Yingliang Liu PhD Candidate Second Language Acquisition and Teaching-GIDP The 5th International Conference on ELT in China Beijing, China Conference May 16-21, 2007

ABSTRACT
There has been controversy as to whether error feedback helps L2 students to improve the accuracy and overall quality of their writing. Most studies on error correction in L2 writing classes show that students receiving error feedback from teachers improve in accuracy over time. However, it has not been adequately examined how explicit error feedback should be in order to help students self-edit their texts. The paper reports a quasi-experimental classroom study investigating 14 university ESL students’ abilities to self-edit their writing across two feedback conditions: (1) direct correction with the correct form provided by the teacher; (2) indirect correction indicating that an error exists but without providing the correction. The students were randomly divided into two groups: Group A and Group B. Data were collected from the two drafts of the first essay and the first draft of the second essay. The teacher provided feedback on the first draft and students in Group A received direct correction with the errors underlined and corrected. Students in Group B received indirect correction with the errors only underlined. Both groups were then required to submit a second draft after revising the errors. The first draft of the second essay was collected four weeks after the second draft of the first essay was collected. Instances of errors were then identified in students’ drafts and classified into three categories: morphological errors, semantic errors, and syntactic errors. Error ratios (the number of errors counted divided by the number of words written) were calculated and compared between drafts and between groups. Results show that both types of feedback helped students self-edit their texts. Although direct feedback helped reduce students’ errors in the immediate draft, it did not treat students’ errors in a different paper. Indirect feedback helped the students correct more morphological errors than semantic errors. Surveys were conducted after they receive their feedback to see how students view the feedback. Results show that students show strong preference to direct correction. Overall results imply that providing corrective feedback on students’ writing is not a sufficient way to improve students’ accuracy in writing. Some mini-lessons or workshops focusing on different types of errors or aspects of grammar are necessary to improve students’ ability to self-edit.

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