| Written corrective feedback(WCF)which refers to teachers’ response to learners’ linguistic errors occurring in their essays,is an important teaching method in EFL writing and plays a vital role in the development of Second Language Acquisition(SLA).Although a large number of previous studies have explored the effectiveness of different corrective feedback options,evidence from which suggested that corrective feedback(CF)is beneficial to second language development,there are still debates among scholars on the effects of CF and which type of corrective feedback is more effective.The reason for this divergence may be that correcting errors is a complex process involving many factors,such as individual differences,target language structural characteristics,etc.However,these previous studies ignored the factors that affect the effectiveness of corrective feedback,which leads to mixed results.In recent years,some scholars have begun to explore the moderating effects that individual differences like analytic ability and learning anxiety have on the effectiveness of CF,but there is little research exploring the relation of working memory capacity(WMC)to the effects of corrective feedback.Thus,more promising findings are needed to push this line of research forward.In view of this,this study takes one individual difference factor(learners’ working memory capacity)as a moderating factor to explore the effects of different corrective feedback on non-English majors’ acquisition of simple past tense.Three questions are addressed in the present study as follows:1)What effects will written CF(indirect CF and direct CF)have on students’ acquisition of English simple past tense?2)What effects will written CF(indirect CF and direct CF)have on the acquisition of English simple past tense for students with different working memory capacities?3)What are learners’ perceptions towards written corrective feedback?A total of 78 two-year non-English majors from a university in Changsha,Hunan province were selected as participants.The experiment includes pretest,measurement of working memory capacity,immediate post-test,delayed post-test,and an interview,which lasted for 7 weeks.SPSS 21.0 was applied to analyze the experimental data in statistics.The results are as follows:1)Indirect corrective feedback(ICF)group and direct corrective feedback(DCF)group’s writing scores have improved significantly both in the immediate post-test and the delayed post-test,which means written corrective feedback do play a positive impact on students’ acquisition of simple past tense.2)No matter what kind of feedback(ICF or DCF)is given,high-capacity students scored significantly higher than low-capacity students in the immediate post-test and delayed post-test.It indicates that students with high working memory capacity yield better performance when receiving the same treatment.Besides,there is no significant difference existing in the ICF and DCF groups’ immediate post-test and delayed post-test scores for high-capacity students.In contrast,students with low working memory capacity performed better when DCF was given compared with those who received ICF in the immediate post-test.However,DCF has no superiority over ICF for low-capacity students in the delayed post-test.3)Most of the students generally acknowledged that WCF plays a positive role in second language acquisition and students with low working memory capacity were inclined to receive DCF.This study proved the effectiveness of corrective feedback and the moderating effects that working memory has on the effects of corrective feedback.It is found that the higher subjects’ working memory capacity is,the more improvement they would make after receiving WCF.In addition,the effect of DCF is superior to that of ICF in improving low-capacity students’ writing accuracy.It not only sheds some lights on the CF research in second language writing but also provides reference for second language teachers to better apply corrective feedback in their teaching. |
PDF Full Text Request