| Author: | Xian, Liuyan |
| Title: | Written corrective feedback and individual differences on second language writing development |
| Advisors: | Kim, Sun-A (CBS) |
| Degree: | DALS |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | English language -- Written English -- Study and teaching English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers English language -- Errors of usage Feedback (Psychology) Second language acquisition Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Humanities |
| Pages: | xiv, 222 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Written corrective feedback (WCF), a widely used instrument to raise L2 learners' awareness of linguistic problems, is written comments from either peers or language instructors based on the second language (L2) learners' non-target-like output (Sheen & Ellis, 2011; Van Beuningen, 2010). The efficacy of WCFs in L2 writing development has been under debate for decades, but no agreement has been reached yet, probably because individual differences, educational context, and methodological disparity would yield variations in its effectiveness Evans et al., 2010). Not long ago, a new approach to WCF called dynamic WCF (Evans et al., 2010) was proposed, grounded on pedagogical implications from the practice of WCF and the Skill Acquisition Theory (DeKeyser, 2014). Dynamic WCF employs indirect and unfocused feedback and offers meaningful, prompt, constant, and manageable WCF based on individual needs in developing L2 writing ability (Evans et al., 2010). Dynamic WCF seems promising and worthwhile to be applied in L2 English classrooms, but there is not much empirical evidence for dynamic WCF. In this context, this study explored the following three questions: (1) Is dynamic WCF more effective in improving writing outcomes regarding holistic writing quality, linguistic accuracy, fluency, rhetorical competence, and syntactic complexity, compared with non-dynamic WCF and no WCF? (2) Is dynamic WCF more effective in improving editing skills in grammatical errors in comparison to non-dynamic WCF and no WCF? (3) Are individual differences (IDs) in language analytic ability (LAA), working memory (WM), and L2 writing motivation associated with the effectiveness of dynamic WCF and non-dynamic WCF? This quasi-experimental study was composed of two phases. The first phase piloted the instruments to ensure the validity and reliability and the treatments of WCFs on their practicality and feasibility in a new teaching context. Based on the insights from the pilots, the second phase was conducted on 210 first-year native Chinese college students. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups (the dynamic WCF, the non-dynamic WCF, and the control group) and completed a writing task and an editing task in three time points: before the intervention (pretest), immediately after the intervention (immediate posttest), and two months after the intervention (delayed posttest). Furthermore, individual learner differences in LAA, WM, and L2 writing motivation were measured by an LAA test, a Chinese reading span test, and a questionnaire, respectively. The findings are summarized as follows. First, the two WCF groups showed more improvements in holistic quality and language accuracy, the effectiveness of which was sustained over time. Second, in developing editing skills, dynamic WCF demonstrated advantages over non-dynamic WCF and no feedback on revising global errors. Third, IDs in LAA, WM, and L2 writing motivation emerged as weak predictors in the dynamic WCF group at all levels of writing development. However, in the non-dynamic WCF group, IDs played a significant role in different levels of writing development. This study contributes to the practicality and durability of WCF and the framework of the Skill Acquisition Theory, as well as provides an elaborate explanation of how WCF operates in promoting writing development. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8047.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 2.6 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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