Feedback Diversity on Studentsʹ WrittenAssignments: A Local Investigation of PersianSpeakers

The vitality of teacher response to studentsʹ writing is not only undeniable (Ferris,Pezone, Tade & Tini, 1997) but also as Coffin et at. (2003) believe, is a centralpedagogic practice. Despite the existence of studies in the area of written teachercommentary (Bowen, Madsen, & Hilferty, 1985; Cohen, 1987; Doff, 1990; Fathman& Whalley, 1985; Ferris, 2002; Frodesen, 200 I; Rieken, 1991; Zamel, 1985), thereare still doubts about the most effective types of teacher feedback. The purpose ofthis study is to investigate the efficacy of three most prevalent error treatmenttechniques directive (explicit), partial (researchersʹ terminology), and generalfeedback. To accomplish the expected goal, three groups of female students withintermediate level of proficiency were selected and the written errors of each groupwere treated according to one of the feedback techniques during the course of study.The analysis of the studentsʹ scores revealed that students receiving the directivefeedback, improved significantly in comparison with those in the other two groups.