recast modality: comparing online written vs. oral feedback on iranian efl learners' grammatical accuracy

Providing online feedback has been the focus of attention for numerous researchers particularly in rare situations such as covid-19 pandemic. this research attempts to measure the effect of the implementation of online recasts on the grammar accuracy of efl (english as a foreign language) learners. moreover, it tries to compare online oral and written recast on grammatical scores of learners using shad app. to this end, the current research represents an experimental study with a pre-test, post-test design, using sixty-three randomly selected low-intermediate efl learners at faranikan institute in ahar, east azerbaijan. three groups were formed: online oral recast (n=21), online written recast (n=21) and control (n=21). all three groups completed two 20-min fill-in-the-blank tests. learners at first experimental group were given online oral recast, and the next experimental group received online written recast through shad app, while no feedback was provided for third group as a control group. one-way ancova with post hoc comparisons indicated that there were significant differences between the three groups’ means on posttest of grammar after controlling for the effect of pretest. the oral recast group (m= 16.95) significantly outperformed the written recast group (m= 14.63) and control group (m= 12.69) on posttest of grammar. these findings show that, whereas online recasts were effective, the online oral recast was more effective in helping efl learners improve the grammatical accuracy of english tense verbs. overall, the findings of this research suggest that teachers should update their instructional methods and invent new ways of providing online feedbacks with the help of gadgets like shad. furthermore, teachers should use online oral-based feedback with the help of technology on learners' errors since it is more likely to be welcomed by the students in an era where they are digital natives.