الفهرس 
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Abstract
This chapter presents a brief summary of the study and its findings, pinpoints the contributions of the study to the academia with regard to the research point under investigation,
acknowledges the major research limitations of the study, presents
the research and pedagogical recommendations of the researcher
and concludes with some suggestions for further research.
The major purpose of the study was twofold: investigating
the efficacy of intensive teacher WCF directed at specific
linguistic structures as well as the extensive one targeting a range
of errors on improving the linguistic accuracy as well as the
fluency of low-intermediate college students in the Arab EFL
writing classroom, and exploring the students attitudes towards
receiving the teacher WCF. To the best knowledge of the
researcher, not a single study, in the Egyptian library, has
investigated the combined effect of WCF on fluency and accuracy
at the same time.
The study has demonstrated the efficacy of FWCF on
developing the EFL writers’ accuracy, but not fluency. As for the
UFWCF, the learners’ accuracy has developed; yet it has not
reached statistical significance. The EFL students who received
WCF targeting two functional uses of the English article system
(for the first and second mention) outperformed those who
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received extensive WCF and the control group who received no
feedback. Such findings lend support to Truscott’s prediction that
WCF may be effective for helping learners learn some linguistic
forms/structures. As for whether WCF develops the EFL learner’s
writing fluency, neither the control group nor the experimental
groups receiving the two WCF types were able to develop their
fluency. None of the two investigated types of the WCF was able
to help the learners improve their EFL writing fluency.
Concerning the second aim of the study, the study has revealed
that Arab EFL students have positive attitudes towards receiving
the WCF. Interestingly, they have more preference for receiving it
extensively on all their errors; the students want to have all their
mistakes corrected by the teacher.
5.2. Implications of the study
The contributions that this study has made to the existing
literature can be demonstrated in a group of points. In previous
WCF research, levels and measures of language proficiency have
been largely ignored. Many scholars criticized the WCF studies
for not reporting the participant’s proficiency level accurately or
failing to provide a reliable measure of it (Bitchener & Knoch,
2009c; S. Li, 2010) since it can mediate between the WCF he
receives and his engagement with it and thereby influence his
learning outcomes. A significant contribution of the study is that
it has measured the linguistic level of the students, lowintermediate,
using a standardized test (OPT) prior to the treatment, thus enabling both EFL researchers and practitioners to
fully understand the level to which the results of the study apply.
Another contribution of the study is that it has avoided a
major inconsistency in many of the WCF studies, the absence of a
control group. Of the 36 studies reviewed in Table 3, 14 lacked a
control group. The study included a control group equal to the
experimental ones in size and linguistic level according to their
scores on the OPT test and no statistical significance was found
among the groups prior to the treatment.
The findings of the study have been triangulated through
various quantitative and qualitative instruments: a per/post-test, a
research log and a questionnaire so as to be more confident in the
obtained results. This can safely encourage not accepting
Truscott’s claim that WCF is ineffective at least in regard to its
effect on accuracy.
Drawing on evidence from SLA and TESL/TEFL, the
researcher was able to refute the claims maintaining that the WCF
practice does not departure from acknowledged theoretical
foundations. The researcher has collected and presented
sufficient convincing theoretical evidence supporting the practice
of WCF in EFL writing classrooms, a further theoretical
contribution of the study to existing knowledge about WCF.
5.3. Limitations of the study
Inevitably, some limitations need to be acknowledged.
Because of the difficulty in accessing participants over an
extensive period of time, the sample size, while acceptable, was
smaller than one would have wished for. Second, the use of
writing tasks of quite similar genre on the five occasions planned
within the framework might also be considered a limitation
because it does not include opportunities for learners to
demonstrate their ability to perform with the same level of
accuracy when writing in other genres. Future researchers might,
therefore, wish to include such consideration in their future
studies by experimenting on other writing genres. Third, the
treatment period was short. A more substantial WCF treatment
might produce even stronger and more robust effects. Fourth, the
study has focused on one linguistic system, the articles. However,
obtaining conclusive results that feedback is effective on one
linguistic system or one type of WCF is more effective than
another does not mean that it is going to achieve the same
efficacy if the teacher directs his correction to a large number of
linguistic structures or towards a mixture of content, linguistic as
well as mechanical errors. For this reason, it is recommended that
further research be undertaken to determine the effectiveness of
WCF for treating a range of linguistic forms/structures.
5.4. Recommendations of the study
Despite these limitations, a number of pedagogical recommendations can be offered. Teachers should feel confident
about providing direct FWCF on their students’ errors, at least, in
the use of the articles. Therefore, it is suggested that a targeted
approach for a period of time be adopted (until there are clear
signs of accuracy improvement) and that negotiation with learners
take place to ensure that they agree about what error category is
going to be focused on. This study has shown that consistent
FWCF provision can be effective in developing accuracy in the
use of two rule-based features but if teachers are able to provide
additional feedback on more occasions, it is possible, in view of
the students positive attitude towards the provision of WCF, that
the accuracy rate may increase and that the amount of time
required to achieve a high level of mastery may be reduced. As
for fluency, none of the groups has improved reflecting that
fluency may not be connected with accuracy.
5.5. Suggestions for further research
On the basis of the study and its findings, the researcher
senses that the following points are worthy of further
investigation:
This study has investigated a single source of the WCF, the
teacher. Other sources of WCF such as computerized WCF
and peer WCF need extensive experimentation. They are yet
to be explored. There is need for more studies that compare
among other sources of WCF to expand our knowledge on the
efficacy of each type because the source of WCF may
possibly prove to have positive or negative results on the
WCF efficacy especially after research has shown that
computerized WCF was able to provide successful WCF on
some complex linguistic structures that have not been
approached by the teacher yet (K. Hyland & Hyland, 2006).
Likewise, the focus of the study was to explore the efficacy of
focused and unfocused WCF. Further research is needed on
the other types of teacher WCF (e.g. direct and indirect,
coded, uncoded, metalinguistic, or even a combination of any
of those strategies). Moreover, more research is needed to
confirm or disconfirm the results obtained from the studies
conducted outside the Egyptian contexts so that we can
provide the ESL/EFL writing teachers and practitioners with
sound pedagogical guidelines that are experimentally founded.
WCF experimentation should be focused on those WCF types
that are practical and likely to yield fruitful results in the Arab
context in general and the Egyptian one in particular and keep
the other types (e.g. reformulation) that proved to be
ineffective until now to the bottom of the agenda.
Experimentation should also extend to various educational
and age levels other than the college one so that we expand
our knowledge about the efficacy of WCF on improving the
linguistic accuracy and fluency of the EFL learners. The study
participants were all low-intermediate level yet the efficacy of
the investigated types on other language levels needs further
research.
The previous need echoes a call for interested researchers to
investigate the efficacy of the various WCF types on
developing the linguistic accuracy and fluency of different
levels of EFL learners. In other words, there is a need for an
agenda that takes into consideration the WCF research
worldwide and is carefully planned according to the priorities
of the Egyptian context, to guide researchers, researcher
teachers and all stakeholders to the more important issues of
WCF that deserve investigations.
One of the limitations of this study is that it has been conducted on Egyptian students. There is a need for more
studies on other Arab nationalities so that we can explore the
possible effects of the factors involved in the other Arab
contexts on the WCF efficacy because every EFL context is particular in its nature (Kumaravadivelu, 2006). The future research might reveal other moderating factors that come into
play in the other Arab or non-Arab contexts that can potentially affect the EFL learner’s benefit from the WCF indeveloping his accuracy or fluency.
Not only there is a need for experimentation on the efficacy of
the different types of WCF, but also for experimenting on mother genres of writing. Until now, research has focused on minvestigating genres such as picture description, retelling of a
story, or process description. There is a need for research on other writing genres so that we can fully enrich our
knowledge base and understanding of the WCF. Research, for example, may reveal that EFL writers’ accuracy and fluency
develop in certain types of writing more than others or even mpossibly some linguistic structures are more amendable to modification in certain writing genres than others.
Languages differ in their syntactic and linguistic nature. In mmost of the conducted WCF research, the mparticipants were from different language backgrounds and English was the
foreign language; French, Spanish and German were the mparticipants’ first language in too few studies. Therefore,
TEFL researchers need to experiment on other languages to mtest the claims obtained by the TEFL researchers. For
example, research in TAFL may confirm the success or failure mof the investigated strategies in TEFL, especially the former is
still a rich field that needs experimentation in WCF as well as
many of the language skills.
Taking the learner’s non-language factors into consideration in
the future research agenda is similarly important. Recent
studies (e.g. Carson & Nelson, 1994; Nelson & Carson, 2006)
have shown that culture, to name one factor, significantly
contributes to the success of WCF or its lack of. In other
words, the study findings may be highly affected by those
factors. Consequently, more studies are needed to explore the
effects of those moderating factors on EFL learners in the
Arab context.
This study also echoes the need for further research
investigating the relationship between the linguistic
proficiency of the TEFL learner and the WCF type
appropriate to his/her level. The trend of research worldwide
has shown consistent results that direct WCF types are more
effective for low level learners than advanced ones; yet such
results have not been researched in the Arab context.
Similarly, the claims made in regard to the built-in syllabus
that EFL learners follow in their EFL learning have not been
investigated in relation to the linguistic structures that WCF
focus on. More studies are needed to confirm or disconfirm
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that linguistic structures focused on in the WCF should be
provided according to this internal syllabus of EFL learning.
Such studies will guide our research agenda and will inform
our TEFL practice in the classrooms.
Gender, an important research variable which effect has been
acknowledged on EFL learning, has not been researched in
the WCF studies. To the best knowledge of the researcher, not
a single study that has investigated the efficacy of WCF on
males and females separately.
Importantly, the WCF experimentation, until now, has been
focused on specific linguistic structures, namely past simple
tense, prepositions, articles and conditional if. Such structures
are rule governed ones in terms of Ferris. Other linguistic
structures such as global errors in word order, sentence
boundaries, phrase construction, word choice, or collocations
are yet to be investigated (Ferris, 2010). Without,
experimentation on other structures, the academia will remain
indecisive about the generalization of the WCF obtained
results. Do these more complex structures undergo
improvement in response to the WCF or not? Another point
that is closely related to that is the number of the investigated
linguistic structures that writing teachers can direct WCF at.
Since the range of the investigated structures significantly
varies among studies, literature has revealed wide
disagreement in this regard (AbdelRaouf, 2012). How many
structures can the teacher focus on in the EFL writing class?
The findings of this study along with others suggest that one
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or two are effective, yet too few; what is too many? Equally
significant is the question of interaction between the
complexity of the structures, their number and the efficacy of
the WCF, too many issues to be investigated in this regard.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that there is paucity in the
WCF research addressing fluency as well as other aspects of
EFL writing such as the content, lexical choice, and the
mechanics of writing