the effect of electronic vs. classroom scaffolded feedback on iranian efl learners’ written accuracy

The effectiveness of corrective feedback (cf) is largely dependent on the way it is provided. the sociocultural theory regards scaffolding as the optimal way of promoting learning. this study aims to compare electronic and classroom provision of scaffolded cf. to this end, a quasi-experimental study with the pretest – treatment – posttest design was conducted to compare the performances of two groups of iranian pre-intermediate efl learners on the correct use of past tenses in short narrative writing tasks. for the electronic group, the teacher provided scaffolding through whatsapp, pushing the learners towards error identification and self-correction. the learners in the classroom group received cf through short conferences with the teacher. the results of data analysis using ancova showed no significant difference between the two groups, although there was a trend in favor of the electronic group. the study has implications for foreign language teacher and syllabus designers.