The effect of written corrective feedback in second language acquisition

• Published in: Revista signos Vol. 50; no. 94; p. 217
• Main Authors: Jorge Lillo Durán, Katia Sáez Carrillo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Spanish
• Published: Valparaíso Dr. Giovanni Parodi 01.08.2017
• Subjects: Bilingualism; Context; Elementary school students; English as a second language learning; Feedback; Language acquisition; Learning environment; Research design; Second language learning; Second language writing; Spanish as a second language learning; Spanish language; Writing processes
• ISSN: 0035-0451; 0718-0934
• DOI: 10.4067/S0718-09342017000200217

Written corrective feedback (CF) has been a controversial issue regarding its effectiveness in L2 acquisition. The study reported in this article attempts to provide evidence that three types of written corrective feedback, namely, without metalinguistic information, with metalinguistic explanation and computer mediated are effective in a context of English learning as an L2. The study used a quasi-experimental design with intact classes and pretest, post-test and delayed post-test; comparing the effect of the types of feedback on the grammatical accuracy with which 73 students of 7th grade of a Spanish-English bilingual school used the past simple and subject verb agreement. Data were processed with repeated measures ANOVA, with post hoc multiple comparison tests. The results suggest that the three types of corrective feedback were equally beneficial for the acquisition of the features, both short and long term, in the process of writing in English as an L2 in the learning context of the participants. In addition, it was found that the feedback that provided metalinguistic information was more consistent in all measurements.