The Influence Of Written Languaging On The Efficacy Of Written Corrective Feedback In Writing

In the framework of Vygotskian sociocultural theory(SCT),language plays an important role in learning.Swain(2006,2010)highlighted the function of language and proposed the concept of languaging in second language acquisition(SLA).Previous studies focused a lot on languaging,especially oral languaging.Written languaging came into focus until Suzuki(2009,2012)spearheaded the term-written languaging.Studies on written languaging are insufficient.The present study delved into the role of written languaging in enhancing the efficiency of written corrective feedback.To be more specific,it investigated the effects of written languaging and the relative efficacy of written languaging in response to direct written corrective feedback(WCF)and indirect written corrective feedback(WCF).To this aim,sixty Chinese EFL students who were freshmen and just entered college for about one month took part in the study.They came from two parallel classes and were judged to be at low-intermediate proficiency level.They were divided into four groups:direct WCF plus written languaging(n=15)and indirect WCF plus written languaging(n=15),and only direct WCF(n=15)and only indirect WCF(n=15).At the pre-test,they were all asked to write a composition on the same prompt.Group 1 and group 2 received direct and indirect written corrective feedback respectively and were required to write about the reasons behind their errors(i.e.,perform written languaging)in Chinese,and group 3 and group 4 only received direct WCF and indirect WCF respectively.For the post-test,all these groups revised their writings.Two major findings emerged.First,the results of the study revealed that performing written languaging about direct WCF and indirect WCF could both enable L2 learners to gain more writing accuracy,compared with merely receiving direct WCF and indirect WCF.Second,there were some discrepancy between written languaging in response to direct WCF and written languaging in response to indirect WCF in terms of relative effectiveness.These findings indicated that written languaging played a crucial role in enhancing the efficiency of written corrective feedback.