I prefer giving WCF to students when no time constraints. Although it was an old method and there might be other ways to correct the work or prevent errors before writing, WCF is tangible and referable for students and teachers at all times. The effectiveness of WCF is varied from none to max depending on students' willingness to commit to their work and the teacher's encouragement. However, I'd say that in a process writing, WCF or any kind of feedback is more important than the product-oriented since students have more opportunities to maximise the feedback for the completion of the final draft.

I believe that WCF can be effective only if it is roughly at the level of the learners receiving it. However, since language learning is a nonlinear complex system, it is quite impossible for teachers to provide learners with WCF consistent with their language knowledge/ability. In a short run, WCF may look effective, but whether or not it will be incorporated in learners' interlanguage is not certain. That is why I think WCF (the effectiveness of which is only probable) is not worth teachers' while and effort. However, I see eye to eye when dear sitthirak mentioned that it is much more effective when it comes to process writing. The reason is that since process writing is an interactive activity and teachers can observe learners while writing their drafts, the feedback provided is more consonant with learners' needs. In fact, as long as feedback addresses learners' needs and helps their going through the stages of interlanguage, it is effective and precipitating ( close to facilitative). However, if it tries to direct learners to use some structure or lexical item that teachers expect learners to use, like the case of WCF, not only is it ineffective but it also blocks learners creativity and that's when it becomes harmful to learners natural language progress. Many studies have shown that learners tend to avoid structures on which they receive WCF. Therefore, they stop taking risk following their own natural learning and try to follow teachers' expectations. Learners, then, may use structures or lexical items they do not fully understand (it seems like they have progressed) and abandon their own shaping interlanguage and that's when WCF (while being time consuming) becomes even harmful to learners' language knowledge/ability in a long run!

Yes, Mobin. By the advancement of information technology nowadays, there are some application softwares that may help teachers in doing WCF. I agree that since classroom writing can be an interactive process, students may get instant feedback from their teacher and peers.

Dear Mobin,

Please find the attached file about a research on teachers' written feedback practice.

You may already have this article, I don't know, but it may be related to your research.

As long as the feedback nurtures  more writing and does not ruin self-confidence.

I totally take your point Jim. Nevertheless, I am mostly concerned with error correction as in the hot debate between Truscott and Ferris. 

How often do you find your WCF regarding grammatical aspects of language incorporated in learners' future writing? 

Dear Mobin Khanlarzadeh ,

Not always but sometimes more than 50 percent scripts are found and it depends on the subjects, time, level of educations, etc.

Thanks

Very effective. I remember when I was writing my thesis. My professor provided the grammatical corrections along with the required punctuations . In early chapters, he would have many corrections but in later ones, very few corrections. I guess, I was learning from his corrections and managed to reflect that in my writing.

It is very important, however, it is less frequent to reciceive and give this kind of feedback

Generally, speaking, corrective feedback has a very important part in developing L2 learners' interlanguage . However, in skills like speaking and writing , learners' present state of linguistic knowledge has characteristically many gaps and of course, some of them are filled by corrective feedback. Therefore, we could say that corrective feedback is useful, but the learners need to turn into autonomous learners in order to satisfy their lacks. Teacher assistance and classroom directions are necessary but not sufficient. L2 learners need to learn how to use self regulated strategies effectively.

You are right Dr. Biria. I myself am an advocate of promoting learner autonomy. To account for this issue, I devised and proposed an alternative (SEMI_WCF) to typical written corrective feedback in my research: Article Written Corrective Feedback in Second Language Writing: Does...

SEMI-feedback enjoys the advantages of typical written corrective feedback while it doesn't suffer from the shortcomings attributed to WCF in the literature.

As you suggested, second language acquisition is non-linear. Providing written corrective feedback in a process writing setting enhances students' linguistic accuracy - I, myself have done a research on this and found it to be effective. However, there should be other methods to induce learner's attention to feedback (revision and discussion) for it to work irrespective of the feedback method you use. Mere provision of feedback won't be helpful if there is no strategy to induce learner attention. There should be a proper mechanism that force learners to put the learned structures into use.

Nice Waruni Iresha Ekanayaka.

Thanks Reza Biria .