Effectiveness Of Written Corrective Feedback Research Articles

Written Corrective Feedback in Second Language Writing: A Review of Research

Written corrective feedback (WCF) has been widely deployed in teaching second language (L2) writing skills, partly because it is generally perceived to promote and consolidate learning. Whilst a burgeoning body of literature affirms its virtues pertaining to fostering L2 learners’ writing performance, which method of correction could yield the greatest enhancement remains a point of contention among researchers. This research review is proposed to condense findings of contemporary studies on the use of WCF in teaching and learning writing in English as foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) setting. It commences with a summarization of key terms and proceeds to afford a brief discussion on students’ and teachers’ perceptions towards using WCF. Subsequently, a critical synthesis of findings from current studies into the effectiveness of different types of WCF, namely direct, indirect, metalinguistic, focused, and unfocused strategies, will be presented. Drawing on the empirical evidence thus far, we deduce that no one-size-fits-all WCF approach best facilitates L2 learners’ writing development. Furthermore, any judgement on the effects of WCF should be taken into account in relation to personal and contextual factors as they are moderating variables affecting which WCF type is best suitable. Teachers, therefore, are recommended to consider numerous factors concerning learning environments and learners’ differences in providing WCF. It is also suggested that more extensive studies into WCF’s long-term effects and those regarding various aspects of L2 learners’ writing performance apart from grammatical accuracy should be conducted.

To Correct or Not to Correct: The Impact of Written Corrective Feedback on Improving Students’ Writing about Literature

This study examines the impact of direct and indirect written corrective feedback (WCF) on Omani English literature students’ use of tenses. The study took place over a period of two months at a university in the Sultanate of Oman. Data was collected from pre- and post-tests of 45 students who represented three groups: control group (N=15), direct group (n=15), and indirect group (n=15). The control group received no feedback, the direct group received feedback on their pre-test, intervention 1, and intervention 2. Their feedback was given directly; i.e., errors were underlined and corrections were given immediately. Indirect group also received feedback on their pre-test, intervention 1, and intervention 2, but their feedback was given indirectly; i.e., errors were underlined but corrections were not given. Students were encouraged to explore why these words were mistakes and were encouraged to correct them. The study’s findings were consistent with previous research that has found mixed results regarding the effectiveness of WCF on second language learners’ language accuracy. However, the study provides new insights by suggesting that direct feedback is more effective than indirect feedback since only direct group posttests were found to be significantly (p=0.02) better than their pretests. The findings are not claimed to be generalizable to other populations or contexts. They lead to recommendations for further research to determine the effectiveness of written corrective feedback on other groups of second language learners in different contexts and for different student populations, especially in the Middle East.

ESL Teachers of Young Learners: What are their Perceptions and Practice of Written Corrective Feedback?

Written corrective feedback (WCF) has been used by teachers to help improve learners’ writing competency (Veren et al., 2020). While past studies focused on the effectiveness of WCF on learners, research from the teachers’ perspective is limited (Lee, 2020). This study fills in this gap by investigating the beliefs and practice of 11 primary school teachers’ WCF on grammatical mistakes using questionnaires and analysis of learners’ essays. The findings reveal congruence in the teachers’ beliefs and practice in providing direct feedback. However, discrepancies are found in the amount of feedback, whereby learners’ essays are marked comprehensively though most teachers view selective feedback as useful. The findings imply that there are underlying factors influencing teachers’ WCF decisions and practice which may be different from their beliefs. This study hopes to prompt teachers to reflect on their feedback provision while stakeholders are hoped to provide teachers with more autonomy in their teaching.

Investigating written corrective feedback: (Mis)alignment of teachers’ beliefs and practice

Written corrective feedback (WCF) refers to the feedback provided by writing teachers on students’ writing. While much attention has been given to the (in)effectiveness of WCF on writing accuracy or skills in L2 writing research, there has been relatively less research on whether teachers’ beliefs regarding WCF are aligned with their actual correction practices. This study investigates the (mis)alignment between teachers’ beliefs of their WCF practice and their actual practice, using questionnaire and interview data from five English writing teachers in a Chinese EFL context who provided WCF on 100 student essays. The results indicate a degree of alignment between teachers’ beliefs and practice in certain instances. However, three key areas of misalignment between beliefs and WCF practice were found, namely (1) most teachers mistakenly believed they primarily provide direct feedback while providing more indirect feedback in practice; (2) the teachers believed they often indicated the total number of errors in the margin, despite never doing so in practice, and; (3) WCF on local issues received more attention than global issues, despite teachers believing they offered more feedback on global issues. Contextual issues including time constraints, excess workload and perceptions of students’ attitude to WCF were found to result in the eventual misalignment between beliefs and WCF practice. To resolve this issue, it is recommended that students and teachers cooperate to achieve the ultimate goals of written feedback, while in-service teachers should undertake periodic explicit professional training on WCF provision.

The effects of written corrective feedback

This paper presents a critical synthesis of research on written corrective feedback (WCF) and its effects on second language (L2) learning over the past four decades. WCF is an essential component of L2 teaching. However, whether WCF helps has been an issue of considerable debate in the literature. While many researchers have stressed its importance, some others have expressed doubt concerning its effectiveness. The controversy over the effectiveness of WCF was heightened when Truscott argued in 1996 that error correction is ineffective and harmful and others who strongly countered his argument that feedback is effective (e.g. Chandler 2003; Ferris 1999). This article provides an in-depth synthesis and analysis of this area of research, examining key issues and findings as well as the various contentions and concerns raised regarding the effects of WCF. The article concludes with implications for future research and with insights about how to move forwards.

Instructor’s Direct and Indirect Feedback: How do they Impact Learners’ Written Performance?

Written corrective feedback (WCF) is widely used among writing teachers in attempt to improve students’ language accuracy in their written tasks. Experts of second language (L2) writing stated that WCF plays a significant role in language accuracy development because it is related to the development and improvement of students’ accuracy in second language writing. Corrective feedback can be grouped into direct WCF and indirect WCF. However, results in many past empirical studies were inconclusive because of variation in how the effectiveness of WCF was measured. Additionally, there is a lack of investigation pertaining to the students’ perceptions toward the feedback they received, which may reveal important factors that influence the students’ reception of the feedback that resulted in performance changes. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore factors that contributed to the accurate use of the past tenses resulting from direct WCF and indirect WCF. Interviews were conducted with 12 students and the qualitative findings revealed the following factors: 1) learner attitudes towards feedback provided, 2) learner beliefs towards what corrections entailed, and 3) types of scaffolding. Additionally, the findings revealed the importance of teacher-student conference, the need for students to be trained over a longer period of time in relation to the use of error codes and the need for instructor to understand and implement direct and indirect feedback accordingly in their teaching. Keywords: written corrective feedback; second language acquisition; direct-indirect feedback; past tenses; mixed methods

Effects of Written Corrective Feedback on Explicit and Implicit Knowledge

This study is an examination of the effect of the different degrees of explicitness of written corrective feedback (WCF) on implicit and explicit knowledge of the target structure (past simple tense) in the short term and long term. There were four experimental groups including a control group, in this quasi-experimental study which received different degrees of explicit WCF. This study sought to investigate whether or not written corrective feedback could also be effective in targeting the problematic error category in the texts of FL writers. Past simple test was known as the problematic structure based on the result of the pre-test, though their level of proficiency was intermediate. It was found that both metalinguistic and direct WCF could affect the participants’ explicit knowledge of the past simple tense in the short term and long term; the indirect WCF on the other hand, could only affect the explicit knowledge in the short term and the reformulation was the only kind of WCF that did not have any effect on the explicit knowledge of the past simple tense. Moreover, all the experimental groups’ implicit knowledge improved in the short term; however, this improvement was sustained in the long term for the metalinguistic and indirect groups only. Journal of NELTA, Vol. 21, No. 1-2, 2016, Page:74-85

EFL learners’ perceptions and preferences of written corrective feedback: a case study of university students from Mainland China

Although a growing body of research has examined the effectiveness of written corrective feedback (WCF) for improving L2 learners’ grammatical accuracy, fewer studies have investigated the extent to which different educational settings would influence learners’ perceptions and preferences of WCF. This paper reports on an exploratory study that investigated learners’ perceptions and preferences of WCF in an EFL setting. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 64 intermediate, advanced-intermediate, and advanced English learners across three proficiency levels (intermediate, advanced-intermediate, and advanced) in a major provincial university of Mainland China. Through extensive written questionnaires, the study explored these learners’ perceptions and preferences of the various dimensions of WCF. The results showed that although the participants tended to have a neutral opinion on the role of explicit grammar instruction, overall they expressed a favourable attitude towards error correction. In particular, they held a strong preference for extended comments on both content and grammar of their written work. The qualitative data further indicated that the participants wanted to take more initiatives in the revision process of their writing with less interference from teachers. Overall, the findings confirm the value of WCF for EFL learners outside English-speaking countries. The findings also highlight the significance of individual and contextual factors in the ongoing debate over the effectiveness of WCF.

Studies on Written Corrective Feedback: Theoretical Perspectives, Empirical Evidence, and Future Directions

The role of written corrective feedback (WCF) in the process of acquiring a second language (L2) has been an issue of considerable controversies over past decades. This article intends to provide a critical review of the increasing number of WCF studies thus far and to inspire new perspectives for future research. It starts by briefly tracing the theoretical positions on the role of WCF in L2 instruction. Subsequently, a synthesis of empirical arguments with respect to the effectiveness of WCF, the relative merits of various WCF options, and the amenability of different error categories to WCF are presented. Based on all the evidence, two common limitations: the focus on form-oriented WCF options and the narrow range of target errors are critically discussed in the final part. It concludes by suggesting that an integration between such learning enhancing variables as micro context and written feedback, and that an extension of target structure from learners’ rule-governed errors to their non rule-governed errors should be investigated in future WCF studies so that fresh insights for WCF research could be achieved on one hand and pedagogical implications for L2 classroom instruction could be offered on the other.

The Effect of Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback on Iranian Elementary Learners’ Writing

Error correction is probably the most widely used technique for responding to students’ writing. Although many studies have attempted to investigate the efficacy of providing error correction through different types of written corrective feedback (WCF), there has been relatively little research on any one new approach to writing pedagogy in foreign language learning which is called dynamic WCF. The purpose of the current research was to test the effect of WCF on the improvement of writing abilities of EFL learners. Two groups of EFL students who were learning English as a foreign language participated in this study. Both groups (A and B) were given treatments. Core components of the treatment included having the students to write a composition every session (twice a week) and the teacher providing the students with feedbacks (dynamic WCF or direct WCF) on their writing tasks. Group A (n=24) was instructed through dynamic WCF because it was intended to improve L2 writing ability in general by raising linguistic awareness of learners through the error corrections performed by the teacher. On the other hand, group B (n= 22) received direct WCF on their writings. Four essential characteristics were taken into consideration for the error correction, i.e. feedback needed to be manageable, meaningful, timely and constant. The data obtained for Group A and Group B was analyzed using paired sample test and the results indicated that both groups had improved on their writing abilities. Also, administrating an independent sample T-test the findings revealed that Group A which received dynamic WCF could outperform Group B.

Learning Corrected Target Forms: Students’ Corrective Feedback through Teacher’s Written Corrective Feedback in Iranian EFL Context

As a result of Truscott's (1996) claim that written corrective feedback (WCF) should be abandoned because it is both ineffective and harmful, different opinions about the value of WCF have been voiced. The aim of this article was to investigate (1) the possible effect of WCF on accurate use of quantifiers over a 2-month period; (2) the possible differential effectiveness for three types of feedback. Seventy EFL students at junior high school in Iran formed a control group and three experimental groups (1) those who received direct WCF with written metalinguistic explanation; (2) direct corrective feedback only; (3) indirect WCF. The subject in experimental groups accomplished a collaborative task (correcting five weak examinees' papers) in pairs. Then on three occasions (pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test) the participants were asked to complete seventeen grammar items and write sentences about the given picture. The study found that each of the WCF groups significantly outperformed the control group on immediate post-test and this level of accuracy was retained 2 month later. Furthermore, no meaningful difference in effectiveness was found between the three WCF groups.