The effect of correction on EFL students' writing accuracy

Abstract

Error correction has been the subject of research in numerous studies for decades now. In spite of this, there is still uncertainty on when to correct students and the most appropriate ways to perform this common teaching practice. Consequently, this action research intends to shed some light regarding the effects revealed in students’ writings when the Elicitation and Explicit correction techniques are implemented to correct grammatical errors. For this purpose, the written compositions of 10 ninth-grade EFL learners were gathered in 14 sessions and later analyzed under the principles of the Error Analysis theory. Findings, supported by interviews and observations, evidence that those two correction techniques have a positive effect on writing accuracy, leading to a decreased in the number of errors committed by the participants. Moreover, the results suggest that the explicit correction technique had an overall higher impact in the reduction of errors, nonetheless, the elicitation technique displays a long-lasting effect on learners’ accuracy.