The Effects of Metalinguistic and Exemplar-based Written Corrective Feedback on English Verb Complementation Accuracy in Multimedia-based EFL Writing Instruction

Abstract

This study compared metalinguistic and exemplar-based written corrective feedback (CF) for their effects on Korean university students’ grammatical accuracy improvement regarding English verb complementation errors. This study was conducted in a writing class where two types of multimedia components were used for writing instruction: mini-lessons based on PowerPoint slides and a movie. This study also investigated how learners perceived the CF they received. Fifty-two learners, divided into two groups (i.e., metalinguistic and exemplar), participated in this class for 10 weeks. A sentence completion test and a narrative writing test were administered to measure learners’ verb complementation knowledge before and after the treatment. In the treatment sessions, learners were given a mini-lesson on English verb complementation using PowerPoint slides, watched part of a Korean movie, and then wrote a summary of the given movie part. Learners received either of the two types of CF on their written errors. This treatment procedure lasted for eight weeks. The results revealed that both feedback types were beneficial. Learners in both groups significantly improved their verb complementation knowledge. Though no significant difference between both groups was found, more learners preferred exemplar-based to metalinguistic CF.