ELT students’ reflections on explicit and implicit written corrective feedback

Abstract

The study aimed at examining reflections of ELT students on explicit and implicit written corrective feedback (WCF) in writing skill. Qualitative research, case study design and convenient sampling technique were used in the study. The study group included 16 ELT students at preparatory class. The data were analyzed through content analysis. The analyses showed that both explicit and implicit WCF had positive and negative aspects. Although WCF helped students see their identified mistakes and correct them, revise the corrections not to make the same mistakes and improve themselves in writing as well as being easier to correct the mistakes and more learner-oriented, it also led students just to correct their mistakes, which caused to make the same mistakes, prevented them from learning the actual problem, dwelling on their mistakes, learning from their mistakes, and improving themselves in writing. Implicit WCF led students to try to correct their mistakes on their own, think about their problems/mistakes and search for possible corrections, helped them improve themselves in writing, learn from their mistakes, learn permanently, learn their actual problem not to make the same mistakes again, which decreased the rate of making mistakes, helped them search from different sources, develop their research skills and get higher scores. However, it also caused a few students to have difficulty in finding what and where the problem is. Finally, implicit WCF was more effective than explicit corrective feedback. Based on the results of the study, using explicit WCF first and implicit WCF later is recommended to help students improve their writing skill.