ZPD-based Corrective Feedback And Language Complexity, Accuracy And Fluency

Currently, more and more SLA researchers become increasingly interested in sociocultural theory, in particular, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development(ZPD) theory. Thus, the current study tries to blend this academic hot spot with corrective feedback(CF), and aims at investigating the efficacy of ZPD-based CF on the development of EFL learners’ language complexity, accuracy and fluency.The study employed a 22-week quasi-experiment with a pretest-treatment--posttests design. There were two groups, the ZPD-based CF group as the experimental group(N = 24) and the conventional CF group as the control group(N = 23). Both groups received different treatments; the experimental group received CF tailored to learners’ language development, which strictly followed the “Regulatory Scale” developed by Aljaafresh and Lantolf; while the control group received either direct or indirect CF regardless of learners’ ZPD. During each testing session, two subtests(i.e. a topic writing test and a story continuation writing test) were administered to figure out leaners’ language development.The results showed that ZPD-based CF had both short-term and long-term effects on the development of leaners’ language complexity. However, it could foster only short-term gains in language accuracy and had no impact on language fluency. These findings contribute towards our understanding of the efficacy of ZPD-based CF on the development of language accuracy, fluency and complexity. The findings and implications were discussed in light of sociocultural approach.