Written corrective feedback in secondary education: learners' and teachers' preferences and perceptions

Abstract

The role of corrective feedback (CF, henceforth) in second language acquisition (SLA, henceforth), more specifically written corrective feedback (WCF, henceforth), has been highly studied in the last couple of decades (Truscott, 1996; 1999; Ferris, 1999; Ashwell, 2000; Chandler, 2003; Russell & Spada, 2006; Sheen, 2010; 2011; Ellis & Shintani, 2014 among others). In fact, in the past years there has been an increase in the number of studies addressing this issue (Storch, 2010). Even though the role of written correction in SLA was often shaded by the importance of oral CF, it has recently gained strength and is now an aspect of language learning worth of research. From the above mentioned studies, most of them discussed the importance of WCF in relation to the efficacy in learners’ grammatical improvement and made a comparison of different WCF techniques. Even though much debate continues on these issues and further research is needed, another relevant issue which could provide vital insight to this topic is learners’ perceptions and preferences. Already stated by Olajedo (1993), learners’ views are neglected but, in fact, they should be considered and compared with the opinions of teachers. Among the first studies to tackle this aspect, we can find Radecki and Swales (1988), Olajedo (1993) and Saito (1994). Some years later, Lee (2004; 2005), Chiang (2004), Diab (2005; 2006), Plonsky and Mills (2006), Montgomery and Baker (2007), Mahfoodh (2011) and Norouzian (2012) have also analysed learners’ preferences, perceptions, attitudes and emotional reactions. A study conducted by Hamouda (2011), which paid attention to learners and teachers and the comparison between these two groups, has thrown interesting findings related to similarities and differences of perception within the same classroom. This project is organised in two different parts. Part 1 focuses on the theoretical framework behind the research in which key concepts and notions will be explained. It begins with the notion of error, its nature, typology and implications from a pedagogical perspective. After that, the definition of CF will be presented for later going in depth with WCF and the different types of techniques which could be employed for written correction. Part 1 concludes with a detailed literature review of relevant research conducted in relation to WCF and grammatical accuracy by making reference to the debate on this topic. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of different WCF techniques will be mentioned. Finally, research carried out in relation to learners’ preferences and perceptions on WCF will be presented. As for Part 2, it consists of the study leading this project. The first section describes the research questions and hypotheses derived from previous research. The methodology section will present the setting in which the research took place, the participants involved in the study, the instruments employed and how data were analysed. Finally, results will be shown together with a discussion of such data. The project will conclude with some final remarks and suggestions of the future direction WCF studies should take, along with the limitations emerging from the study conducted.