Explicit Corrective Feedback of English Statuses on Facebook: A Motivation or Demotivation in Updating Statuses in English as a Strategy for Practicing English

Abstract—It is argued that in language learning, learners receive encouragement for their correct productions of their second language (L2), and corrective feedback on errors made (Lightbown & Spada, 2003) [1]. Explicit correction is defined by [1] as the explicit provision of the correct form of a language that involves a clear and elaborate description of the grammatical language production of a particular language element. As in the case of posting English statuses on Facebook, it is an issue of uncertainty whether this social networking site’s users welcome the effort made by other users in correcting the former’s grammatical errors explicitly or implicitly on Facebook, and subsequently whether these approaches can generate their motivation or demotivation in learning English. Therefore, this research intends to examine whether UNITEN students perceive being corrected explicitly with respect to their English statuses on Facebook as a motivational drive for them to improve their English or the opposite. The data was collected by administering questionnaires to 120 UNITEN students who actively posted their statuses in English on Facebook. The participants’ responses towards the items investigated were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). It was revealed in the findings that the respondents in majority basically welcomed both explicit and implicit corrective feedback given by their Facebook friends as a response to the grammatical errors made by the respondents in updating their statuses in English on that social networking site especially in motivating them to write more statuses in English.

Index Terms—Corrective feedback, English learning, explicit corrective feedback, Facebook, implicit corrective feedback.

Noraziah Mohd Amin and Wan Noorli Razali are with Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Penang, Malaysia (e-mail: tinyfunnybunny7@gmail.com, wannoorli093@ppinang.uitm.edu.my).
Noor Azam Abdul Rahman is with the Department of Social Sciences, Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Putrajaya, Malaysia (e-mail: azamabdulrahman@gmail.com).
Mohamad-Noor Sharipudin is with School of Multimedia Technology and Communication, Universiti Utara Malaysia (e-mail: mnsaleh@uum.edu.my).
Mohd Saifulnizam Abu Bakar is with the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Penang, Malaysia (e-mail: saifulnizam@gmail.com).

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Cite: Noraziah Mohd Amin, Noor Azam Abdul Rahman, Wan Noorli Razali, Mohamad-Noor Sharipudin, and Mohd Saifulnizam Abu Bakar, "Explicit Corrective Feedback of English Statuses on Facebook: A Motivation or Demotivation in Updating Statuses in English as a Strategy for Practicing English," International Journal of Culture and History vol. 3, no. 1, pp.80-85, 2017.