A Literature Review on Corrective Feedback in Second Language Writing

This literature review examines the effects of direct and indirect corrective feedback on second language writing (SLW). It begins by defining both direct and indirect feedback, highlighting that direct feedback involves teachers explicitly correcting errors, while indirect feedback involves indicating errors without providing the correction. The review then analyzes various research papers with differing perspectives on the effectiveness of each approach. Some studies suggest that students prefer indirect feedback, finding it more beneficial for learning and self-correction. Other research indicates that direct feedback has a more significant long-term impact on accuracy improvement. Some sources propose that grammar correction should be avoided altogether, as it can negatively impact student confidence. The literature review also touches upon the importance of the way feedback is delivered, suggesting that electronic communication may reduce student stress and that problem-solving techniques can improve writing skills. The review concludes by emphasizing the ongoing debate surrounding written corrective feedback (WCF) and the need for teachers to adopt a balanced approach that considers the individual needs and learning styles of their students to enhance their writing accuracy and overall interlanguage system development.

Running head: DIRECT AND INDIRECT CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK
Effects of Direct and Indirect Corrective Feedback on Second Language Writing (SWL)
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction
The main purpose of this literature review is to study the impacts of Direct and Indirect
Corrective Feedback on a student, in the case of Second Language Writing. Corrective feedback
may be defined as a process in the field of education where the student receives a feedback from
the teacher on his or her performance. There are two kinds of corrective feedback – direct and
indirect, which will be explored in greater detail in the following sections of the report. “Direct
Feedback” is that when teachers highlight the mistakes or errors to the student (Ferris &
Roberts, 2001, 163). On the other hand, “Indirect Feedback” does not highlight the errors.
Teachers rather indicate the errors (Ferris & Roberts, 2001, 163-164).
In the case of second language writing or SLW, corrective feedback is considered to be
one of the most important aspects which determine the education or the academic progress of the
concerned students. In Direct Corrective Feedback, the teacher providing the feedback provides
the student with the correction. For instance, in Second Language Writing, if the student has
made an error, the teacher provides him with the correct solution. On the other hand, in the case
of Indirect Corrective Feedback, the student is corrected by the teacher but the correction is not
provided. For instance, if a student has made an error in his or her writing, it will be pointed out
to the student by the teacher. The teacher will also hint at what the mistake was, but will not
point it out to the student. In other words, in this method, a student is expected to correct his or
her own errors. When it comes to Second Language Writing, feedback is of the utmost
importance. This is because it helps the students understand where they are going wrong. It also
enables the students to understand their own mistakes and correct them and avoid them in the
long run. Furthermore, it also facilitates a healthy relationship between the student and teacher,
where the former is able to open up to the latter and seek help in matters related to education.

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From the teachers' perspective, the topic is immensely helpful because this will help them
select the best of the types of corrective feedback. It is important as well to make it
understandable to students and help them improve their second language studies. Definitely, a
good feedback approach will help teachers communicate the errors in an appropriate manner.
Students will also be able to cope with the system. Moreover, an effective coordination between
the teachers and students will happen, which eventually will impact on the overall academic
performance of the teachers.
“Written corrective feedback or WCF can significantly help students in understanding
their second language studies”.
Literature Review
According to Westmcott (2017, p. 19-20), corrective feedback is crucial as far as written
work is concerned in the case of Second Language Writing. However, the question arises as to
the appropriate method of providing corrective feedback. The author claims that there are two
categories of corrective feedback – direct and indirect, as defined above. In the case of indirect
feedback, there are numerous subcategories with regards to the kind of error. For instance, if
there is a grammar error, a teacher may highlight the location of the error but not mention what
the actual mistake is. This research paper focuses on intermediate learners at a Chilean
university, where six students engaged in Second Language Writing were studied. The study
clearly showed that students preferred indirect corrective feedback as compared to direct
corrective feedback. This meant that students perceive an indirect corrective approach to be more
beneficial as compared to a direct approach.

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Van Beuningen, de Jongand Kuiken(2008, p. 281) have a different opinion altogether.
While most students and teachers believe that corrective feedback could prove to be beneficial
for students, some critics are of the opinion that corrective feedback in writing is ineffective,
unnecessary and may even prove to be detrimental to the learning of a student. However, the
authors in this research counter this argument and claim that direct and indirect corrective
feedback could be effective for a student in both short and long terms. So far, there has very little
research on the long-term impacts of direct and indirect corrective feedback, with most
researches stating that the above have almost no impact on accuracy improvement. However, this
research compares students who were provided direct and indirect corrective feedback against
students were who were not. The results of the research showed that corrective feedback can be
immensely helpful in improving the learning capacity of the student. Moreover, contrary to
Westmacott (2017), this research shows that it is direct corrective feedback which has a long-
term impact on the accuracy improvement of a student as compared to indirect corrective
feedback.
Chandler (2003, p. 268-269) is of a different opinion and takes up the same issue from a
different perspective. The author, in this case, is of the opinion that the correction of a student's
lexical and grammatical errors during the assignment would lead to a reduction of such errors. In
other words, the author hypothesizes that corrective feedback would positively affect the quality
and fluency of a student as far as writing s concerned. Moreover, the article also recommends
ways on how the error should be pointed out. The way a teacher corrects the error of a student
would determine his learning capacity. For instance, in the case of indirect corrections, the article
mentions that highlighting the location of the error is important for students. The research paper

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also claims direct corrective feedback is the most beneficial option for students because it is
faster and more convenient.
Truscott (1996, p. 328) puts forth an argument that is completely opposite of the previous
pieces of research. He says that although grammar correction is one of the most integral aspects
of second language writing, he believes that grammar correction (both direct and indirect) should
be banned and prevented under all costs. This is because the author believes that grammar
correction has no impact on learning capacity and is a waste of time and is ineffective. This is
mainly owing to the kind of correction procedures that are utilized by the students. The paper
also suggests that correction of grammar could have adverse effects on the student, for it could
lead to negative impressions and even lower their confidence, which would hamper their ability
to learn.
Seiffedin& El-Sakka, (2017) is of the opinion that over pressure on the feedback
regarding the error correction may push the students towards performing under a stressed
condition. He also suggests that and if the feedback is received in an unthreatening manner by
electronic communication channels such as e-mails might help the student to perform in a
relaxed manner. The author is so firm in his belief since the findings of the research suggest that
those students have performed remarkably better who have received electronic feedback than
those students who have not on their writing accuracy. The principle instrument of the study was
a pre-post writing test. The research is based on a survey of forty –eight EFL students in the
kindergarten section. The authors have recommended to the teachers that they should change
their methods of teaching and feedbacks must be given through a combination of the direct and
indirect method. He further highlights that the relationship between the students and the teachers
must go beyond the lectures and connect online too.

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In this regard, as per the view of Lalande (1984), the problem –solving techniques as well
as the error awareness puts beneficial effects on the writing skill development. He further
suggests that these techniques have helped the students from committing more grammatical
mistakes and also orthographic errors. As the research is based on the detailed investigation of an
experimental group of students who have extremely outperformed in eleven out of twelve non-
lexical error categories. The research was conducted on two student’s groups. The first one is the
control group and the other is the experimental group. The experiment was highly effective as it
collected the data that clearly points towards the effectiveness of the techniques implemented to
develop the writing skills of the students of German language at the intermediate level in the
Pennsylvania State University. The author puts focus on the scoring of composition in a
systematic manner instead of exception at such level.
The so-called written corrective feedback or the WCF has a controversial issue that has
been examined in the article by Ferris et al., (2013). The author has conducted the research using
the qualitative method and multiple-case study design so that the learners’ responses are
individually observed and examined. It has also helped to learn about the self-reported strategies
in order to utilize it. The data of the research has been collected by various questionnaires, from
four of the texts per student and also markings of the errors and revision lessons. The findings of
the research suggest that the techniques of WCF or one to one description of the errors are
useful, as informed by the participants. However, the authors also suggest that the students’
ability to self- edit and composing is kind of limited by the formal knowledge of rules of
language. At last, the article specifically recommends that the teachers must not restrict
themselves and take a tuned approach to go beyond only sticking to the written texts of the
students.

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The knowledge of how explicit the error feedback should be is also an important concern
in this regard. The article by Ferris & Roberts (2001), is highly beneficial as it demonstrates the
issue in the best possible way. The main matter of concern continues as determining whether the
error feedback is responsible for improving the overall quality of their writing as well as
enhancing the accuracy level of the students. Although from the past have suggested that
students do improve on their accuracy levels with the passage of time due to the error feedbacks
received from the students. However, the one aspect that is how much explicit the feedbacks
should be that plays an important role in supporting the students self-edit their texts has been less
examined. The structure of the research rests on an experimental classroom of 72 ESL students
of University level. These students had different abilities to self-edit their texts. The findings of
the research demonstrated that the coded marking of the errors is equal to the less explicit
feedback which is helpful for the students to self –edit their own texts.
In the article of Eslami (2014), the truthfulness of the debate of Truscott who published
an article in the year 1996, claiming that WCF is harmful or ineffective, has been examined.
Truscott’s debate did the best part by alerting the field experts of regarding satisfactory research
to conduct the correction feedback process with more effective CF techniques in order the ensure
the improvement of the students' accuracy level. There were sixty –six well learned EFL students
as the participants of the study. Three types of tests were being experimented in the students
which include a pre-test, immediate post-test and also delayed post-test. The results showed that
those students who received indirect feedbacks from their supervisors outperformed those
students who received direct feedback both on the delayed post-test as well as the immediate
post-test. The author argues that there is a kind of connection between the writing accuracy and
the WCF. He further asserts that error feedbacks are highly important as it enables the students

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to utilize the scope of developing their interlanguage system. Hence, it is useful especially when
the error correction is focused on the erroneous linguistic form.
On a contrary note, Ellis et al., (2008) are of the opinion that the case of the teachers is
made strong who provide written corrective feedback. As far as English articles are concerned,
the written CF is the most effective. The author further suggests that the written correction
feedback is highly effective if it is directed towards narrowly focused or specifically focused on
errors such as the grammar error or sentence structure error and many others. When a wide range
of learner errors are corrected, it becomes difficult to point out the specific errors of the
individuals one by one. In order to demonstrate the issue more clearly, an activity has been
conducted that compares the focused CF as well as the unfocussed CF. However, it seems to be
more research on the issue as there has been no particular conclusion. The experiment of the
study displays that those students who received focused corrections, only had few article errors
while those students who received unfocused corrections, had more errors other than article
errors.
John Bitchener’s views on this topic must be included as he is also an important
contributor on the WCF and second language acquisition issues. Bitchener’s article poses
another perspective suggesting that those students who were the recipients of written corrective
feedback immediately after the test performed far better than those students who were in the
control group. The research is based on a long time observation that is 2 months on 75 ESL
international intermediate students in Auckland, New Zealand. One group received written
corrective feedback and the control group received no feedback. The aim of the study is to
investigate whether the corrective feedback method on the ESL students comes out as an
improved accuracy level among the students. The author drags the findings and perspectives of

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Fathman and Whalley (1990) and counters that even if corrective feedback is a valuable
technique, it must not be left unnoticed that the post-test feedbacks only required a revision of
the text and not a re-do of the text.
Discussion
The above study aimed at exploring the studies of various scholars and focusing on their
findings in order to come to a definite conclusion. The articles of the above-mentioned authors
mostly support the view that the corrective feedback is of utmost importance for the students
who are going through the phase of second language acquisition. As obtained from the article,
there is existing evidence in favor of corrective feedback (Bitchener, 2008, 114). It was
mentioned in the article that direct correction of error done by the teacher led to more accurate
revisions as compared to indirect feedback (Chandler, 2003, 270). The teachers are
recommended to either change or modify the techniques they apply to the feedback system and
add opportunities for students to ask questions be it during in-class revision sessions and in
conferences (Ferris et al., 2013, 322). These kinds of students get immediately affected by the
rude expression and perform further in a stressful way. It harms their psychological status.
Another finding suggests that there exist a strong linkage between writing accuracy, and written
corrective feedback (Eslami, 2014, 451). They must be given the opportunity to self-edit their
texts following the instruction of the supervisor. Another finding is that the immediate tests after
the feedbacks display better improvement if the correction has been done with specific
comments than after a long period (Ellis et al., 2008, 365). The students must be guided by the
teachers and not bullied by them or insulted by them with no correction.
Conclusion

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Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that written corrective
feedback or WCF plays a major role in improving the accuracy level of the students of second
language studies. However, the use of appropriate techniques is necessary to leverage the
benefits of corrective feedback. It is advisable for teachers to use different techniques while
dealing with students as they can be negatively impacted by the rude behaviors of teachers. This
study has also found direct corrective feedback as the best to deal with students intending for the
second language acquisition. However, there should be more research works on the topic to
identify whether direct corrective feedback has an upper hand on the indirect.

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Bibliography
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Chandler, J. (2003). The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in the
accuracy and fluency of L2 student writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(3),
267-296. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(03)00038-9
Ellis, R., Sheen, Y., Murakami, M., & Takashima, H. (2008). The effects of focused and
unfocused written corrective feedback in an english as a foreign language
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