The Interaction Effect Between Written Corrective Feedback And Language Aptitude On Grammatical Accuracy In L2 Writing

Since Truscott claimed that written corrective feedback was ineffective and even harmful,as the hot issue of instructional second language acquisition,the studies concerning written corrective feedback were mainly conducted from two aspects.The first one is that second language acquisition researchers conducted substantial empirical studies to explore the effectiveness of written corrective feedback and the relative effects of different written corrective feedback types.Although most researchers(Bitchener,2008,2010a,2010b;Benson&Dekeyser,2018)approve that written corrective feedback plays a role in second language writing classes,there are some controversies over the different effects of different written corrective feedback types.The second one is that many researchers have focused much upon how and to what extent individual difference especially language aptitude mediates the effectiveness of written corrective feedback in recent years,but the question concerning how language aptitude interacts with written corrective feedback is unanswered.Therefore,the present study conducted a quasi-experiment study to investigate the interaction effect of written corrective feedback and language aptitude on grammatical accuracy in L2 writing to compare the relative effect of direct corrective feedback and meta-linguistic corrective feedback and examine the moderating effect of language aptitude in the effectiveness of written corrective feedback.This study mainly explored three questions as follows:(1)Does written corrective feedback lead to more accurate use of targeted structures than writing with no feedback?(2)Is there any difference in the effect of direct corrective feedback and meta-linguistic corrective feedback on language learners’accurate use of targeted structures?(3)Does language aptitude in language analytic ability moderate the effectiveness of written corrective feedback on improving grammatical accuracy in L2 writing?If so,to what extent?The current study adopts pretest-treatment-immediate posttest-delayed posttest design,lasting over 12 weeks with 60 participants involved who are randomly allocated into three groups,direct corrective feedback group,meta-linguistic corrective feedback group and control group.Direct corrective feedback means that the teacher indicates the error with an underlined line and gives the correct form above the wrong word or phrase directly whereas meta-linguistic corrective feedback notes that the teacher points out the error with an underlined line and provides some grammatical information above the wrong word or phrase instead of offering the correct form directly.The control group just completes writing tasks and writing tests.During the experiment,participants in the control group does not receive any feedback about target structures.Through descriptive statistical analysis and inferential statistical analysis(one-way ANOVA,repeated measured ANOVA),the result shows that 1)written corrective feedback leads to more accurate use of targeted structures than writing without no feedback;2)there is a difference between meta-linguistic corrective feedback and direct corrective feedback and metalinguistic corrective feedback was more effective than direct corrective feedback on improving the accuracy in the use of target structure.;3)language aptitude cannot moderate the effectiveness of written corrective feedback.Based on the results in the current study,it can be found that,first,written corrective feedback can improve ESL learners’ grammatical accuracy in L2 writing;second,there is a difference between meta-linguistic corrective feedback and direct corrective feedback and meta-linguistic corrective feedback is more effective than direct corrective feedback;third,there is no positive evidence showing the moderating role of language aptitude in the effectiveness of written corrective feedback,one possible reason of which the moderating role of target structure may be greater than that of language aptitude,and it needs further exploration.Therefore,more empirical studies exploring the role of language aptitude are in need.