Abstract:

Using the electronic means of providing grammatical corrections on the ESL students' writing is an issue that has received attention in the recent years. There is a mounting evidence suggesting its advantage over the traditional paper-and-paper methods in terms of improving the students' grammatical accuracy as well as reducing their anxiety levels. However, the effect of certain methods of corrective feedback (CF) when provided electronically have not been investigated extensively. These methods include the use of indirect CF and the use of error Charts or logs. This pilot study explores the effects of applying these methods (i.e. Indirect CF and Error Charts or logs) in improving the linguistic accuracy of 20 ESL students from Yemen. The students were divided to three groups that received different types of CF (i.e. Traditional paper-and-pen Indirect CF, Electronic Indirect CF, and Electronic Indirect CF combined with Error Logs) and a control group. The results indicated that the two groups that received the electronic CF outperformed both the traditional CF and the control group in terms of improving the grammatical accuracy and reducing the written anxiety levels. The results showed also that the use of electronic indirect CF combined with error logs was more effective in reducing the ESL students' written anxiety. Detailed results and research and pedagogical implications are discussed in the paper.

Keywords:

Electronic Corrective feedback, Error Charts, ESL Writing, Writing Anxiety, Yemen.