The purpose of the study is to examine if there is any difference in Korean college students revisions of their free journal writing in response to indirect (coded correction) and direct error feedback (explicit correction). Through careful examination of their 60 pieces of revised texts, it was revealed that the students who received direct error feedback were more actively engaged in rewriting their first piece. More specifically, the students revised their writing at a meaning level, deleting and adding words, phrases, or sentences, whereas the students who received indirect error feedback tended to focus on the errors marked by codes. In addition, the students in the direct feedback group often missed the corrected forms or words while the students in the indirect feedback group avoided correcting errors marked by the teacher or tried to correct other parts of the sentence with the erroneous forms or vocabulary left in it. These results suggest that second language (L2) writing teachers should choose an appropriate error feedback method depending on the relative merits of each type of error feedback and the purpose of the writing class.

This study investigates the effects of indirect and direct error feedback on Korean college students’ accuracy improvement in writing and their responses to the feedback they received. The 32 participants of the study were divided into four groups of different error feedback conditions: indirect feedback, indirect feedback along with metalinguistic feedback, direct feedback, and direct feedback along with metalinguistic feedback. Direct feedback was full, explicit error correction, while indirect feedback was coded error correction in which errors were underlined and marked with code. Metalinguistic feedback was marginal explanations about errors. Analysis of error rates in the students’ first and last essay writing did not show statistically significant difference in the accuracy improvement of the four groups. In other words, indirect error feedback was not more effective than direct feedback. However, the gain score in each group showed that indirect feedback and direct feedback were more effective when they were combined with metalinguistic feedback. In particular, the students’ learning diary clearly indicated that the students valued error feedback on their writing and that follow-up feedback was crucial in providing indirect error feedback.