The Effect of Explicit Corrective Feedback on EFL Learners' Retention of Grammar: Does the Medium of Feedback Matter?
Subject Areas : Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English
Jafar Izadpanah
1
,
Leila Akbarpour
2
1 - Department of Foreign Languages, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran
2 - Department of Foreign Languages, Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz, Iran
Keywords: Explicit corrective feedback, written corrective feedback, oral corrective feedback, grammatical structures, retention,
Abstract :
Abstract. Although various forms of corrective feedback (CF) have extensively been studied, the impact of explicit CF on grammar retention has received little attention. The current study sought to ascertain how Iranian EFL students responded to explicit oral and written CF classified as “metalinguistic feedback”. In the present study, the effectiveness of two types of CF Explicit Written Feedback (EWF) and Explicit Oral Feedback (EOF) on EFL learners’ retention of grammatical points was examined. Sixty Iranian high school girls were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions: oral or written. Following this procedure, a pretest, posttest, delayed-posttest design with two experimental groups was employed to examine the impact of the two types of CF. Four paired samples t-tests, an independent samples t-test, and a mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance were used to assess the effect of explicit written and oral CF on the retention of grammatical structures. The results of the mixed between-subjects analysis of variance and different t-tests indicated that both types of EOF and EWF significantly affected language learners’ retention of grammatical structures. In addition, results suggested that both groups performed equally well in retaining grammatical structures. Discussion is held regarding the study’s implications and potential directions for future research.
