Study on the Effect of Teachers’ Text Specific Comments and Rubber-Stamped Comments on Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Ability

Written corrective feedback (WCF) refers to the feedback given by writing instructors and tutors on novice writers’ performances. Although extensive importance has been attached to the implications of WCF for improving writing skill in L2 writing studies, there is a paucity of research into research on whether student writers benefit differently from elaborated and evaluative feedback. Having this in mind, the aim of this research was to examine the effect of teacher’s textspecific and rubber-stamped comments on Iranian EFL learners’ writing ability at intermediate level. Quick Placement Test was employed to select 40 preintermediate EFL learners as the participants of this research. Then, they were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. Prior to the treatment, the participants of both groups were given a pretest to disclose their initial writing ability. After administering the rubber-stamped comments to the experimental group and text specific to the control group, a posttest was administered to seek the effect of two types of instruments. An independent samples t-test was used to see if the treatment was effective. Paired samples t-test was also employed to determine the amount of progression between pretest and posttest of the experimental group. The results of the study revealed that rubberstamped comments improved the learners’ writing ability. Implicationally, instructors can use rubber-stamped comments to help learners improve their writing ability.