Les pratiques évaluatives visant l’efficacité de la rétroaction pour le développement de la production écrite des étudiants du français langue étrangère : le cas de l’Université de Costa Rica

In higher education and foreign language teaching, a paradigm shift now focused on learning brings attention to assessment for learning, where regulation of learning puts forward feedback as a tool that students can use to improve their learning process (Abedi, 2010; Ahumada, 2005; Ferreyra, 2012; Piccardo, 2010; Scallon, 2004; Stiggins, 2005). In this context, the University of Costa Rica seeks to put in place new evaluative practices in line with this new paradigm, as in the field of languages, especially in French as a foreign language, practices are still very traditional since students’ interests lie mainly on pass/fail results in courses followed. Hence, our wish to put in place new practices to make students more active in their learning process. Different studies about annotation, corrective feedback and rubrics validate the benefits of feedback in the learning process, since it helps the learner to commit to, and become more autonomous and to develop his metacognition (Alvira, 2016; Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 2010; Lefebvre & Deaudelin, 2001; Roever & Manna, 2005). From these conclusions, we were interested in examining ‘the development of formative assessment practices among professors which aimed efficient feedback and contribute towards the development of writing competence of students in French as a foreign language. We thus undertook a collaborative research along with three professors and their students, and used interviews, group discussions and analysed students’ works to guide the former put in place these new ways of assessment.  As regards main results, we found that before the implementation of our research protocol, written feedback practices were inexistent among professors as sometimes direct and indirect corrective feedback was done. Students found that the feedback perceived was not immediate, clear, or sufficient and faced difficulties understanding the correction key used. Professors used a uniform scale which was inappropriate to evaluate written production. Students could only take cognizance of the grade obtained through the scale. During the implementation of the research protocol, professors formulated annotations of different content, formulation and aim following the model of Rodet (2000). It was found that annotations of cognitive content, formulated in a constructive manner with the aim of giving information were most frequently used whereas the ones with metacognitive content, formulated negatively with the aim of being suggestive were least frequently used. Annotations mostly focused on ideas and organization of the written production whereas for the structure, a direct correction was favored. In this way, students used feedback from the written production to learn to write and learn the language. The descriptive analytical rubric allowed to follow up students’ progression in the different works. We found that those of one of the professors (P2) progressed more than the two others. In this way, students used annotations to correct their errors, while they used the descriptive analytic rubric to justify the result obtained, to self-assess their work and to identify their strengths and weaknesses. After the implementation of the research protocol, we found that the feedback practices of the professors improved as a more systematic and individual follow up system was put in place. Students appreciated these changes, and became more autonomous, more responsible, more motivated and more committed to their learning.  To sum up, the use of effective feedback through annotations and the descriptive analytical rubrics contributed to the improvement of writing competence of students who follow courses in French as a foreign language.

Keyphrases: annotations, formative assessment, written feedback, written production, annotations, corrective feedback, descriptive analytic rubrics, french as a foreign language