The Effects of Corrective Feedback on Iranian EFL Learners' Writing

Abstract

Matching the expectations of teachers and learners is vital for successful learning. Few studies have investigated the effects of corrective feedback on Iranian EFL learners. Therefore, this study aimed to bridge this gap. To this end, the sample of 180 male and female teachers, who taught language courses in an English Language Teaching program in language institutes in Zanjan, and 350 learners, chosen through stratified random sampling, formed the participants of the study. Two standard instruments were used in this study- PET Test and Fukuda’s (2004) Feedback Questionnaire. The findings suggest that learners believed that corrective feedback had a significant effect on their writing but the teachers did not think so. It is concluded that most of the feedback given by teachers were concentrated on grammatical errors and that the teachers’ views on feedback are based on the context, which might origin from absence of sufficient teacher training. With this in mind, giving feedback, or rather the right kind of feedback should perhaps play a better role in teacher education. The fact that feedback is based on each context may be positive as learners are different and teacher trainees might still take advantage from studying the provision of feedback.

Keywords

• Corrective Feedback
• Error
• Perception
• Preference
• Correction