Written Corrective Feedback for L2 Development

John Bitchener and Neomy Storch address fundamental issues related to corrective written feedback and L2 development. Importantly, they examine relevant research within two different theoretical paradigms: cognitive and sociocultural theory of mind. For teachers and researchers, this book provides new insights, enriching our knowledge of effective pedagogical practices.

* Merrill Swain, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Canada *

This volume is a welcome addition to the literature on the always interesting and controversial issue of written corrective feedback in second language acquisition. It carefully defines terms and then provides a current, thorough, and coherent look at the cognitive and sociocultural theories that should guide the research and practice of written CF.

* Dana Ferris, University of California, Davis, USA *

This valuable book advances our understanding of what is known and remains to be known about the language learning potential of written corrective feedback (WCF). By bringing together cognitive and sociocultural theoretical and empirical perspectives, it succeeds in underscoring what each one has contributed (and can and cannot contribute) to answering the relevant questions in the field. Future researchers interested in the potential of WCF to facilitate L2 development will keep returning to this book for insights on the theoretical and methodological foundations of their research endeavours.

* Rosa Manchón, Universidad de Murcia, Spain *

This volume makes a valuable contribution to the field of WCF. One of the strengths is that the authors not only point out important issues in numerous studies, including their limitations and useful results, but they also make a clear divide between basic concepts in cognitive and sociocultural theories, which may be useful for graduate students, novice researchers, and teacher educators.

-- Liivi Jakobson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden * Australia Review of Applied Linguistics 41:1 *

“Written Corrective Feedback for L2 Development” gives a comprehensive picture of theories and empirical studies on how written CF possibly contribute to L2 development. This volume is invaluable for both novice and experienced L2 writing researchers, who seek theoretical foundations of written CF and empirical evidence of effective implementation of written CF in the classroom. The authors clearly define key concepts, introduce two main complementary, but not mutually exclusive, approaches for written CF, critically review relevant studies from cognitive and sociocultural perspectives and suggest future research directions. 

-- Jungmin Lim, Michigan State University, USA * LINGUIST List 27.5050 *

John Bitchener and Neomy Storch have done an outstanding job of situating written feedback within two dominant theoretical frameworks, demonstrating that the cognitive and sociocultural approaches are complementary rather than competing with each other, offering a thorough but at the same time critical synthesis of exciting studies and, most importantly perhaps, charting the course for future research on written CF, emphasizing the necessity of illuminating how and why it promotes L2 development or fails to do so under certain circumstances.

-- Mirosław Pawlak, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland * SSLLT 6 (4) 20