Effects of Different Types of Written Feedback on Acquisition of Two Target Structures Measured by Revision and New Writing

Abstract

A growing amount of recent second language (L2) research has shown both empirical evidence for the effectiveness of written feedback (WF) on L2 writing and acquisition and mediating roles played by various factors in WF efficacy (see Kang & Han, 2015 for a review). Out of a great number of variables, this study focuses on three: (a) type of feedback (direct feedback vs. metalinguistic explanation), (b) type of grammatical structures (i.e., indefinite article vs. past hypothetical conditional) and (c) type of measurement (i.e., revision vs. new writing), and examined relationships among these three variables. Forty-one Japanese university students of English were asked to reconstruct a text (first draft) in Week 1 of the study. They were then given either direct feedback (DF) or metalinguistic explanation (ME) and then asked to revise the first draft (revision) in Week 2. Finally, participants reconstructed a new text (new writing) in Week 4. Results showed that (a) DF promoted more accurate revision than ME, (b) DF and ME worked differently according to different structures, and (c) types of WF had no differential effects on promoting accuracy in new writing. These findings are discussed with reference to L2 research. This article concludes by providing limitations, future directions, and pedagogical implications.