Effects of indirect corrective feedback and teacher encouragement on EFL students’ writing accuracy

Abstract This study examines the effects of indirect corrective feedback and positive affective teacher comments on English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ writing accuracy in new writings and revisions. Four intact classes of EFL students ( n = 231) were randomly assigned to four groups: (1) Indirect-coded corrective feedback (ICCF), (2) ICCF + positive teacher comments, (3) Indirect non-coded corrective feedback (INCCF), (4) INCCF + positive teacher comments. Two-way factorial ANOVAs investigated the effects of indirect CF (ICCF or INCCF) and the presence or absence of positive teacher comments on students’ writing accuracy in new writings and in revisions. Results revealed that, beginning with similar levels of writing accuracy and attitudes toward writing feedback, groups provided positive teacher comments significantly outperformed the groups not provided positive comments in both new writings and revisions. There was no significant difference for the type of corrective feedback provided, nor was there a significant interaction effect. This study provides evidence that teacher encouragement through positive affective comments can have a significant impact on students’ writing acquisition. The paper concludes with implications for EFL writing instruction.