Impacts of Different Types of Teacher Corrective Feedback in Reducing Grammatical Errors on ESL/EFL Students' Writing

The study investigated the impacts of different strategies of providing teacher written corrective feedback on first semester ESL/EFL students’ writing accuracy and writing quality. Four feedback strategies (indirect feedback, direct feedback, indirect feedback followed by direct feedback with explicit corrective comments, and no feedback) were employed in this study. One hundred twenty-one EFL freshman university students were randomly assigned into four feedback groups (IF, DF, IDECC, NF). Students in each group produced two narrative essays. Teacher feedback was provided in two segments for the first essay and students made two revisions based on the feedback. The errors on each stage of students’ writing were marked and counted to be compared among each stage of the writing and between groups. The results of data analysis showed that the mean number of errors in all three treatment groups decreased in each writing stage. All three treatment groups outperformed the no-feedback control group in each stage of writing in terms of grammatical accuracy and writing quality. There was no difference in the mean number of errors among three treatment groups in the first and second revisions. However, the IDECC group, who received indirect feedback followed by direct feedback with explicit corrective comments, outperformed all other groups in the second revision and in the new essay. The results also showed that the mean number of errors of all three treatment groups decreased in the new essay indicating that there was a long-term effect of teacher corrective feedback on the new essay. The results of the study suggest that providing teacher corrective feedback was effective in reducing students’ grammatical errors on their essays. All three treatment groups also gained in writing quality scores in the new essay indicating that, to a certain extent, there was an effect of teacher corrective feedback on writing quality. The findings are discussed in the context of the related literature. Areas of future research are discussed and practical implications are suggested.