The Effect of Teachers' Error Feedback on International Students' Self-Correction Ability

THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ ERROR FEEDBACK ON INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ SELF-CORRECTION ABILITY Youngju Hong Department of Linguistics and English Language Master of Arts The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of teachers’ error feedback on ESL students’ self-correction ability. One hundred and nineteen international students enrolled in ESL composition classes at Brigham Young University’s English Language Center participated in this research. The participants were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: (1) a coded feedback group, (2) a non-coded feedback group, and (3) a no-feedback control group. All participants were asked to write an in-class essay and to self-correct their grammatical errors during 20-minute time period. A grammar test and attitudinal survey were administered at the same time. The results of an ANCOVA indicated that teacher feedback was the most significant factor influencing students’ self-correction, compared to proficiency level and performance on the grammar test. There was a significant difference between the control group that did not receive any feedback from teachers and the two experimental groups that were given either coded or non-coded feedback (p < .01). However, there was no significant difference in performance on self-correction between the coded feedback group and the non-coded feedback group. In addition, survey results revealed that students preferred receiving coded feedback over other feedback methods. The results of this study support the claim that error feedback helps ESL learners self-correct grammatical errors. In addition, the attitudinal survey shows that, overwhelmingly, students prefer coded feedback.

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