
Full text loading...
The question if second language learners can benefit from corrective feedback has been a fiercely debated topic in the academic field for over a decade. Until now, research outcomes cannot settle this discussion since only short-term effectiveness of corrective feedback could be demonstrated. Due to methodological shortcomings, results from studies that investigated long-term effects of error correction on accuracy improvement are inconclusive. By trying to overcome some of these design related drawbacks, the present study intends to make a contribution to the ongoing error correction debate. The effectiveness of direct and indirect corrective feedback was compared to the effect of two control treatments: a treatment that offered students an extra opportunity to practice their writing skills, and a treatment in which students self-corrected their errors without any available feedback. Results show that corrective feedback can be effective in improving students' accuracy.