An Investigation into the Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback on Written English Accuracy Among Arabic L2 Learners
Date
2024-06
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Publisher
The British University in Dubai (BUiD)
Abstract
Corrective Feedback (CF) in the second language (L2) Writing is deemed one of the most contentious topics in the field of L2 writing research. Various questions pertaining to the topic are still actively discussed and debated by researchers in the pedagogical landscape. The present study is endeavoring to investigate the effectiveness of direct and indirect CF in treating three recurrent grammatical errors (use of the subject-verb agreement, preposition and definite article) among Intermediate level Arabic L2 learners in the UAE, understand their perceptions regarding the provided CF and comprehend the factors that affect their engagement with the provided CF. Furthermore, the study is designed to examine the short-term and long-term effects of the provided feedback through a quasi-experiment involving four stages of pre-test, immediate post-test, post-test and a delayed post-test spanning 2 months. By way of including a delayed post-test, the researcher intends to find out the retention of the provided feedback in improving writing accuracy. To obtain a holistic perspective, a mixed method approach is chosen and the opted instruments are quasi-experiment, questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Upon analyzing the data, it was observed that the participants treated with direct feedback exhibited significant improvement in the target errors, followed by the indirect feedback group in the quasi-experiment. Moreover, the participants revealed their strong preference for direct feedback in the interviews and the surveys. The obtained results are expected to contribute significantly to the existing literature and aid L2 instructors, learners, policy-makers and other researchers in the field.
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Keywords
written corrective feedback, direct feedback, indirect feedback, focused feedback