Abstract:

The present article reports the findings of a study that explored(1) whether direct written corrective feedback (CF) can help high-proficient L2 learners, who has already achieved a rather high level of accuracy in English, improve in the accurate use of two functions of English articles (the use of ‘a’ for first mention and ‘the’ for subsequent or anaphoric mentions); and (2) whether there are any differential effects in providing the two different types of direct written CF (focused and unfocused) on the accurate use of these grammatical forms by these EFL learners. In this study, sixty high-proficient L2 learners formed a control group and two experimental groups. One experimental group received focused written CF and the other experimental group received unfocused written CF, while the control group received no feedback. The statistical analyses indicated that both experimental groups did better than control group in the post-test, and moreover, focused group significantly outperformed unfocused one in terms of accurate use of definite and indefinite English articles. Overall, these results suggest that focused written CF is more effective than unfocused one, at least where English articles are concerned, in improving grammatical accuracy of high-proficient L2 writers and thus strengthens the case for teachers providing focused written CF.

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