Using data generated from three teachers and 18 students in three senior English language learning (ELL) classrooms in Indonesia, we respond to calls for research that investigates the impact of societal rules or cultural norms that influence how people think and act about feedback and their place within the feedback process. Particular attention is paid to teachers' understandings and enactment of oral feedback, and their students' understandings of and responses to this feedback. Findings highlight the predominance of a traditional view regarding the feedback process and purpose despite Indonesian educational policy emphasising a student-centric approach to teaching and learning. Significantly, there was evidence to suggest interest in and movement towards a more contemporary view of feedback purpose and practice on the part of some students. Questioning the efficacy of existing practice in relation to enhancing and supporting their learning, these students were looking towards a more expansive role within the feedback process.