Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate and describe the students’ and their teacher’s perspectives on the use of writing conferences that included group conferences and individual conferences in the multiple-drafting process. This study is based on face-to-face in-depth interviews with the instructor, a native English speaker, and nine selected student participants, relating to a composition course offered to forty-seven sophomores divided into two classes in the Applied Foreign Languages Department at a technological university in Taiwan. The study reveals that the majority of the nine selected students valued the writing conference activity highly, as did the teacher. In general, the results of the study confirm that the students and the teacher experienced the positive effects of student-teacher writing conferences in this particular EFL context. The discussion suggests that including the writing conference activity as well as utilizing a team teaching or teacher cooperation program in EFL writing classes be beneficial to students.