Corrective Feedback on Writing in EFL Context: Comparison of Two Approaches

Abstract

Although there is a disagreement among researchers on the effectiveness of corrective feedback (CF) inL2 writing (Ferris, 1999, Truscott, 1996, Truscott 1999), many studies proved that CF improves L2learners’ accuracy in writing over time. Therefore, instead of investigating the effectiveness of CF, someresearchers carried out studies to investigate the effectiveness of different methods, techniques,approaches of applying CF (e.g. Bitchener, Young & Cameron, 2005, Chandler, 2003, Tootkaboni &Khatib, 2014) in L2 writing. Similarly, this current study was conducted to investigate the effects of twodifferent corrective feedback types on L2 written performances. The first corrective feedback type isexplicit feedback (cognitive-interactionist approach) in which the feedback is given directly, the othercorrective feedback type is graduated feedback (sociocultural approach) in which the feedback is given asan assistance. The study conducted in one of the private universities in Turkey, with 11 Turkish EFLstudents. The students in the Explicit Feedback Group (n=5), and the students in the GraduatedFeedback Group (n=6) completed their opinion paragraphs and received feedback according to the groupthey were assigned. After two weeks, the same procedure was applied to find out if there were anychanges over time. The results of the study showed that the students in the Graduated Feedback Groupwere more successful in terms of doing self-correction than the students in the Explicit Feedback Group.