Abstract

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Literature review

۳٫ Method

۴٫ Results

۵٫ Discussion and conclusion

Funding

Author details

Citation information

References

Abstract

     : Investigations have been too limited and inconclusive to find out whether written corrective feedback improves grammatical accuracy of learners. This study aimed at investigating the comparative effects of direct and indirect corrective feedback on short-term and long-term retention of the subject-verb agreement by Iranian EFL writers. The design of the study was a two group pre-post-test quasiexperimental one. The Participants were 45 male and female learners at the age range of 14 to 16. Their L1 was Turkmen and they were all taking an elementary course at a language school in Gonbad Kavoos, Iran. The participants were assigned to two experimental groups i.e. direct and indirect feedback groups, and one control group. To collect data, a pretest, post-test and a delayed post-test were given to all the groups. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was run to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that the types of corrective feedback did not have a significant positive effect on the participants’ short-term and long-term retention of subject-verb agreement. Besides, Scheffe post hoc test showed that there was a significant decline in grammatical accuracy of the indirect feedback group in the delayed posttest. The results have some implications for teaching writing in the EFL context.

Introduction

     One of the key issues in L2 writing instruction in the last few decades has been the efficacy of corrective feedback. The research on corrective feedback has centered on the types of corrective feedback, and the role of individual differences in this effect (Yoshida, 2008). Corrective feedback plays a crucial role in developing L2 acquisition theories as well as in teaching second languages. Researchers have contended that the role of corrective feedback in L2 acquisition will determine the relative importance of positive input or negative input in L2 acquisition, which will provide a framework for selecting teaching methods and materials, the role of teachers and language learners, and providing the types of appropriate input in class (Van Beuningen, 2010).

     There has been a debate on whether corrective feedback is of any help to the language learner. Truscott (2007) believes that it is not only ineffective but also potentially harmful. On the other hand, other researchers (e.g., Bitchener & Knoch, 2008; Karim & Nassaji, 2020; Roshan, 2017; Tayebipour, 2019) have found that corrective feedback is valuable in boosting grammatical accuracy.

     There has also been a debate on which type of corrective feedback is the most helpful. Promoters of direct corrective feedback (e.g., Ellis, 2009) contend that direct corrective feedback enables language learners to immediately internalize the appropriate form as given by their instructor. Language learners whose mistakes are not corrected directly do not know whether their own estimated rectifications are accurate. Bitchener and Knoch (2010) propose that exclusive direct corrective feedback offers language learners the sort of explicit data that is required for testing hypotheses. The alternative to the direct corrective feedback is the indirect corrective feedback. Indirect correction techniques can take various forms with various degrees of explicitness (e.g., underlining, coding, etc.) (See Bitchener & Knoch, 2008). Ferris (2002) contends that indirect input is by and large more proper and powerful than direct feedback. Ferris and Roberts (2001) argue that the indirect feedback promotes reflection about linguistic structures, resulting in long-term retention

Results
Findings related to research questions

     Table 1 below displays the descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations related to subject-verb agreement scores of all the groups. As displayed in the table, the mean scores of control, direct and indirect group were 49.73, 60. 06, and 45.53 respectively. To see if there were significant differences between the groups in the pretest, the following table needs to be examined. As shown in the above table, the sig. value is .133. Therefore, there were not any significant differences between the groups at the beginning of the study. Since pretest-posttest data were used for the comparison of three groups on the dependent variable, the mean scores of the three groups in the post-test are reported below. Table 2 and 3 shows the mean scores of subject-verb agreement in the posttest. As shown in the table, the mean scores of control, direct and indirect feedback groups were 59.20, 69.93, and 69.06 respectively. To see if there were significant differences between the groups in the posttest, Table 4 needs to be examined.