Differential effects of focused and unfocused recasts on EFL learners’ oral accuracy

Abstract

One of the limitations of the meaning-focused instruction in an EFL context is that a communicative approach isn’t sufficient enough to ensure higher levels of oral accuracy. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of two different focus on form techniques, extensive and intensive recasts, on the EFL learners’ oral accuracy. Three pre-intermediate intact classes were randomly selected as the intensive recast, extensive recast, and the control groups. In the intensive recast group the focus of correction was on the simple past tense errors. In the extensive recast group the recast was provided for all errors. In the control group, there was no corrective feedback. Learners’ oral accuracy as the number of Error-free T-units per T-units was measured. One-way ANOVAs indicated that the differences among groups were only significant in sessions five and six. Tukey HSD indicated that intensive recast group outperformed both the extensive and the control groups in these sessions and there were no significant differences between the other two groups. These findings suggest that focus on form can be an effective tool for the development of the oral accuracy in the EFL situations. In addition, recasting learners’ oral errors could enhance the oral accuracy.