Exploring the effectiveness of focused written corrective feedback for L2 English writing in a Hong Kong secondary school

Abstract

The debate about the significance of unfocused and focused WCF in accuracy development has been the subject of considerable research for decades. The study aims to address three gaps: the use of definite and indefinite articles is under-researched; little is known about students’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of focused and unfocused WCF; and most prior studies are conducted in tertiary-level contexts. The present 14-week study, taking a sociocultural perspective, sets out to fill these gaps by examining the effects of both types of written error treatment of indefinite and definite articles. A pre- and post-error correction test, five narrative tasks and a questionnaire were used amongst 30 L2 secondary two students in a Hong Kong school, followed by stimulated-recall interviews with four higher-ability and four lower-ability participants about their perceptions. Adopting a pre-test, immediate post-test, delayed post-test quasi-experimental design, this study consisted of two groups receiving focused or unfocused WCF respectively. Subsequently, four interviews and a focus group interview with six secondary English teachers were conducted in the post-intervention stage in order to verify, disconfirm or add to the nuance of the collected data and its interpretations. Incorporating teachers’ reactions to the student data and the significant insights in the analysis enhance the credibility of the findings. The findings of the study show that while there were improvements in the mean accuracy scores of the linguistic items in the delayed post-test and the post-error correction test in both WCF groups, those in the focused WCF performed considerably better with a heightened metalinguistic awareness of the targeted errors. Comparatively, significant improvements in the immediate post-test were found only amongst those in the unfocused group suggesting that unfocused WCF improved accuracy grades over the short term but could not be sustained in the long run. Nevertheless, students seemed to show a preference for unfocused WCF, probably because they have mainly experienced unfocused WCF at school. They were not convinced of the difference between the learning progress and the final assessment with focused WCF. Going against this usual WCF practice, focused WCF was perceived by students to risk having a negative impact on their future academic performance. Despite the attentional strain of unfocused WCF on students’ processing capacity and a negative and demotivating learning experience in English writing, the higher-ability students expressed a view that using unfocused WCF was an indispensable step for achieving academic excellence, while the lower-ability students were mainly driven by their fear of losing face in front of their peers. Hence, the influence of social interactions and peer relationships in language learning play a significant role in language learning and these findings align with the sociocultural perspective of WCF. This study contributes to the field of WCF empirically, pedagogically and theoretically. Rather than relying on only quantitative data, it offers insights derived from the qualitative findings on learners’ perceptions of both types of WCF. The study provides practical implications in suggesting focused WCF as an effective pedagogical means of facilitating learners’ linguistic accuracy in an L2 ESL classroom, at least in the case of indefinite and definite articles, as opposed to the unfocused WCF approach recommended in the Hong Kong English curriculum guide. It extends our current understanding of the perceptions of the efficacy of focused WCF amongst learners with different English proficiency levels which offers a springboard for future research.