An investigation of the effect of oral feedback on the writing skill of L2 learners and their views about it

There is a general consensus among researchers that oral feedback is one of the best ways of delivering feedback for ESL/EFL students in writing classes. In fact, a number of recently conducted studies indicate that using oral feedback makes the process of delivering feedback easier and more comprehensive. Therefore, the present study is an attempt to investigate whether oral feedback can better improve students’ writing ability incomparison to written feedback, and to examine the students’ reactions and perceptions of oral feedback. The participants were 30 Iranian male and female IELTS candidates. They were divided into two groups and instructed in the same way. However, the first group had oral feedback during instruction, and the second group received written feedback in their class. The analyses of the results indicate that the students who had oral feedback in their class could improve their writing ability better and had positive perceptions of oral feedback.