Corrective Feedback Effects in University English Writing Classes

This paper investigates the effects of corrective feedback on writing in beginner-level university English writing classes. The research questions were 1) What were the effects of the class on writing? 2) Which errors improved the most and the least? To answer these questions, a test consisting of 15 questions as well as free writing were conducted as pre-tests and post-tests at the beginning and end of the class, respectively. Forty six college students were the participants in this study. The findings are as follows: First, a writing class based on direct and indirect corrective feedback provided by the teacher and peers can be effective in reducing students' grammatical errors and improving their free writing ability; Second, among six grammatical categories (article and determiner, sentence structure, verb, preposition, singular and plural, and subject-verb agreement), subject-verb agreement errors improved the most, while singular and plural the least; Third, corrective feedback on the sentence level contributed to developing free writing ability, especially in the low and intermediate level students. The results imply that reflecting the importance of corrective feedback, it would be desirable to design small class sizes for writing courses.