Exploring Different Oral Corrective Feedback Preferences: Role of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Intelligences

Abstract

This study explored corrective feedback (CF) types and their relationship to L2 learners’ intelligence types. Participants were 60 intermediate L2 learners aged 18-29 in Isfahan, Iran. Based on their intelligence types as intrapersonal and interpersonal, the participants were divided into 2 groups. McKenzie’s MI Inventory (1999) and a researcher-designed questionnaire on CF types were employed. Spearman correlation was applied to find out the relationship between the participants’ intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences and their preferred CF. Then, multiple regression analysis was run to indicate the significant representation of the specific CF among the participants. Results revealed that there was a strong positive relationship between the participants’ intrapersonal intelligence and explicit types of CF. Regression computations indicated that the interpersonal participants showed a great significant tendency towards repetition, paralinguistic signs, clarification requests, and translation; however, conversational and didactic recasts as well as elicitation, explicit, and metalinguistic CF made a unique and significant contribution to the intrapersonal participants. Accordingly, L2 teachers should take into account their learners’ preferred CF types in their teaching and, consequently, suggest activities designed to help them make maximum use of their intelligence types. L2 teachers could also adapt their classroom activities to their learners’ intelligences and CF types to create the most productive learning environment.