Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this study is mainly to find out the EFL learners' attitude towards corrective feedback. This paper also investigates types of learners who prefer the online or offline corrective feedback, and how feedback should be tailored to the needs of the learners.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted on sixty female participants who were students of levels 7 and 8 of the B. A. program (English) at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia. They were administered a questionnaire comprising eight questions about corrective feedback from teachers individually and independently so that they could identify their own choices without any influence from other participants. The items in the questionnaire were closed items.FindingsIt was found that both types of feedbacks are essential to enhance learners' linguistic accuracy. Learners have shown their positive attitude towards teachers' corrective feedback because they consider it a motivating learning tool. Not only that the learners have expressed the view that corrective feedback is very useful in enhancing the learning process for EFL learners. On the other hand, some of the learners are not serious about going through corrective feedback given by teachers because sometimes they are unable to differentiate between what helps or hampers progress towards language learning. However, they preferred both online (immediate/automated) feedback and offline (delayed) feedback. In general, the results state that the learners have expressed the view that corrective feedback is very useful in enhancing the learning process for EFL learners.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has some limitations. The first one is the sample size. Only students from levels 7 and 8 (undergraduates) were taken into consideration. The second limitation is that the researchers focused on only one university in Saudi Arabia. The third limitation is that no male students participated in this study. The results might be different if the male students participated as well.Originality/valueOne vital point in employing CF in the language classrooms is timing. Considering the timing of corrective feedback, teachers face the problem of whether CF should be immediate (online) or delayed (offline).
Highlights
The notion of corrective feedback is not a new phenomenon
Corrective feedback refers to teacher and peer responses to learners’ erroneous second language (L2) production
Instruments As the questionnaire is a relatively popular means of collecting data, a questionnaire comprising eight close-ended questions related to EFL learners’ perception, understanding and attitude towards teachers’ corrective feedback in the classroom and online was distributed among these sixty students to get the idea of what outlook they have on corrective feedback
Summary
The notion of corrective feedback is not a new phenomenon. It has been an essential means adopted by teachers to treat learners’ errors in a second language classroom. Corrective feedback refers to teacher and peer responses to learners’ erroneous second language (L2) production. According to Ellis (2009) and Li (2010), corrective feedback (CF) refers to the responses from teachers to a learner’s non-target like the second language (L2) output. Saudi Journal of Language Studies Vol 1 No 1, 2021 pp. Published in Saudi Journal of Language Studies. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/ by/4.0/legalcode
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