The Role of Implicit & Explicit Corrective Feedback in Persian-speaking EFL Learners' Awareness of and Accuracy in English Grammar

While various studies have investigated the effectiveness of certain types of error treatment methods, there has been little research conducted to examine the effect of different types of corrective feedback on EFL learners' grammar accuracy and awareness through eliciting repeated performances. The current research was designed to investigate the effect of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on EFL learners' awareness of and accuracy in English grammar. The sample of study consisted of 60 Iranian EFL pre-intermediate learners which were randomly divided into two groups namely explicit and implicit. In this study a series of tests, in the form of Persian sentences in simple present and past tense were administered to the learners and they were asked to write their English equivalents. To assess the learners' level of awareness of English grammar two tests containing ten English sentences in simple past and present tense with wrong verb forms, constructed by the researcher were administered to the learners and they were asked to identify the errors and write their correct forms. Before administering these tests, present and past simple tense were taught to the both groups of learners (implicit &explicit group) in three sessions. The results of the study indicated that grammar accuracy and awareness of both implicit and explicit groups improved. Besides, explicit group outperformed implicit group and it seems that explicit corrective feedback is more effective than implicit one. These results emphasize the importance, of providing corrective feedback in EFL settings where teacher's instruction and feedback are the most important ways through which learners can improve their language proficiency. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.