Article published In:
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Effects of indirect corrective feedback and teacher encouragement on EFL students’ writing accuracy

ORCID logo | Zunyi Medical University
ORCID logo | Zunyi Medical University
This study examines the effects of indirect corrective feedback and positive affective teacher comments on English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ writing accuracy in new writings and revisions. Four intact classes of EFL students (n = 231) were randomly assigned to four groups: (1) Indirect-coded corrective feedback (ICCF), (2) ICCF + positive teacher comments, (3) Indirect non-coded corrective feedback (INCCF), (4) INCCF + positive teacher comments. Two-way factorial ANOVAs investigated the effects of indirect CF (ICCF or INCCF) and the presence or absence of positive teacher comments on students’ writing accuracy in new writings and in revisions. Results revealed that, beginning with similar levels of writing accuracy and attitudes toward writing feedback, groups provided positive teacher comments significantly outperformed the groups not provided positive comments in both new writings and revisions. There was no significant difference for the type of corrective feedback provided, nor was there a significant interaction effect. This study provides evidence that teacher encouragement through positive affective comments can have a significant impact on students’ writing acquisition. The paper concludes with implications for EFL writing instruction.
Keywords: Indirect corrective feedback, affective teacher comments, process-oriented writing instruction, EFL students, student attitudes toward feedback, writing accuracy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Motivation and CF
    • 2.2Positive affective teacher comments and CF
  • 3.Research questions
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Research design
    • 4.3Materials and instruments
      • 4.3.1EFL student attitudes toward feedback questionnaire
      • 4.3.2Writing tasks
      • 4.3.3Table of corrective feedback codes
      • 4.3.4Writing accuracy measure
    • 4.4Data analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Preliminary data analyses
    • 5.2Results of analyses addressing research questions
      • 5.2.1Comparing the effects of coding factor (ICCF versus INCCF) and affective teacher comments factor (affective teacher comments versus no affective teacher comments) on a new writing task
      • 5.2.2Comparing the effects of coding factor (ICCF versus INCCF) and affective teacher comments factor (Affective Teacher Comments versus No Affective Teacher Comments) on student revisions
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Effects of Coded and Non-coded Feedback on students’ writing accuracy
    • 6.2Effects of positive affective comments on students’ writing accuracy
    • 6.3Limitations of the Study
    • 6.4Implications for teaching
      • 6.4.1Teachers should consider the cognitive load imposed by feedback
      • 6.4.2Teacher feedback should consider non-linguistic aspects of writing
  • 7.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 20 December 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.22061.fan
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