The effects of computer-mediated synchronous and asynchronous direct corrective feedback on writing: a case study

Abstract

This case study investigated the characteristics of computer-mediated synchronous corrective feedback (SCF, provided while students wrote) and asynchronous corrective feedback (ACF, provided after students had finished writing) in an EFL writing task. The task, designed to elicit the use of the hypothetical conditional, was completed by two Japanese university students in either the SCF or ACF condition. The writing process was video-recorded using the screen-capture function. An interview involving stimulated recall was conducted immediately after the writing session to investigate the two writers’ perceptions about the feedback they received. The main findings were that (1) SCF created an interactive writing process similar in some respects to oral corrective feedback; (2) both the SCF and ACF promoted noticing-the-gap, but self-correction was more successful in the SCF condition; (3) focus on meaning and form took place contiguously in the SCF condition while it occurred separately in the ACF condition; and (4) both types of feedback facilitated metalinguistic understanding of the target feature, reflecting the unique features of writing (i.e., its slow pace, its permanency and the need of accuracy). These differences were confirmed by analyzing compositions written by 15 similar learners who received either type of feedback.

Keywords:

• written corrective feedback
• synchronous and asynchronous feedback
• second language writing
• revision of writing
• uptaking

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the participants in this study. I am also grateful to Scott Aubrey and Kwansei Gakuin University for helping with the data collection. Finally, my gratitude goes to the helpful comments from the anonymous reviewers and for the guidance of the editor. This research was supported by Language Learning Small Grants Research Program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Note

Notes

1. The rest of the 22 students in the class (n = 7) were assigned as a comparison group for another part of the project.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natsuko Shintani

Natsuko Shintani is a senior lecturer at Faculty of Education, University of Auckland. Her research interests encompass roles of interaction in second language acquisition, task-based language teaching, error correction on writing, and meta-analysis as a research tool. She has also worked on several meta-analysis studies.