International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Delayed Effect of Teachers’ Error Correction on EFL Students’ Ability in Self-Correction in Writing: A Case Study
Chia-Ti Heather Tseng

Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the delayed effect of the error correction on EFL students’ ability in self-correcting their own writing errors. It intends to find out whether the instructor’s explicit oral and written error feedback, followed by students’ extensive revisions, has any sustaining effect on students’ ability in correcting and revising their errors in their own writing pieces. A group of twelve non-English major EFL college students from Taiwan participated in this study. The results indicated that the delayed effect of error feedback on students’ ability in self- correction was non-significant. Most of the errors, after given extensive feedback and revision, remained uncorrected two months later. The result of this case study tends to support the claim that error feedback does not help EFL students in self-correcting their own errors. Other findings regarding students’ attitude and interpretation towards their own repeated grammatical errors and teachers’ error feedback are discussed.

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