The Effects of Different Types of Corrective Feedback by Teacher and Peers in an EFL Classroom

This paper explores the effects of direct teacher corrective feedback(CF) and peer feedback in an EFL (English as a foreign language) writing class. This article presents the results of a 3-week study of feedback provided to 36 low intermediate EFL students in Jeju province, Korea. The aim of the study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether targeted corrected feedback on EFL student writing results in improved accuracy in new pieces of writing and (2) to investigate whether there is a differential effect on accuracy for different corrective feedback options (direct, explicit teacher’s written corrective feedback above each targeted error and 10 minute individual conferences for providing oral linguistic explanation; peer feedback on indirect teacher’s feedback where errors are indicated and students are asked to self-correct under the indicated errors on their writings in collaboration with their peers in the classroom) given to 36 college students at a single linguistic feature (the past sin1pie tense). Findings suggest that peer feedback targeting a single linguistic feature improved learners’accuracy between writing 1 and writing 2 but there was no differential effect on accuracy for different corrective feedback options.