The Comparative Study of Teacher’s vs. Computer-mediated Written Unfocused and Focused Corrective Feedback: A Case of Iranian EFL Learners

This study was conducted to compare the effect of teacher corrective feedback (CF) as opposed to computer-mediated CF for focused and unfocused error on the grammatical accuracy. To this end, a sample of 80 female Iranian EFL learners at Shayestegan and Raziolvaledein high school in Qazvin were selected and divided into four groups. Each group of participants was randomly assigned to one of the treatment conditions and received teacher focused CF and unfocused CF error and computer-mediated focused CF and unfocused CF. The participants were given a 40- item Oxford placement Test and writing paragraph as pretest before the treatment, and writing paragraph as posttest at the end of treatment period. The collected data were analyzed utilizing the two-way ANOVA procedure. The result of the study indicated that teacher focused CF group outperformed the other three groups. The students who were provided with teacher unfocused CF performed better than other two computer-mediated CF groups. Finally, the computer-mediated focused group gained better result in contrast to computer-mediated unfocused CF group. The findings of the present study may have implications for second language learners, teachers, and materials developers.