Implications of corrective feedback on grammar in writing in EFL

Abstract

Corrective feedback has been widely discussed and both praised and rejected, in this review recent research on the topic is collected, presenting an overview of what kind of feedback is most beneficial to language learners and their grammatical accuracy. Initially, a brief general theoretical background is summarized, followed by a short passage about the debate initialized by John Truscott with his claim that corrective feedback is potentially harmful for language learners. Furthermore, through the research it is concluded that direct corrective feedback is the most effective for increasing language learners’ grammatical proficiency, and indirect corrective feedback is most effective for increasing learners’ overall accuracy, as well as their non-grammatical accuracy. Moreover, methodological and ethical issues of the reviewed research are discussed, followed by a discussion about the importance of the learners’ level of metalinguistic awareness. Lastly, some pedagogical implications are debated and a few suggestions for future research are made.