the middle of a learning period, while also attending to enhancing their interpreting proficiency and self-regulation. The dynamic nature of engagement also requires special consideration in future studies.