A Must-have Poster: Writing Correction Code

Language teachers sometimes have the tendency of providing edits when checking students’ pieces of writing. Because students’ mistakes in writing can sometimes be “provoking” in a way, language teachers are tempted to provide corrections instead of eliciting them.  However, by providing edits, teachers can never be certain that students will not make the same mistakes again. It is with hints teachers suggest through writing editing codes that learners can initiate some self-correction, which is one of the key elements in learning writing skills. Moreover, self-correction instils autonomy in students, and, by extension, they will likely make fewer mistakes.

A writing correction/editing code is a set of rules and symbols that instructors can use to assess students’ pieces of writing in order to elicit corrections rather than provide them. Using correction codes is considerably effective in teaching ESL/EFL writing. MacDonald (2020) investigated the effectiveness of different writing corrective feedback strategies on L2 writing accuracy and analysed the findings of 14 studies which incorporated correction codes. He suggested that correction codes have a more significant positive impact on long-term writing accuracy compared to direct writing corrective feedback. What is more, writing codes can “promote additional reflection and higher-level thinking for learners.”

Before you start using the writing code symbols for feedback, your students should first be supervised in class so that they fully understand what is expected of them. As such, we suggest that you keep your writing correction code on a poster or print it in a form of handouts for your students. Alternatively, students can copy it somewhere on their notebooks for reference.

It is also recommended that you confine your feedback only to what your students have learned in writing classes. As you advance in the course, you can include more elements until you gradually cover them all.  For instance, at the outset of the course, you can only focus on capitalization, spelling, and some grammatical mistakes. Later on, you can indicate verb-subject-agreement mistakes, etc.

Downloads:

• EFL Collective Writing Correction Code
• British Council Suggested Writing Code