Exploring the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices of oral corrective feedback in synchronous computer-mediated communication

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between the EFL teachers' beliefs about oral.corrective feedback (OCF) and their actual teaching practices in the context of.synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). It aimed to understand the.extent of in/consistency between the teachers’ OCF practices and beliefs.regarding the significance of OCF, types of OCF strategies and the types of errors.receiving OCF.Data were collected through two instruments: observations for the.purpose of exploring the teachers’ actual OCF practices and a questionnaire to.uncover OCF beliefs.It was found that the teachers expressed strong beliefs.about their awareness of the significance of OCF, which, however, was not.reflected in the frequency of OCF provision. The results also indicated that recasts.were the most frequently employed form of feedback, which is in line with the overall.preferences reported by the teachers in the questionnaire. Additionally, the teachers considered.pronunciation errors the most significant target of OCF. Nevertheless, vocabulary errors had a substantially higher frequency of corrections. It was also noted that the.teachers stated to adapt their OCF provision in SCMC contexts compared to F2F.classroom settings. The observed in/consistencies were discussed considering the.impact of various belief systems on classroom behaviors and several contextual factors.