Feedback as a Powerful Teaching Tool: Online Versus Face-to-Face
Feedback as a Powerful Teaching Tool: Online Versus Face-to-Face

Summary/Abstract: This paper is a follow-up to a research study on students’ perceptions with respect to online feedback versus the traditional face-to-face one, published by the authors last year. The study, which took into account the well-known fact that using the internet and mobile devices has become a second nature with the young generations, analyzed students’ responses to a questionnaire focusing on feedback given/received on their performance in activities developing oral communication skills, namely presentations, in the language class. The results disproved the hypothesis which was the starting point of the research, that students were likely to welcome the possibility of integrating gadgets and electronic devices into their routine language course activity. Students found a lot of disadvantages to online feedback, while the advantages were not enough to compensate the lack of classroom response and face-to-face communication. These results have motivated the two authors to continue with this line of research by shifting the focus from students to teachers, and look at the same issue from the “other” point of view. Consequently, this paper presents the findings of a questionnaire administered to language teachers and analyzes their opinions and classroom routines with the aim of seeing to what extent the two perspectives are aligned, while trying to answer the questions that prompted the entire research: “Does online feedback have a place in the language course?”, “Should its usefulness be tested against its traditional counterpart?”, “Can feedback be kept effective by adopting an immediate online response?”, “Is feedback a powerful teaching/learning tool in the eyes of both teachers and students?”

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