Written Corrective Feedback: How can it influence adult ELLs writing performance?

Abstract

Previous research on teacher feedback focused on investigating the connection between L2 development and Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) given to adult learners, measuring the effectiveness of WCF given by teachers. However, these studies mainly ignored the importance of analyzing the cause of mixed results and summarizing different types of feedback outcomes, and results were inconclusive due to the various divisions of WCF types in this area. This study systematically divides WCF into five types, reviewing their positive and negative outcome. Also, it tries to explain why the same division of WCF has different results about its outcomes in various studies. This article reviews previous literature to provide a comprehensive and critical view of the field of WCF. Based on previous research, this paper finds that different kinds of WCF can contribute to various outcomes. Direct Written Corrective Feedback improves linguistic accuracy significantly without a convincing long-term impact, while Indirect Written Corrective Feedback may outperform it in this aspect. Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback (MWCF) and Reformation benefits the acquisition of explicit knowledge and help students understand grammar rules deeply. Besides, many studies demonstrate that both Focus Written Corrective Feedback (FWCF) and Comprehensive Written Corrective Feedback (CWCF) can help students correctly use their targeted grammatical rules, but CWCF may reduce students’ motivation. Future studies should pay more attention to control variables during the experiment process and systematically compare the different outcomes of WCF. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the efficacy of WCF and inspires researchers to provide guidance about feedback for pedagogical practices.