Research Information System
International Ege Congress on Social Sciences & Humanities, İzmir, Turkey, 02 September 2022, pp.295-300, (Full Text)
In online foreign language courses, students are assigned online writing tasks, and they are given online
feedback for their tasks. Throughout the courses, e-portfolios are used for monitoring the progress and
achievements of EFL learners as they present a systematic collection of students' tasks and performances. At
the end of the courses, the learners' tasks are graded, and these grades affect the final scores of the learners in
end-of-course exams. The current paper aims to explore the perceptions of upper-intermediate level Turkish
EFL learners regarding the effect of online writing assignments and online feedback on their writing
performances. The study adopted a case study design, and the qualitative data was collected from 24 upperintermediate level EFL learners enrolled in an online language course. The data was collected through semistructured interviews, and content analysis procedures were followed to analyse the qualitative data. A
second field expert reviewed the outstanding themes and codes for inter-rater reliability. The content analysis
revealed three central themes: strengths, weaknesses and challenges. The study findings revealed a good deal
of research evidence on the divergent perceptions of the learners. The learners displayed positive perceptions
towards the online writing assignments and online feedback in general on the grounds that they were
practical and the learners could use many online tools to improve their writing while doing tasks online.
On the other hand, they mentioned weaknesses like lack of authenticity and direct instructor feedback in
person. As for the challenges, some participants stated some challenges they faced, like technical issues, loss
of data and being unfamiliar with the platforms used. The current research findings provide insights from the
learners' perspective and shed light on the requirements for the assignments, implementations and
evaluations of online writing tasks. In addition, some suggestions are offered regarding online feedback
given to the learners.