Exploring the effects of teachers’ and learners’ beliefs: The scarcity of corrective feedback during uncontrolled EFL classroom interactions

Abstract

Extensive research literature suggests that corrective feedback (CF), when effective, has a beneficial impact on the development of learners’ interlanguage. This is because CF provides learners with language data concerning the correctness of their utterances and thus pushes their oral production towards greater clarity, accuracy and comprehensibility. However, CF has been found to be considerably scarce during classroom interactions. In an attempt to understand its scarcity, the present study investigates the interplay between the amount of CF provided by teachers and learner peers and the effects of their beliefs during uncontrolled classroom interactions at a Mexican university. By combining data collected from recorded classroom interactions, teacher interviews and learner focus groups, the findings show that there was a considerable number of errors which were avoided and not corrected by the teachers and learners during the classroom interactions. The findings also suggest that the scarcity of CF was in response to the teachers’ and learners’ conflicting beliefs about CF. This study provides a great opportunity to direct research towards the effects of teachers’ and learners’ beliefs on providing and receiving CF during classroom interactions, and find ways through which a socio-affective climate can be promoted in the language classroom in order to facilitate the provision of CF.