The Effect of Teachers’ Error Correction vs. Peer Error Correction on Iranian EFL Learners Correct Use of Compound Verbs in Essay Writing

Error correction is perhaps the most widely used method for responding to students’ writing performance. In a second language classroom learners essentially needs to be provided with feedback on their writing. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of teachers’ error correction and peer correction on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ accurate use of compound verb in essay writing. In order to conduct the current research, out of a total number of 150 participants, aging between 18 -25, 90 intermediate female students were chosen by convenience sampling method. After the administration of Nelson General Language Proficiency test, 60 students who were at the same level of English language proficiency were selected as the main participants. Four tools were utilized to estimate participants’ correct use of compound verbs in essay writing namely, the homogeneity test, writing test for the pretest, writing test for immediate posttest, and writing test for delayed posttest. A writing test was administered to assess participants’ compound verb knowledge at the beginning of the study, and two writing tests were given to check the participants’ correct use of compound verb in essay writing in both immediate and delayed posttest. To analyze the raw data of the research, independent samples t-test was applied for inferential statistics. The results of immediate posttest revealed that students in peer correction group had more progress than teacher correction group and this improvement was statistically significant. The results of second study question also raveled that there was significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups in terms of their correct use of compound verbs in essay writing on delayed posttest. The findings of the present study may be beneficial to material developers, language teachers and learners.

Keywords:

Error Correction , Compound Verbs , Essay Writing , Argumentative Paragraphs