The effects of focused and unfocused written corrective feedback on the grammatical accuracy of beginner EFL learners

Abstract

The study reported in this paper aimed at investigating the efficacy of written corrective feedback (CF) in improving beginner EFL learners’ grammatical accuracy. It also compared the effects of focused and unfocused written CF on the learners’ grammatical accuracy. Seventy-nine beginner EFL students formed a control group (n= 29) and two experimental groups (focused= 25, unfocused= 25). The use of the third person singular ‘s’ morpheme for verbs was selected as the target structure to be treated through the provision of the written CF. The focused group received corrections concerning the use of the ‘s’ morpheme while the unfocused group received corrections for their all types of errors. The results indicated a significant improvement in accuracy for the two experimental groups from pretest to posttest. Also, the difference between the focused and unfocused groups in the posttest was not significant. These results suggested that providing written CF was effective for improving learners’ grammatical accuracy and that focused and unfocused written CF were not of differential effect in this regard.