Abstract:
The thrust of this mixed methods study is to explore the effect of using e-mail as a ubiquitous electronic platform for providing corrective feedback on EFL students‟ writing. The study also investigates the students‟ perceptions of using Computer- Assisted Language Learning. A total of 40 upper-intermediate EFL students ranging from 23 to 30 years of age selected through convenience sampling participated in this study. They were divided into two groups, an experimental group (N=20) who received CF through e-mail, and a control group (N=20) who experienced paper-and-pen CF. In this study, a pre-test/post-test (paired t-test) was run. Moreover, to obtain the students‟ overall performance and their performance in different writing components including content, organization, and language, a 6-point analytic rating scale was used. In addition, a structured interview was employed to investigate the students‟ perceptions about using CALL in the writing classroom. The findings of this study revealed that providing CF through the e-mail platform has a positive effect on overall writing performance of EFL students, and on such writing components as content, organization, and language. After being interviewed, the students expressed their positive attitudes towards the use of CALL in writing classroom, which may be one reason for the observed significant effect. The findings of this study highlight the important application of CALL materials in a blended learning environment in L2 writing context, which carries some implications for writing teachers.
Machine summary:
The findings of this study revealed that providing CF through the e-mail platform has a positive effect on overall writing performance of EFL students, and on such writing components as content, organization, and language.
Since 1996, when Truscott first published the article "The Case against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes", the debate over whether to give L2 students feedback on their written grammatical errors has earned a great interest among researchers (Ferris, 1999, 2002, 2003; Truscott, 1996, 2008).
Putting the debate aside, one big problem with providing CF is the way a teacher can do it (Beauvois, 1994; Hackett, 1996; Silvia, Meagher, Valenzuela, & Crenshaw, 1996; Wang, 1998).
(View the image of this page) Table 4 illustrates an increase in the mean score of the experimental group over the control group that can be considered as the effect of the treatment, that is, providing CF through e-mail, on students‟ writing.
With regard to the different components of writing, students of the control group illustrated an increase in their mean score of content (M=11), organization (M=8.
Conclusion and Pedagogical Implications</H2> The first research question of this investigation was &quot;to what extent can using e-mail in providing CF on upper-intermediate EFL students‟ writing improve their overall and componential performance regarding content, organization and language?&quot; To answer this question, several descriptive statistics were computed.
The mean score of the experimental group, in which the instructor provided feedback on students‟ writing through e-mail, was 30 in the pre-test while it changed to 43 in the post-test (Table 4).