The Effects Of Written Corrective Feedback On The Improvemet Of Grammatical Accuracy-An Empirical Study Of English Tense Of Simple Past And Simple Present

The effectiveness of written corrective feedback (CF) on the improvement of grammatical accuracy is contentious in the field of second language acquisition. Some researchers such as Truscott (1996) held the view that written CF is not useful in enabling learners to improve their use of grammar while other researchers (i.e., Ellis, 2008; Sheen, 2007) contended that written CF has a positive role in enhancing learners'use of certain grammatical features.On the basis of the previous empirical studies on the efficacy of written CF, the current study was undertaken, through an experiment and a questionnaire, to gather evidence to show: (1) whether written CF is effective in improving learners'use of English tense of simple past and simple present. (2) if it is effective, then what specific kind of feedback is more effective to them?(3) and what are learners'general attitudes towards the written feedback they have received? 42 preliminary learners of English as a second language were included in the study. They were divided into three groups, two serving as experimental groups and one serving as a control group. The two experimental groups received two kinds of feedback treatments (one group receiving indirect feedback containing metalinguistic cues but no correct target form and the other receiving direct feedback containing correct target form only) and the control group was left unattended. The scores of the three groups in the pretest before the treatments and posttest after the treatments were analyzed and compared. The results showed that learners from two experimental group made remarkable progress from the pretest to posttest while learners from the control group didn't make, which indicated that written CF helped learners improve their accurate use of English simple past tense and simple present tense. Besides, the group receiving direct feedback made greater progress than the group receiving indirect feedback. A questionnaire that followed revealed learners'general attitudes towards the way written CF is given. In sum, the current study lent further support to the effectiveness of written CF and also indicated that direct feedback was more useful to preliminary learners of English as a second language.