Effects Of Focused And Unfocused Direct Written Corrective Feedback On Chinese EFL Learners’ Accuracy In Grammatical Agreement In Writing

Starting from 1996 when Truscott claimed written corrective feedback(WCF)is not only ineffective but potentially harmful as well,there has been a heated discussion over the effects of corrective feedback(CF)in the field of second language acquisition(SLA).Although much research has been conducted to explore the efficacy of WCF and many results have been obtained,this controversy has not been resolved because of the different types of WCF researchers adopted and the relatively simple structures they focused on.Meanwhile,an increasing number of studies now focus on different types of WCF and investigate which type of WCF is more effective.The present study aims to investigate the efficacy of WCF and examine differences between effects of focused direct WCF and unfocused direct WCF on Chinese EFL students’ accuracy in grammatical agreement in writing,first as a single structure and then further divided into three sub-categories.The research questions addressed in the study are as follows:1.Does direct WCF help improve Chinese EFL learners’ accuracy in grammatical agreement in writing?2.Are there any differences between the effects of focused and unfocused direct WCF on Chinese EFL learners5 accuracy in grammatical agreement in writing?(1)Are there any differences between the effects of focused and unfocused direct WCF on Chinese EFL learners9 accuracy in grammatical agreement in general?If yes,what are the differences?(2)Are there any differences between the effects of focused and unfocused direct WCF on Chinese EFL learners’ accuracy in subject-verb agreement,determiner-noun agreement,antecedent-pronoun agreement in writing respectively?If yes,what are the differences?The participants of this study were 90 second-year English majors of three intact classes from a comprehensive university in Jiangsu Province.The three classes were randomly divided into focused CF group(30),unfocused CF group(30)and control group(30).Three writing tests and four treatment writing tasks were given to the participating groups.The scores of each student ’s essays in three writing tests were calculated twice:one for grammatical agreement,the other for three different types of agreement separately.All scores were entered into SPSS 16.0.The major findings are as follows:First of all,both focused direct WCF and unfocused direct WCF were found to be effective in the immediate posttest in improving Chinese EFL learners’ accuracy in the target structure,and the effect could be extended in the delayed posttest,which indicates the efficacy of WCF.Secondly,although there were no significant differences in the immediate posttest between the focused direct WCF and unfoccised direet WCF groups,the focused direct WCF group performed significantly better than the unfocused direct WCF group in the delayed posttest which proved that focused direct WCF is more effective than unfocused direct WCF in improving Chinese EFL learners’ accuracy in grammatical agreement in writing.Finally,regarding the two experimental groups,the effects of the two types of feedback in the course of the experiment demonstrated both similarities and differences.In the focused direct WCF group,the scores of all three types increased significantly,which was,though,not reflected in subject-verb agreement in the unfocused direct WCF group.In both groups,the scores of subject-verb agreement were higher than those of the other two types,while the scores of antecedent-pronoun agreement were lower than those of the other two types.Meanwhile,it was found that there was not a linear and upward pattern of improvement of accuracy in the course of the experiment.The findings concluded from this study provide some empirical evidence to support the positive effect of WCF on SLA and further prove the efficacy of direct WCF.Therefore,teachers should not be discouraged from giving WCF,especially focused WCF in the teaching of English writing.Besides,considering the differences in the learners’development in mastering the three different types of agreement,there could be some emphasis on them in the teaching process.