Exploring Learner Noticing through Reformulation in Second Language Writing

The role that noticing plays in second language (L2) learning has long been discussed in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Research into corrective feedback has not been exceptional. This interest has led many researchers to pay attention to the relationship between the level of awareness and the way learners actually process incoming linguistic information in the form of feedback. However, such process-oriented research has been limited to oral corrective feedback. little research has been conducted to investigate how learners process written corrective feedback. Thus, the current research explored how twenty Korean learners of English noticed written corrective feedback delivered in the form of reformulation through verbal reports, In addition, the study examined the relationship between learners' noticing and their performance in revisions of their initial writing. The study found that learners noticed more than half of the difference between their initial writing and teacher reformulation of it, and they were more likely to notice correction provided to lexicon than to form. It was also found that the level of awareness was closely related to the learners' performance in the revisions.