The value of a focused approach to written corrective feedback

Abstract

Investigations into the most effective ways to provide ESL learners with written corrective feedback have often been overly comprehensive in the range of error categories examined. As a result, clear conclusions about the efficacy of such feedback have not been possible. On the other hand, oral corrective feedback studies have produced clear, positive results from studies that have targeted particular error categories. This article presents the results of a study that examined the effectiveness of targeting only two functional error categories with written corrective feedback in order to see if such an approach was also helpful for ESL writers. The ten-month study was carried out with 52 low-intermediate ESL students in Auckland, New Zealand. Assigned to groups that received written corrective feedback or no written corrective feedback, the students produced five pieces of writing (pre-test, immediate post-test, and three delayed post-tests) that described what was happening in a given picture. Two functional uses of the English article system (referential indefinite ‘a’ and referential definite ‘the’) were targeted in the feedback. The study found that those who received written corrective feedback on the two functions outperformed the control group on all four post-tests.