INTRODUCTION
Rationale
It is widely approved that errors are unavoidable in language learning, especially in speaking The issue of how teachers respond to students’ language errors, i.e corrective feedback, has been investigated over the last decades Having been widely known under a number of terms, such as “negative evidence”, “repair” and “negative feedback” (Lyster and Ranta, 1997), corrective feedback is commonly referred to by second language teachers As a result of their in-depth studies, corrective feedback has been defined and classified into different types Also, there have been investigations into the relationship between teacher’s corrective feedback and learner uptake on an international scale However, few research findings show how language teachers themselves know and feel about corrective feedback, as well as how far it is involved in their practical teaching This has inspired the author to come up with the idea of exploring that relationship so that further improvement can be made to promote learners’ language competence.
Aims of the study
This study examines teachers’ attitudes towards the correction of spoken errors through one-to-one interviews and a belief questionnaire It also investigates the relationship between those standpoints and their teaching practice in classroom context and accordingly suggests more effective ways to deal with students’ spoken errors For convenience, the two terms “error” and “mistake” are used interchangeably in this study
To fulfill these purposes, this research intends to answer the following questions:
1 What are teachers’ attitudes towards oral corrective feedback?
2 How do these attitudes affect and relate to their teaching practice within their classroom settings?
Scope of the study
This study focuses on how corrective feedback of spoken errors is perceived and applied by teachers at Hanoi National University of Education Within this scope, the research aims to explore the connection between teachers’ perception and practice, and thereby propose efficient approaches to the treatment of students’ oral mistakes.
Methods of the study
The researcher administered a survey questionnaire on teachers to collect quantitative data on their perspectives of corrective feedback Further data were then accumulated both quantitatively and qualitatively through an observing process of twelve lessons by three out of the thirty participants in the survey Finally, qualitative data were drawn out from three semi-structured personal interviews for more specific information about the use of corrective feedback inside their classrooms.
Overview of the study
This study consists of three major parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion; references, and appendices
Part I: Introduction – This part presents the rationale, the aims, scope, methods, and the organization of the study.
Part II: Development – This part is divided into the following three chapters:
Chapter 1: Theoretical background – presents the theoretical framework of corrective feedback, including its definition, classification, importance, participants, and timings
Chapter 2: Methodology – gives details on the participants, data collection instruments, and procedure
Chapter 3: Findings and discussion – analyzes and discusses the results
Part III: Conclusion – This part summarizes the research and presents pedagogical implications Limitations as well as suggestions for further study are also included.
Finally, references and appendices are provided.
DEVELOPMENT
1 Definition of terms: Corrective feedback 1.1 Positive and negative evidence
With regard to input, the two terms “positive evidence” and “negative evidence” have been employed very often in a large number of research papers investigating error correction (e.g Kim, 2004; Gladday, 2012; Gass, 2005) Gass (2005) defined positive evidence as “the set of well-formed sentences to which learners are exposed” It provides learners with what is grammatical and acceptable in the target language
Negative evidence, on the other hand, is the provision of information, either directly or indirectly, which is targeted at the incorrectness of an utterance made by learners
Gladday (2012: 31) emphasized the function of positive evidence in facilitating learner’s comprehension as it is typical of an “authentic native speaker discourse in a simplified and elaborate format” Negative evidence conversely deals with the erroneous production by second language learners by providing information as to what is unacceptable in a certain language
With reference to teacher’s response to student’s errors, there are a number of terms, the most common of which are corrective feedback, negative evidence, and negative feedback Ellis (2009: 3) affirmed that negative feedback signals in some way that the learner’s utterance lacks correctness and therefore this reaction is corrective in nature
As a response to a learner’s erroneous utterance, corrective feedback is one type of negative feedback and is called an “other-initiated repair” According to Kim (2004), however, these three terms are used interchangeably in SLA (second language acquisition) literature with subtle differences While negative evidence contains usable information from the learner’s perspective, both negative feedback and corrective feedback include information from feedback providers Therefore, it is the learners who decide whether or not corrective feedback and negative feedback can be used as
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Definition of terms: Corrective feedback
With regard to input, the two terms “positive evidence” and “negative evidence” have been employed very often in a large number of research papers investigating error correction (e.g Kim, 2004; Gladday, 2012; Gass, 2005) Gass (2005) defined positive evidence as “the set of well-formed sentences to which learners are exposed” It provides learners with what is grammatical and acceptable in the target language
Negative evidence, on the other hand, is the provision of information, either directly or indirectly, which is targeted at the incorrectness of an utterance made by learners
Gladday (2012: 31) emphasized the function of positive evidence in facilitating learner’s comprehension as it is typical of an “authentic native speaker discourse in a simplified and elaborate format” Negative evidence conversely deals with the erroneous production by second language learners by providing information as to what is unacceptable in a certain language
With reference to teacher’s response to student’s errors, there are a number of terms, the most common of which are corrective feedback, negative evidence, and negative feedback Ellis (2009: 3) affirmed that negative feedback signals in some way that the learner’s utterance lacks correctness and therefore this reaction is corrective in nature
As a response to a learner’s erroneous utterance, corrective feedback is one type of negative feedback and is called an “other-initiated repair” According to Kim (2004), however, these three terms are used interchangeably in SLA (second language acquisition) literature with subtle differences While negative evidence contains usable information from the learner’s perspective, both negative feedback and corrective feedback include information from feedback providers Therefore, it is the learners who decide whether or not corrective feedback and negative feedback can be used as negative evidence For the sake of convenience and consistency, this paper mainly uses the term corrective feedback
Researchers have defined corrective feedback in a variety of ways with different t erms used for similar practices
At its simplest meaning, Schegloff et al (1977: 363) stated that correction is “the replacement of error or mistake by what is correct” As the treatment of error, corrective feedback indicates the learners that their use of the target language contains errors This indication can be in a certain numbers of forms For example, a response from the teacher to the erroneous sentence “I go shopping with Mum yesterday” can be as explicit as “No, you should say went, not go” or an implicit feedback by a mere repetition of the error “Go?” Regarding corrective feedback as comprised of both negative and positive evidence, Lyster & Ranta (1997) described corrective feedback as “the provision of negative evidence or positive evidence upon erroneous utterances, which encourages learners’ repair involving accuracy and precision, and not merely comprehensibility”.
Types of corrective feedback
Although each researcher finds their own way to classify, on the basis of whether the correct form is directly or indirectly provided, there are explicit and implicit types of feedback The former, on the one hand, is offered with a clear interference in the utterance overtly emphasizing the erroneous part It refers to an explicit provision of the correct form from the teacher, with a clear indication that an error exists This signal is then followed by the provision of the target-like reformulation (Rezaei et al., 2011:23) The later, on the other hand, does not interrupt the flow of the conver sation but include such strategies as recasts, repetition, clarification requests, or even body language, all of which are meant to indirectly correct learner’s errors ((Médez et al., 2010:263) Explicit feedback focuses on form whereas implicit feedback f ocuses on meaning (Fawbush, 2010) Similarly, Park (2010) claimed that implicit feedback does not affect the flow of conversation while explicit feedback overtly interrupts the course with an emphasis on the ill-formed utterances For these distinctive characteristics, Bower and Kawaguchi (2011) affirmed the positive effect of implicit feedback in encouraging learners to modify their input without a direct indication that a mistake has been made Meanwhile, explicit feedback is constructive in Kim (2004)’s standpoint in that it can prompt learners to notice the gap by attending to the incorrect form they have made
On the basis of the participant in the process of correction, there can be three possibilities of corrective feedback interaction:
(1) Self-correction This is the procedure in which students are aware of the mistakes they have just made and able to provide the timely correct form According to the five teacher interviewees in Médez et al (2010) research, self-correction was supposed to be “the set of strategies learners use to get rid of their errors by themselves, not at the moment of making the error, but as a subsequent step outside the classroom, and after having noticed the error” They confirmed that this kind of correction was their learners’ preference because of being “face-saving”, i.e avoiding the loss of self- esteem and confidence Let’s take the following situation as an example In response to the question “What do you often do in your free time?” a student might say “I spend a lot of time to watch…watching television.” In his answer, the student was going to commit an error when he revisited the model structure and was able to provide a correct utterance in a timely manner
(2) Peer correction This may take place when students are working together as pairs or groups, in which one or two students correct each other’s production in a secure peer atmosphere Therefore, peer correction can effectively help protect learners’ self-image and at the same time improve their self-confidence as well as their independence
However, instructors should use peers as correction givers cautiously as this technique is fundamentally determined by such factors as learners’ personalities, age, self-esteem, and their mutual relationship It is then advisable that teachers get to know their students very well prior to the application of correction by peers
Coming back to the example in self-correction, if the student cannot find the problem by himself and says “I spend a lot of time to watch television”, the other student in the pair, or a peer in his group may react by simply saying “watching” A less intimate alternative of this technique would be a student, as requested by the teacher, coming in front of the class to find and correct a peer’s mistakes after a series of utterances
(3) Teacher correction Finally, instead of students correcting their own mistakes or their peers’, it is the teacher who corrects them with an explanation clear and detailed enough to make them understand the matter As teacher is supposed to be highly proficient, this is the most trustworthy way to provide the correct form, especially in difficult cases However, the teacher should pay particular attention to the “affective dimension” and the “face-threatening nature” of corrective feedback The question as how to make error correction in speaking in the most polite way is worth considering, as some shy students may feel embarrassed to be corrected publicly (Vasquez and Haley, 2010)
Example 1 represents a case of teacher correction In a role-play where one student is a tourist who wants to go to the National stadium and another is a passer-by
S: Show me the way to the National stadium
T: (interrupting and correcting the student’s utterance) When you ask someone you don’t know for help, you need to use the magic word “please” or “Could you” to show your politeness
S: Could you show me the way to the National stadium, please?
Considering how teachers respond to student errors, Lyster & Ranta (1997: 46), developed a six-type framework of corrective feedback, which has been considered as a preliminary theoretical background in certain research papers Those six types of corrective feedback are as follows:
(1) Explicit correction As the name reveals itself, explicit correction is the “explicit provision of the correct form” with explicit signals to the students that the previously utterance is erroneous Such signals can be used hereby as “oh, you mean…”, or “you should say…” Attached with a correction is an indication of the mistake the student has just made This may be the reason for which it is thought of as effectively eliminating ambiguity but not being able to generate student repair Example 1 illustrates this concept
T: Yes No, the day before yesterday (explicit correction) (Panova & Lyster, 2002: 584)
(2) Recasts This type of corrective feedback has been controversially referred to as the most common in a teacher’s correction A recast takes place when the teacher “re peats a learner’s incorrect utterance, but replaces the error with the correct form” (Russell,
2009) It involves a reformation of the utterance (either completely or partly) made by the students As a result, the error can be minimized without any change in the meaning, nor with a reminder like “you mean” or “you should say” Example 2 is an illustration for this error treatment technique
T: You’ve been You’ve been there twice as a group? (recasts) (Ellis, 2009: 9)
(3) Clarification request Lyster & Ranta (1997) and Rezaei et al (2011) referred to this technique as a feedback from the teacher trying to signal that student’s utterance is misunderstood by the teacher, or it is ill-formed in some way and that a reformulation or a repetition is needed A demonstration is in Example 3
L: What do you spend with your wife?
Some other examples of teacher’s responses would be “sorry”, “what did you say?” or
(4) Metalinguistic feedback Similar to recast and clarification request, no explicit correct forms are provided in this corrective practice Instead, there are comments, information or questions related to the well-formedness of students’ utterance
However, Rezaei et al (2011: 23) argued that metalinguistic feedback “falls at the explicit end of the corrective feedback spectrum” as it directs the focus of the conversation towards linguistic features of the target language Example 4 sho ws how it works
S: There are influence person who T: Influential is an adjective (metalinguistic feedback) S: Influential person (unintelligible) because of his power
By reminding students of the adjective form of the noun “influence” did make the student aware of their own error and correct the sentence themselves
(5) Elicitation This correction technique “prompts the learner to self-correct” (Panova
& Lyster, 2002: 584) Elicitation can be carried out in one of the follo wing ways during a face-to-face interaction with each being various in their degree of implicitness and explicitness: (a) Eliciting correct forms by asking open questions, (b) pausing to allow learners to complete the teacher’s sentence, or (c) asking learners to reformulate utterances Example 5, 6, and 7 clarify each respective subcategory
T: In a fast food restaurant, how much do you tip?
S: No money (lexical error) T: What’s the word? (elicitation) SmS: Five four (needs repair)
T: What’s the word in a fast food restaurant? (elicitation) DifS: Nothing (repair)
T: Nothing, yeah Okay, what tip should you leave for the following (topic continuation)
S: New Ecosse (L1) T: New Ecosse I like that I’m sure they’d love that Nova ? (elicitation) SmS: Nova Scotia (repair)
S: I’ll go out if it will not rain
T: Can you correct that? (elicitation)
The importance of corrective feedback
With regard to the role of corrective feedback, there have existed controversial standpoints claimed by SLA researchers and language educators Traditionally, SLA researchers insisted on the limited function of corrective feedback Among those is Krashen, who referred to error correction as “a serious mistake” and supported the claim with two reasons Firstly, error correction immediately affects students by leading them to being on the defensive and trying to avoid mistakes by employing only simple structures The second reason is that error correction only facilitates the development of “learned knowledge” and does not function in “acquired knowledge”
Standing on the opposite side are advocates of corrective feedback who argue that corrective feedback, are facilitative and even fundamental to SLA Park (2010) pointed out from his survey result with 160 adult ESL students and 18 native speaking teachers that the majority of both the students (94%) and teachers (88%) agreed that students’ spoken errors need to be corrected Ellis (2009) confirmed “corrective feedback – whether oral or written – is an integral part of teaching”, which is frequently used in classrooms and appears in all popular handbooks for teachers Based on their result from personal interviews with five language instructors at the Universida de Qunintana Roo, Médez et al (2010) reported that as long as certain factors such as students’ attitudes, personalities or emotions are taken into account, all the participating teachers agreed that corrective feedback should be used at the beginning of the learning process because beginners are more willing to correction and therefore fossilization can be more likely to be prevented Similar data were found in Schulz (2001) when 95% of student interviewees in his study supported the teacher’s correction of their errors in class Likewise, Campillo (2004) claimed “feedback may serve the function of making learners notice the mismatch between the input they are exposed to and their output” either implicitly or explicitly It also helps “increase the proficiency of a learner in a target language” (Gladday, 2012) Apart from the discussion on how important corrective feedback is, those recent studies have adjusted their focus on a wider perspective and therefore investigated a number of factors related to corrective feedback: who should do the correcting, which type of corrective feedback is the most effective, and which timing is the best These factors will be addressed in light of the viewpoints from the participants.
Who should do the correcting?
It is advisable that teachers give students the opportunity to self-correct, as this can help them get rid of their own trouble, which is supposed to facilitate the acquisition of the target language In case that fails, teachers can invite other students to perform the correction, i.e peer-correction Apart from student’s automatic correction of their own mistakes, some corrective feedback strategies may include teachers’ initial help (e.g clarification request, repetition) However, Ellis (2009) acknowledged a number of problems in self-correction of learner’s errors First, learners typically prefer teacher correction to the correction of their own problematic utterances This may result from the fact that, as in Park (2010)’s claim, teachers are experts and therefore the most popular source of feedback in classrooms Second and more urgently, learners can only self-correct provided that they have acquired the necessary knowledge of the language matter.
Which types of corrective feedback are the most effective?
A question to be discussed is “which strategies are the most effective?” Park (2010:23) confirmed that there are a great number of studies considering how effective different strategies of corrective feedback are to second language acquisition Traditionally, they have not been viewed as equally helpful A closer look at the studies reveals that techniques that require reformulation, i.e the provision of the new corrected form, such as clarification requests, and comprehension checks, have been more efficient than those which do not, for instance, recasts (Tatawy, 2012:13) This appears contrasting with the findings in studies by Ajideh and FareedAghdam (2012), Panova and Lyster
(2002), Sheen (2004) and Suzuki (2004) where they reported that recasts were the most frequent feedback type
Despite those contradictory points of view, it has been generally agreed among researchers of second language acquisition that recasts are the most common form of oral error correction used by teachers in second and foreign language classroom
Furthermore, Park (2010) affirmed in her study that it is approved that there is no one method that can be effective for all language learners Therefore, in order to promote language development, the teacher needs to provide various types of corrective feedback.
What is the best timing for corrective feedback?
There is an issue of whether oral corrective feedback should be held immediately or with delay While the former requires an instant response to learner’s mistake, the latter may take place after a series of erroneous utterances have been made Most teacher participants (88%) in Park (2010) agreed that spoken errors should be corrected after students have finished speaking as the most appropriate time This result may be due to the teachers’ concern that their immediate correction might disrupt or even discourage students from finishing their speaking or participating in classroom activities Another possible reason could be their beliefs that students can benefit more from delayed feedback as it allows them to finish the message they are trying to convey Yet, it is still impossible to decide if one type would overweigh the other There is no evidence to prove that immediate correction is any more effective than delayed one
In response to the dilemma all error correction aspects, it can be assured that students’ oral errors should not be left untouched or else their ill-formed utterances will be fossilized Therefore, corrective feedback can be used as an effective way to eliminate possible erroneous utterances among learners In order for corrective feedback to facilitate L2 development, Tatawy (2002) listed six different conditions to be met In general, the corrective techniques used should provide time as well as opportunity for students do self- and peer-repair Furthermore, it should be “fine-tuned” in terms of a close match between “teacher’s intention, the targeted error, and the learner’s perception of the given feedback.”
METHODOLOGY
The researcher first involved 30 teachers of English at a university in Hanoi into a survey via emails They are all Vietnamese and speak Vietnamese as the mother tongue with a certain number of years teaching oral skill in the same faculty They are active female teachers and always willing to adapt to new challenges and changes, therefore willing to participate in the research
For a better focus on the scope being investigated, three out of the 30 teacher participants in the first step were approached in the next stages The reason for the researcher to choose these three teachers were that their schedules were different from one another and from mine as a teacher, hence facilitated the data collection process
Another factor was that they differed in teaching experiences and were working with students in various semesters, which contributed to the objectivity of the data Table 1 summarizes some basic information from which the data for this study were drawn
Table 1 Schedule of the classes Teachers Semesters Dates Time
For the fulfillment of this research, the other group of participants includes 97 English majors who are studying at the same faculty and allocated with roughly equal number into three classes, consisting of 37 students in semester 3, 28 students in semester 5, and 32 in semester 7 All student participants are EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners whose nationality is Vietnamese and ages range from 20 to 23 Their English proficiency levels varies from intermediate to advanced, which were tested and assessed by the end-of-term tests conducted at the end of the previous semester The tests included all the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and were all designed by a group of assessors from the same faculty The reason for the researcher to exclude freshmen in the faculty was that during the data collection process, first-year students had not begun the school term yet All of these were completely unconscious of being passive participants into a study
2 Data collection instruments and procedure
The present study was carried out ethnographically with three instruments to be applied: (1) questionnaire survey via email, (2) classroom observation, and (3) one -to- one interviews
As a major instrument adapted from Anderson (2010) a questionnaire was designed by the researcher and administered via email to 35 teachers in order to investigate their beliefs as well as points of view in some aspects of corrective feedback A clear note informing the deadline of submission and asking for permission for classroom observation during the first three weeks were written in the email Prior to the present study, this questionnaire was applied to one teacher of English in the university as part of a pilot study to detect and discard any possible misleading questions or misunderstandings so that timely modification could be made The finalized 27 -item questionnaire is based on 6 major themes investigating the participating teachers’ perceptions towards corrective feedback on students’ spoken errors These themes are:
(1) Demographic information – questions 1, 2 and 3; (2) participants in feedback process – questions 4, 5 and 6; (3) feedback techniques – questions 7-15 and 24; (4) the timings of corrective feedback – questions 16-20 and 26; (5) the forms of corrective feedback – questions 21-23 and 25; (6) the basis for views on corrective feedback – question 27 30 out of the 35 teachers who were emailed completed the questionnaire
For the second stage, the schedule for observation was then registered and approved
Before coming to each class, the researcher brought along her voice reco rder, a pen, and a notebook The interaction between three chosen participants and their students in speaking lessons was observed during the first four weeks of the school term Neither the teacher nor the student participants were conscious of the purpose of the observation The amount of time recorded was 12 fifty-minute classes (with 4 classes per teacher) To supplement the transcription, notes were primarily taken, with a focus on students’ erroneous utterances followed by teacher’s corrective reaction The data were then classified into four different categories prior to being tallied: (1) sources of feedback, (2) timings of feedback, (3) forms of feedback, and (4) feedback strategies
After the classroom observations were all conducted, the three teacher participants were, in turn, asked to join a personal interview as reinforcement to the previously collected data Held a week subsequent the observed classes, each post-observation interview was conducted in a teacher room within the campus and audio -taped The data were then transcribed into a word processor for comparing and contrasting purposes The four main themes were identical to those in the survey questionnaire for easier collation of data, and all the participants’ responses closely reflected the data gained from classroom observations and were compared among one another All the interviews were performed in English and lasted for approximately ten minutes each It should also be noted that although they were semi-structured, the whole interaction between the researcher and the interviewees was strongly based on the four previously constructed major themes However, lively and informative interview sessions were guaranteed The set of six guiding questions for interviewing can be found in Appendix
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
1 Quantitative analysis and discussion 1.1 Collected database from survey questionnaire
The coded data from the questionnaire were entered into Microsoft Excel, with the majority of the 27 items encompassing quantitative values The first three items were intended to investigate demographic information of the participants, including their age, experience as teachers of English, and experience in teaching speaking skills All the three questions were in multiple choice designs The next twenty questions applied 5-point Likert scales ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” which were assigned numerical values ranging from one (1) to five (5), respectively However, to simplify the analysis, the author divided 5-point scales into three categories: (1)
“strongly agree” and “agree”; (2) “can’t decide”; and (3) “disagree” and “strongly disagree” The last four items 24-27 were developed under multiple choice designs where participants could choose more than one option at a time Statistics were calculated to find the frequencies and percentages for each of the questionnaire items
See Table 2 for a summary of questionnaire themes
Percentage of agreed/ strongly agree: %A Percentage of can't decide: %C
Percentage of disagree/ strongly disagree: %D
12 Elicitation with an incomplete utterance 66 30 4
14 Elicitation with a request for correction 43 30 27
18 At the end of an activity 70 13 17
19 At the end of the class 20 27 53
20 At the beginning of the next lesson 10 10 80
22 Oral and written feedback on the board 73 17 10
Based on the data collected from the fully responded questionnaires, the answers covered all the categories designed by the researcher In terms of their age, more than half of the participants (60%) fell into the middle group of 25-34 while the youngest group of 22-24 accounted for the modest percentage of 17% The proportions in experience as a language teacher of English, however, were allocated quite uniformly among the three groups, with 37% having less than 5 years experience or spending 5-9 years as a teacher of English, and 27% having been teaching for 10 years or more The third question dealt with the participants’ experience in teaching English speaking skills Although they are all university lecturers, some of them (7%) revealed that they a certain number of years below 10 working with their students on this language aspect These findings confirmed that most of the respondents in this research were young teachers whose years of experiences in teaching in general and teaching speaking in particular were not very considerable
In response to questions 4-6 on who should do the correcting, an outstanding feature was that teachers, classmates, and the error-making students themselves were all supported to take part in the process of correction by almost all the participants, with 80% for self-correction, 86% for peer correction, and a similar percentage of 84% for teacher correction Around 7% of them could not decide the personal response
The next nine questions from 7 to 15 aimed to investigate how participants’ attitudes are towards each feedback technique The most striking figures were found in the categories where the answer of “agree” or “strongly agree” was very much preferable than that of the opposite scale In details, approximately 70% of respondents claimed to approve the use of recast, metalinguistic, repetition, elicitation by giving an incomplete utterance, and body language Conversely, those who disagreed on the application of these techniques accounted for a general proportion of less than 30% For further specification, 73% of the teacher contributors agreed on metalinguistic and a moderately similar 70% on repetition These figures contradicted with a humble percentage of 17% falling into the other end of the scale More considerably, only 4% opposed to teacher’s elicitation with an incomplete utterance in contrast with 66% approved the strategy
Excluding these substantial distinctions, it should also be noticed that some techniques received agreement and disagreement in a generally equal manner The percentages of those who supported the use of explicit correction and disapproved it were 44% and
46%, respectively Likewise, clarification request got held up by 53% while rejected by 37%
Concerning the middle scale of “can’t decide”, all the seven major techniques of corrective feedback collapsed in this category Though at different levels, the most prominent of all fell into the application of elicitation either by giving an incomplete utterance or by directly requesting error makers to provide correction, and body language, with 30% of the participants
To investigate which type of corrective feedback is the most favorable, question 24 requested the participants to reflect their teaching practice by choosing at least one out of the seven options of feedback strategies The data collected disclosed the fact that recasts and metalinguistic were considered to be the most often used, although they accounted for just one half of the total responses On the contrary, body language and clarification requests made up the least with 20% and 23%, correspondingly In general, these results fit well with those from the previous questions to explore individual attitudes toward each feedback technique
The idea of when to correct students’ spoken errors was broken into five points of time, ranging from question 16 to question 20 The participants posed various opinions on correction timing In general terms, a large number of these teachers preferred to do the correction either after a series of errors, after the student has finished speaking (80%) or at the end of an activity (70%) This finding may confirm the fact that they seemingly intended to avoid interrupting students’ flow of speaking but still keep it
“hot” enough for the correction to be taken in by the class This may also explain for a considerably high proportion (61%) to reject immediate correction towards a mistake even though the error maker was still talking Similar significant statistics were also found in the opposition of delaying corrective feedback until the end of the class with 53% and the beginning of the next lesson with 80% Apart from these strong claims on their attitudes, some were not yet able to choose whether or not to make use of correction at any time The timing when class ended took up the highest percentage of nearly one third (27%) while the other timings ranged from 10% to 23%
Question 26 summarized the teachers’ practice on the timings of feedback The majority of the responses were ticked at the choice of c orrection either after the student’s speaking turn (83%) or at the end of an activity (73%) as being applied the most frequently Immediate correction and end-of-class correction were employed the most by around a quarter Correction at the beginning of the following lesson was inapplicable in any cases These findings, parallel with those in feedback techniques, corresponded with the results collected from questions 16 -20 and analyzed above
In response to questions 21-23 on in what form corrective feedback is held, 77% of the teachers and a similar 73% held the viewpoint that spoken errors should be corrected in a merely oral form, or in a combination of oral and written notes on the board, correspondingly There were still some participants who could not decide on the form of correction These accounted for small percentages ranging from 7% in oral feedback to 17% in the other two forms Those statistics showed a clear cut between the two sides of the scale in oral correction, and oral and written correction, whereas nearly uniform were 40% agreement in comparison with 43% disagreement on the use of written notes for individual error makers
In response to question 25 on which form(s) of corrective feedback appeared the most in their speaking lessons, 63% of the teachers selected to give feedback in oral form as well as written form on the board at the same time while the choice for written notes for individuals humbly took up 17% There was no distinction in the use of oral feedback and the proportions were divided into two halves, although 77%, as cited above, showed a clear favour of this category
The last question was designed as a wrap-up on the basis for all the responses Almost all the teachers (93%) who participated in this research attributed their responses in this survey to their personal experience as a language teacher More than half of them (57%) looked to their years of learning English while just around 40% admitted that their answers were based on knowledge from books and articles, or teacher training courses
1.2 Collected database from classroom observation
Before the data collected from classroom observation are analyzed, it should be noted that the total numbers of student and teacher turns were not counted, nor were the number of errors This is because these figures are very little relevant to the aim of this study, which has been clarified as to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards different aspects of corrective and the relationship between those viewpoints and their practical application inside the classroom
Each of the four tallied categories already mentioned was collated in different tables
CONCLUSION
Conclusions
The target of the current study is to investigate the participating teachers’ perceptions on different aspects of corrective feedback Another focus is the extent to which these points of view are closely related to their teaching practices The collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from a survey questionnaire participated by thirty teachers, twelve observed lessons, and three individual interviews revealed invaluable findings Based on these results, each research question will be addressed in the following sections
Firstly, in response to the first question (What are teachers’ attitudes towards oral corrective feedback?), the results from the survey questionnaire administered separately to each participant revealed their clear supportive position on the involvement of all the possible corrective participants inside the classroom, including the error makers, classmates, and the teacher This was inconsistent with the evidence from some previous research suggesting that stimulation for self-correction is effective in second language acquisition (Lyster, 2004; Ferris, 2006)
Regarding the feedback techniques, the respondents were inclined to apply a combination of all the seven correction treatment types This tendency matches with Ajideh’s (2012) assertion that “there might be no one single way of treating learner’s errors” This is supplemented by the fact that the teacher’s choice of corrective feedback types can be affected by various factors such as instructional settings and learner-related features like culture, age, gender (Rezaei, 2011), developmental readiness, error types (Ajideh, 2012), proficiency level (Rezaei, 2011; Tatawy, 2006), and time constraints (Gladdy, 2010) Although all the general and most common strategies attained a certain percentage of support, the data collected in this study showed that the most preferable ones fell into recasts, metalinguistic, repetition, and elicitation
With reference to feedback timings, the highest percentage of agreement fell into the correction after a series of errors and at the end of an activity ensuring there was no interruption of students’ speech flow However, some SLA researchers present theoretical arguments for immediate correction not only in accuracy but also in fluency activities Among those are Basturkmen, Loewen, and Ellis (2001) who engaged themselves in frequent immediate corrective feedback but did not appear to disrupt the overall communicative flow of the lessons
The last category of corrective feedback is form, in which the most frequently agreed upon were the oral form alone and the combination of oral and written form on the board
In answering the second question (How do these attitudes affect and relate to their teaching practice within classroom setting?), the study found both consiste ncy and inconsistency in teachers’ perception and practical teaching
For the sources of feedback, although peers and teachers were supported by most respondents, they received just averagely less than one third of the entire feedback moves in all the three classroom settings In other words, there was a big gap between perceptions on error correctors and practices, except for self -correction As explained in the interviews, peer and teacher correction was ignored because the teachers were well aware and appreciated the benefits of self-correction in creating opportunities for students’ consolidation and self-improvement
The second category inquired into the time of error correction A quick consideration into the data collected from the survey questionnaire versus classroom observation can unveil significant conformation in the participants In more details, the information and figures collected from the two researching tools were consistent in the categories of giving feedback immediately after a series of erroneous utterances, at the end of the lesson, and at the beginning of the next lesson However, the figure of feedback turns as immediate correction after a single error was drastically inconsistent when it was disapproved by more than half of the survey respondents but used in the most favorable manner in the three classrooms This, according to the justification collected from the interviews, was resulted from a number of factors, mainly including teacher’s annoyance at silly mistakes, habit of interruption in the face of an incorrect utterance, concerns about their short-term memory, or assurance for a potential improvement in students’ language proficiency
In the third category on the form of feedback, there was no contradiction in the form of oral feedback perceived and practiced by the three participating practitioners On the other hand, the statistics in the other two categories presented a noticeable inconsistency More strikingly, while supportive standpoint on written notes for individual error makers accounted for almost one half of all the 30 survey participants, this form was completely discarded from the observed lessons An explanation for this disuse was that written notes, as for the interviewees, were both time-consuming and not beneficial to the whole class
Finally, significantly different trends were found in choosing the right feedback strategies The most outstanding feature is great dissimilarities between the survey partakers’ views and the practical teaching These gaps were found in clarification request, elicitation, and body language in all the three teachers whose lessons were observed by the researcher In spite of a clear preference for these feedback techniques revealed from the survey data, they were used at almost no time in the observed classes, especially at no time at all by T1 and T3 Through the interviews, it was made clear that the teachers all felt that these techniques were not effective in their own classrooms mainly because of students’ likely misperception of the teacher’s intention
It is also worth noticing the use of the other feedback techniques There was clearly a big gap between what was perceived and what was conducted in the real teaching contexts of T1 and T2 in explicit correction, whereas a converse trend was found in recasts Furthermore, T2’s practical use of repetition was contradictory with the general point of views disclosed from the survey On the whole, this category alone illustrated striking contrasts falling into the entire set of feedback techniques However, each of the three interviewed teachers had their own reasons for which perceptions were different from practices.
Pedagogical implications
In the light of the findings analyzed and discussed in the previous sessions, this research has found some pedagogical implications However, as there were only a small number of participants and the research site was not varied, these implications were drawn and meant for use merely within the particular studied classroom settings
Based on the findings from the interviews, it appears clear that self-correction can be the most beneficial to the error makers themselves Therefore, although it might take time to conduct, teachers are advised to provide the most favorable atmosphere for self-repair to take place Together with the observed classes, the results from the interviews also suggest an occasional use of explicit correction as this does not lead to self-repair and hence does not effectively facilitate negotiation for meaning The use of body language, clarification request and repetition should be thought over, simultaneous with a careful consideration of students’ proficiency level and the seriousness of the error Or, in other cases, the teacher should also take account of a mixture between these techniques with others
Another implication is that in order to avoid interrupting and discouraging students’ speech flow, and even worse, humiliating them, the teachers should wait until their turn ends instead of immediately interfering into their talk This may lead to a concern about the teacher’s failure to remember all the errors already made, but can be avoided with some notes on the board, pieces of paper, or even a laptop
Finally, as suggested by the data from the interviews, teachers are inclined to spontaneously make their own decision on which form of correction will fit well in particular situation A mere oral form may be the most suitable when the time is limited and the errors are not too serious On the other hand, this might be supplemented with some notes on the board so that it can be beneficial to all learners of dissimilar proficiency levels Written notes might work well primarily in a classroom where students do not have the same cultural background and therefore might be presumed to be really time-consuming and the least effective in the studied classroom settings.
Limitations and suggestion for further research
There are unavoidable limitations of the study Firstly, a limited number of classroom observations could not help draw a completely reliable conclusion on whose perceptions and practices were more closely related Also, the data recorded from observed lessons would have been more reliable had the written notes by the researcher been assisted by a second researcher and/ or a high-quality tape-recorder Secondly, although an experience sharing session on types of corrective feedback was held prior to the current study, this could not entirely ensure participants’ comprehensive understanding of the items, which would certainly enable valid answers Finally, although this minor research found both considerable consistency and big gaps between teachers’ viewpoints and teaching practice in EFL classrooms, it was not able to generalize where there existed similarities and differences the most often
Regardless of the above-mentioned limitations, this research was still significant in terms of the following points: (1) the experience sharing session prior to the study implementation; (2) the inclusion of corrective feedback forms in all data collection tools; and (3) the comparison between perceptions and practices Those features were generally discounted by many previous research papers
This paper did not consider variables in teachers’ ages and teaching experiences, nor did it reflect on students related factors like age, proficiency level, and anxiety
Furthermore, the researcher disregarded the basis on which teachers made their choice in the survey questionnaire Therefore, the next phase of the study in error correction should investigate the extent to which some features related to both teachers and students affect teachers’ beliefs and use of feedback These include the factors mentioned above
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SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE (On teachers’ views on oral corrective feedback in speaking lessons)
I am conducting a study on teachers’ views on corrective feedback of students’ spoken errors in speaking lessons Please answer the following questions Your effort will make a great contribution to my fulfillment of a master’s degree in English Language Teaching methodology as well as further improvement for better use of corrective feedback within classroom
For questions 1-23, tick on the box to the information that applies to you Make sure to mark only ONE
2 Years of language teaching experience
Less than 5 years 5-9 years 10 years or more
3 Years of speaking skills teaching experience
4 You let your students correct their own spoken errors
5 You let your students correct their classmates’ spoken errors
6 As a teacher, you are the person who corrects students’ spoken errors
7 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
- No, it’s not “gone” “Been”
(Explicit correction: The teacher provides the correct form with a clear indication of what is being corrected)
8 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
- Been? You’ve been to Singapore once?
(Recast: The teacher repeats the student’s error in the correct form without pointing out the
9 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
(Clarification request: The teacher asks the student for clarification to signal that the student’s utterance is not understood or ill- formed by saying “sorry?” “pardon me?” or
10 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
- Do we say “have gone” when you have visited somewhere and come back?
(Metalinguistic: The teacher gives a hint or a clue without explicitly providing the correct form or pointing out the mistake)
11 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
(Repetition: The teacher repeats the student’s error changing his/ her intonation)
12 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
(Elicitation: The teacher gives an incomplete sentence and then pauses to allow the student to fill in the blank)
13 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
- What verb do you use when you have visited somewhere and come back?
(Elicitation: The teacher elicits the correct form by asking questions, excluding yes/ no questions)
14 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll say:
(Elicitation: The teacher asks the student to reformulate the erroneous utterance)
15 In response to a student’s spoken error “I’ve gone to Singapore once”, you’ll move your head and frown
(Body language: The teacher uses a facial expression or body movement rather than an oral response to indicate an error)
16 A student’s spoken error is corrected immediately after the error has been made
17 A student’s spoken error is corrected after a series of erroneous utterances when the student has finished speaking
18 A student’s spoken error is corrected at the end of the activity
19 A student’s spoken error is corrected at the end of the class
20 A student’s spoken error is corrected at the beginning of the next lesson
21 You correct student’s spoken errors orally
22 You correct student’s spoken errors in both oral and written forms using the board
23 You correct student’s spoken errors by writing quick notes for the student
APPENDIX B CLASSROOM OBSERVATION ON ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK
6 Observation (underline one): 1 st 2 nd 3 rd 4 th
Source of feedback: o Self o Peer o Teacher o Other (*)
Time of feedback: o Immediate after one error o Immediate after a series of erroneous utterances o At the end of the lesson o At the beginning of the next lesson
Oral form Written form using board
Written form using notes for individuals Other(**)
Clarification request Metalinguistic Repetition Elicitation Body language
Cl: Whole class DifS: Different student
No Partici- pant Example Technique Timing