The effectiveness of corrective feedback in promoting second language writing accuracy among Hong Kong junior secondary students

The efficacy of teacher error correction in second language writing classes has been the subject of much controversy among educationalists, including published debate and several decades of research activity in this area. The primary thesis of this study was to investigate the possible effects of error feedback strategies in a Hong Kong context with regard to accuracy in writing. Two groups of junior secondary students participated in this study. One group of students received corrective feedback (the treatment group) and the other group did not (the control group). Within the treatment group, half was provided with explicit feedback and the other half was given implicit ones. Coded and uncoded feedback was evenly distributed to the implicit feedback group. In the meantime, some of these students are receiving direct location of the error and some are having indirect ones while the differences are observed. The results of the study revealed that students generally prefer and benefit from the corrective feedback system. The indirect uncoded feedback group with salient location of the error committed fewest mistakes after two months and the divergence gradually increased over time. Individual differences were observed and it suggested the importance of considering learner needs and abilities during application, catering for learner diversity. The article ends with suggestions for future research that arise from the study. So Man Tat (2007026182) Dissertation 2 Literature review Background Teaching writing has been regarded as one of the most complex and difficult tasks for English language teachers in Hong Kong as it requires them to spend a lot of time on reading and assessing students‟ work during the post-writing stage while there may still be no significant improvement in students‟ writing skills. Instead of focusing on how to construct a perfect piece of writing, teachers start to believe that corrective feedback is more useful for helping our students to monitor their own mistakes and become independent writers. Definition of Corrective Feedback Corrective feedback refers to teacher input indicating to the learners that their use of the target language is grammatically inaccurate or defective in communication (Lightbown & Spada, 1999). It incorporates the procedures of providing treatment to an error, eliciting a revised student response and supplying “the true correction” (Chaudron, 1988). It enables learners to notice the gap between their interlanguage forms and the target language forms (Panova and Lyster, 2002), make further hypothesis and prevent errors from further production. Types of Corrective Feedback Corrective feedback mainly comprises feedback on language form. It ranges from comments on the use of vocabulary items to corrections over grammatical mistakes and mechanical errors. It can be explicit or implicit in terms of identification and correction of errors. It can be coded or uncoded while it can be applied comprehensively or selectively. These will be discussed in forthcoming sections with regard to their importance of promoting language accuracy among students‟ writings. So Man Tat (2007026182) Dissertation 3 Controversy over the application of corrective feedback Different kinds of corrective feedback have been widely adopted all over the world (Lyster, 1998) and there has been a huge controversy over the use of corrective feedback in promoting second language (L2) writing accuracy. Advocates of corrective feedback (Chandler, 2003; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Ashwell, 2000; Schmidt, 1994; Ellis, 1994; Fathman and Whalley, 1990) are influenced by the behaviorists‟ view of overcoming errors by providing or eliciting examples of correct response. They regard feedback to student writing as the teachers‟ most pivotal task and state its role in motivating and encouraging students. More importantly, it is suggested that corrective feedback promotes second language learning and stimulates hypothesis testing (Ohta, 2001). Learners can eventually notice their errors and create connections between form and meaning during the process of negotiation for meaning, thus improve language accuracy. In other words, corrective feedback has a reflective function which intrigues students to use L2 to ponder over the language produced by themselves (Swain, 2007). For example, learners may consult a grammar book, the Internet or a teacher to inform themselves about specific grammatical or lexical rules. These responses, including learner-generated repairs, eventually become learner uptake (Ellis, 2007) and are likely to benefit the development of language accuracy (Lyster and Ranta, 1997). In addition, there is research evidence which shows teachers favor on correcting the grammar of student writers‟ work. They strongly believe that it helps student improve the accuracy of subsequent writing (Ashwell, 2000). There is also research evidence which proves that students want error feedback (Ferris & Roberts, 2001). They think that it helps them improve their writing skills in the target language (Chandler, 2003; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Leki, 1991). So Man Tat (2007026182) Dissertation 4 Despite the fact that there has been research evidence on error correction in L2 writing classes which shows that students who receive error feedback from teachers improve in accuracy over time (Ferris & Roberts, 2001), some claim that error correction does not facilitate language learning and can be potentially harmful for students‟ writing ability. The opponents of corrective feedback support Krashen‟s “hand-off” approach to error correction and believe that second language acquisition is the result of implicit processes operating together with the reception of comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985). They believe that all kinds of corrective feedback are „negative assessment‟ and should be avoided as far as possible since they function as „punishment‟ and may inhibit or discourage learning. This is further proved by research evidence that students who do not receive grammar correction feedback have a more positive attitude towards writing. They attempt to write more words and use more complex sentence structures when they write (Truscott, 1996). Truscott (1999), one of the major opponents, concluded that there is no convincing research evidence that error correction has effects on improving the accuracy of the writing among student writers based on the analysis of studies by Sheppard (1992), Kepner (1991) and Semke (1984). He even outlined a range of practical problems related to the ability and willingness of teachers to perform and students to receive error correction. In line with Truscott, Zamel (1985) points out that L2 writing teachers should concentrate on the global and textual aspects of students‟ writing instead of the surface-level aspect (correcting students‟ grammatical errors) in order to become more effective writing teachers but not simply language teachers. More recent research by Polio, Fleck and Leder (1998) examined English as a Second Language (ESL) students‟ 30-minute drafts and 60-minute revisions both at the beginning and at the end of the semester. It is found that the students in the experimental group who received additional instruction for editing and feedback did not outperform the control group in terms of linguistic accuracy. So Man Tat (2007026182) Dissertation 5 Even if research proves the opposite, student expectations and teacher responsibilities will compel language teaching programs to find strategies to respond to student writing in some ways. In most ESL contexts, the issue is more to do with how to give error correction rather than whether to give feedback or not. Explicit feedback and implicit feedback An increasing number of studies have been investigating whether direct (explicit) and indirect (implicit) feedback strategies are more likely to help students improve the accuracy of their writings (Long, 1996). Explicit correction refers to overt correction or grammatical explanation of the error by the marker (Lee, 2004) while implicit correction involves reformulation of learners‟ utterances through recast or clarification requests. For example, if a student writes an ill-formed sentence like “I play sports two for a week”, the teacher may underline it and write “Wow! You play sports twice a week. How healthy you are! ” (recast) to highlight the correct form through his/her reformulation or “What do you mean here? ” (clarification request) to pinpoint that the utterance is unclear and is not fully understood by the teacher, requiring the student to ponder over the correct expression and eliciting the phrase “two times a week” or “twice a week”. There is research evidence demonstrating that these two types of feedback have no statistically significant effects on writing accuracy (Robb, Ross, & Shortreed, 1986; Semke, 1984). However, more recent studies reported that implicit feedback leads to either greater or similar levels of accuracy over time (Chandler, 2003; Ferris, 2002; Ferris & Helt, 2000; Lee, 1997; Frantzen, 1995) through “increased student engagement and attention to forms and problems” (Ferris, 2002). So Man Tat (2007026182) Dissertation 6 Ellis (2006), based on the perspectives of Carroll and Swain (1993) and Lyster (2004), suggested that explicit feedback is more effective in both eliciting the learner‟s immediate correct use of the structure and in eliciting subsequent correct use. It may also be suitable for lower achievers and when the errors are too difficult for students to self-correct, such as syntactical and lexical errors (Ferris, 2003). However, Truscott (1996) argued that direct correction is not useful for students‟ development in accuracy as students are demotivated by the frustration of their errors, resulting in sustained low language accuracy. It is very teacher-dominant and does not provide rooms for students to self-correct and solve their own learning problems. It