Impact of direct written corrective feedback on composition writing: a study of secondary level students of Jaffna central college

Abstract

As a productive skill, writing plays a key role in communication. It is, however, regarded as a difficult skill, particularly in second language contexts where many students encounter challenges in writing. Effectiveness of the written corrective feedback on improving accuracy and overall quality of students’ ultimate written production needs to be investigated further. Most of the existing literature have drawn conclusions by comparing the effectiveness of both the direct corrective and indirect corrective feedback. In this context, the present study only investigates the impact of direct written corrective feedback on composition writing, and argues that it can have a potentially significant impact in ESL writing. Besides, it also identifies that further research is required to get more nuanced and representative assessment of the effectiveness of the above feedback. This study was carried out among 58 participants of secondary students of Jaffna Central College, involving pre and posttests along with focus group interviews. The intervention of providing feedback lasted ten weeks, and feedback was given on all type of errors. The study found that direct corrective feedback did not generate a statistically significant impact on composition writing. However, it produced a statistically significant impact on the components of syntax and tenses and mechanics of writing. The focus group interviews reveal that the participants prefer to receive direct written feedback from their teachers.