Reactive Focus on Form through Negotiated Dynamic Written Corrective Feedback: Writing Fluency or Accuracy?

Abstract

There is growing body of evidence regarding the positive role of corrective feedback and FoF (focus on form) in L2 learning. This study explored the effect of reactive focus on form through dynamic written corrective feedback on writing fluency and writing accuracy. To collect the data, 30EFL students from intermediate level were selected. A writing pretest was given to them and scored 2 times from two different points of view: fluency (complexity of sentence, and number of words) and accuracy. They had 16 sessions, 2 sessions a week and in each session they were given a topic and they wrote an essay for this. In every next session they brought their essays to class and the teacher collected them. The teacher checked the essay and marked the student grammatical errors. Next session the erroneous forms were identified, reacted and resolved through negotiation. At the end of sessions a writing test was taken and scored two times, first according to the fluency and then accuracy. Comparing the scores of fluency and accuracy in pretest and posttest showed that there was a significant advancement in writing fluency scores rather than accuracy.

Keywords: Focus on form, Corrective feedback, Writing Fluency, Writing accuracy