Evaluation of Gaskell & Cobb (2004) by Myong Hee

Gaskell, D., & Cobb, T. (2004). Can learners use concordance feedback for writing errors? System, 32, 301-319.

This article demonstrates whether L2 learners can use concordance feedback to correct their sentence-level writing errors. Twenty adult low intermediate Chinese EFL learners in Canada participated in the present study. Each student provided a 200-word writing sample and 10 prominent errors among the samples were determined for concordance feedback. Over a 15 week semester, students handed in 10 assignments. For the teacher’s feedback, a maximum of 5 concordanced errors (hyperlinks) were given for each assignment. The findings show that (1) over 50% of the participants responded that their ability to use grammar points had improved; (2) the vast majority reported that they used concordances to correct their errors; (3) and many of them, especially seven became persistent users of the online concordance.

I felt this article very useful. It shows another way to provide feedback for students’ writings. I have learned that online concordance can be a useful tool for not only teaching vocabulary but also teaching grammatical points. Once you train your students, they can be independent users of concordance who can correct their sentence-level grammatical errors. The ultimate goal of teaching L2 writing is to make a learner an independent proficient writer. Besides, given the fact that most English courses in Korea (probably other Asian countries) are relatively big, learners’ autonomy in L2 writing is highly desirable. In this respect, this article provides good information on learner autonomy in sentence-level error correction.

I really enjoyed reading this study. It is rather a short article and easy to read. The findings interested me a lot as a teacher because they provide valuable information for future writing teachers and researchers.

I’d like to recommend this article to our 750 reading packet. This study suggests another perspective on written feedback. Most studies in written feedback are concerned about teachers’ giving comments on students’ writings. However, this article suggests another possibility that students correct their own sentence-level errors through being a concordance user.