Noticing, models, written recasts, the sociocognitive-transformative approach, and EFL writing: Complexity, accuracy, and fluency

English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ noticing of written corrective feedback (WCF) has a positive impact on their writing development. However, the effect of EFL learners’ noticing when receiving various sources of input, including model texts, the teacher’s written recasts, peers’ compositions, and the implementation of the sociocognitive transformative approach, on their writing performances in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) has not been explored. A class of 27 English majors, all intact, participated in the study. A pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest design was employed to understand the effectiveness of the semester-long treatment conditions and learners’ noticing in various learning contexts on the three performances. The class was divided into two subgroups using different picture prompts for the three tests. The noticing log and the focus group interviews were employed as online and offline measures to understand students’ noticing in various learning contexts. Results showed that students’ accuracy in errors divided by the number of words, error-free T-unit, and error-free T-unit per T-unit was significantly enhanced. Regarding fluency, the number of words and the number of T-units also achieved significance. However, syntactic complexity did not change substantially, manifesting trade-off effects between CAF. Students noticed content the most frequently, regardless of learning contexts. They noticed grammar and expressions second most frequently in peer discussion and written recasts. It is suggested that the treatment conditions raised learners’ awareness of the discrepancies in their writing ability in both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects such as content, and the gap between their interlanguage and the target language provided by various sources of input, which may have led to their more attention to accuracy and increased knowledge of vocabulary and expression, hence contributing to the enhancement of long-term accuracy and fluency.