Inquiry question: What corrective feedback methods and strategies could I implement to help students improve their English writing?

My inquiry question is significant to me because I want to provide useful and relevant feedback to help ELL students address language and subject knowledge gaps so they can join mainstream classes sooner. Another reason I want to explore this question is so I can prevent any fossilization of poor English writing (and to an extent speaking) habits in ELL and students in regular classes.

My prior knowledge in this background comes from my ELL cohort class, LLED 315A. I learned about different feedback methods, such as the difference between direct versus indirect feedback, and between specific versus non specific feedback.  However, our class did not delve into the implementation of the strategies and for which students or errors each strategy would be most beneficial.

In addition, as I was a high school student before, I remember receiving feedback and how I never read or thought about the feedback unless I was explicitly told to write revisions.  However, I understand not all students have the confidence in writing academic or business papers. So I want to address and help those students to write better, and provide assistance in a way that is the most effective for them to learn from their mistakes.

I expect to find out which kind of corrective feedback is the most effective for different kinds of writing errors. I also want to find out how to effectively provide corrective feedback in respects to timing, frequency, and the amount of feedback to provide at a time.  Lastly, I want to find out the impact of my corrective feedback on students’ short term retention and long term writing skills.

I expect to use my findings in my ELL classes and Business Education classes to help students who are struggling with academic or business writing to improve their writing ability in assignments and tests so they can join mainstream classes sooner. I have experience tutoring students in English, and I personally find one on one tutoring and discussing the errors to be helpful.  However, I know I will not be able to address each individual student directly on a regular basis, especially during my short practicum.  I want to learn and implement the most efficient and effective way to address errors to each student so they can learn from their mistakes.  I also hope other teachers can use my findings and incorporate some methods into their own classes.