The Use of Zoom in Giving Writing Conferences in Foreign Language Writing Classes

Abstract

To give feedback during Covid-19, language instructors used digital programs such as Zoom. Accordingly, the present study aimed to find out and describe the experiences of a language instructor who held online writing conferences through Zoom. It was designed as a single case study conducted with a participant language instructor. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview and content analyzed. The findings indicated that online writing conferences had advantages such as saving time, and disadvantages, including technical issues. They also showed that online writing conferences could be affected positively and negatively by several factors such as time-saving and technical issues. According to the findings, though the content of feedback in them was the same as the one in face-to-face writing conferences, there were differences including student prejudice between them. The findings were discussed, pedagogical implications of the study were mentioned, and suggestions for further research were made.

Key Terms in this Chapter

Writing conference: Writing conferences can be defined as the conversations/talks that a teacher and a learner make with each other one-on-one and that concentrate on the learner’s writing ( Bayraktar, 2012 ).

Face-to-face conference: A face-to-face writing conference is a writing conference that is held between a teacher and a learner face-to-face.

Online writing conference: An online writing conference is a writing conference held online between a teacher and a learner.