The Effect of Written Corrective Feedback on EFL Learners' Writing Performance: Explicit vs. Implicit

Abstract

The effectiveness of written corrective feedback has gained much interest among second language acquisition researchers since Truscott’s (1996) argument that grammar correction in L2 writing classes should be abandoned. In spite of the large body of research, there seems to be no unified agreement on the effectiveness of written corrective feedback on L2 learners' written performance. The present study seeks to investigate whether there is any positive effect of giving explicit or implicit written corrective feedback on 20 intermediate L2 learners’ ability to write in English by giving them three writing tasks: a pre-test, an immediate post-test and a delayed post-test. The participants performed on a written task, then, half of the learners received explicit feedback which means that the correct form of specific structures was provided and the other half received implicit feedback which means that the erroneous form was underlined with no correction. Two weeks later they were asked to write another essay in which the rubrics made them use the same forms, namely past tense and definite/indefinite article. A month later, the delayed post-test was conducted on a similar topic. Based on the results of mixed between-within ANOVA analysis, the students writing ability in using past tense and article use on the immediate post-test outperformed that of the pre-test. The effect was also long lasting since their performance on the delayed post-test showed an increase in the learners’ writing ability in the specified structures and this effect retained in their memory for one month. There was no statistically significant difference between the implicit and explicit group on their correct use of the specified structures.