Formative Feedback in a Malaysian Primary School ESL Context

Abstract

The idea of providing students with formative feedback is a crucial part of formative
assessment. Teachers need to provide students with feedback that improves their learning.
In other words, formative feedback should provide learners with information that help
them bridge their learning gap. As formative assessment itself is a newly introduced
product in an innovative transformation introduced by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia,
it would be particularly interesting to investigate how formative feedback which is the main
component of formative assessment is being implemented. To answer this main question,
classroom observations were conducted and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were carried
out with a group of primary school ESL teachers in Malaysia. The results indicated that
using feedback systematically to support learning is rare and teachers are not aware of
strategies to implement formative feedback to improve students’ learning and use the
information in their future instruction.