Effects Of Written Corrective Feedback And Language Analytic Ability On Chinese EFL Learners' Acquisition Of English Articles

The efficacy of written corrective feedback(WCF)has been tested and reported in a great number of studies over a long period of time and conflicting results have been obtained.The controversy concerning the effectiveness of WCF lies in whether the control group should be introduced,whether errors should be directly or indirectly corrected,whether the correction should target particular types of errors or all errors occurring in writing,whether WCF should focus on single or complex linguistic structures,whether learners' improvement in revisions could transfer to new pieces of writing,and the like.Among them the efficacy of certain feedback types(e.g.,direct WCF&indirect WCF;focused WCF&unfocused WCF)on relatively simple linguistic structures has been the most frequently investigated by the previous researchers.Meanwhile,a limited number of researchers have explored potential links between learners' propensity to achieve gains from the instructional treatment and learner differences in language aptitude and cognitive abilities.The present study reports on a classroom-based study that investigated the potentially differential effect of two types of feedback,namely direct WCF and direct WCF with metalinguistic explanation,and the extent to which the language analytic ability,as one single component of learner differences in language aptitude,moderates the effectiveness of WCF on the acquisition of English article use targeting generic and specific plural reference.The research questions in the current study are demonstrated as follows:1.Does written corrective feedback affect Chinese EFL learners' article use targeting generic and specific plural reference?And if yes,are there any differences between the learning benefits obtained from direct WCF and direct WCF with metalinguistic explanation?2.Are there any relationships between the learning benefits obtained from WCF and language analytic ability?And if yes,to what extent does the strength of relationships differ by direct WCF and direct WCF with metalinguistic explanation?The subjects of the current study were 90 English majors from a comprehensive university in Jiangsu Province,China.They were from three intact classes,randomly assigned into the direct feedback group(30),the direct metalinguistic group(30)and the control group(30).Three stages of assessment tests,including a pretest,an immediate posttest and a delayed posttest,were given to the subjects,with three treatment sessions employed between the pretest and immediate posttest.Two assessment tasks,including the text summary tests and the Truth Value Judgment(TVJ)tests,were administered and scored for recording the performance of the subjects in the whole course of experiment.The linguistic structure was English article use targeting generic and specific plural reference.All scores were entered into SPSS 16.0.The major findings are summarized below.In terms of the first research question,the two feedback groups outperformed the control group to a great extent,indicating the efficacy of providing direct WCF.However,except for the difference found between the direct feedback and direct metalinguistic group in the specific TVJ test of the immediate posttest,no other significant difference was detected between the two feedback groups.Both feedback groups showed significant longitudinal gains,indicating that the additional provision of metalinguistic explanation made no difference in promoting the acquisition of English articles.As regards the second research question,language analytic ability proved to be positively linked to the performance of the two feedback groups,except for the improvement gained in the text summary tests targeting generic plural reference.To be precise,there were positive correlations existing between language analytic ability and the learning benefits achieved in the specific text summary tests,generic and specific TVJ tests.Additionally,the language analytic ability was more strongly correlated to gains achieved in the direct feedback group than that in the direct metalinguistic group,which indicates language analytic ability was more likely to generate learning benefits under the condition of direct WCF without the supplement of metalinguistic explanation.The findings concluded from this study provide clear evidence for the positive effect of receiving direct WCF over no feedback,and learners with relatively higher language analytic ability are prone to achieve more gains when given the direct WCF free of metalinguistic explanation.The conclusions provide empirical evidence to support earlier SLA discoveries and further prove the efficacy of direct WCF.Therefore,language teachers should not be discouraged from applying direct WCF to English writing teaching,in particular the teaching of English article use targeting generic and specific plural reference.In addition,several limitations of this study are addressed and remain to be concerned and resolved in future research.