Oral Corrective Feedback in an Intermediate EFL Conversation Class

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONEnglish as an international has been taught to most learners across the world. In both English as Second Language (ESL) and English as Foreign Language (EFL) countries, English can be found as one of the lessons at schools. In learning a new language, for instance English, learners would need to use and practice the target language. During the learning process, nevertheless, learners would experience making errors. Littlewood (1984) states: play an important role in learning process. Errors show that the learners are still building the new knowledge in order to be able to use the language (p. 17). Therefore, as a response to the learners' errors, teachers provide feedback (CF).According to Sheen and Ellis (2011), corrective feedback (CF) refers to the feedback that learners receive on the linguistic errors they make in their oral or written production in a second (L2) (p. 593). Lyster et al. (2013) suggest plays a pivotal role in the kind of scaffolding that teachers need to provide to individual learners to promote continuing L2 growth (p. 1). CF has been a topic that is widely discussed by the researchers of Second Language Acquisition (SLA); however, it is less discussed in EFL context (Mendez and Cruz, 2012). Thus, this has inspired the writer to do a study of CF, especially oral CF in EFL context.The term oral CF itself is further defined by Sheen and Ellis (2011) in a more detail way by explaining that oral CF can be given at the time when a learner produces an oral error in his or her utterance (i.e. online) or after the or interaction in which a learner participates is over (i.e. off-line). Therefore, the word 'oral' is defined as learners' oral production. Thus, the term oral CF in this study is defined as the feedback given for errors found in learners' oral production (Sheen and Ellis, 2011).The role of CF, including oral CF, has been a discussion among researchers. Researchers have argued that sufficient CF will likely support L2 development (Mackey et al., 2016). The use of CF provides chances for learners to notice the gap between their errors and the correct form (2016). By noticing the gap, learners can integrate the correction into their L2 knowledge (2016). In addition, oral CF can also assist L2 development when learners are given chances to produce outputs or to do selfcorrection (2016). Mackey et al. (2016) explain further by stating self-correction in response to feedback can trigger deeper and more elaborate processing of L2 forms, helping learners establish memory traces that last longer (p. 502). Thus, the role of oral CF in SLA is seen to be important as it promotes acquisition (Sheen and Ellis, 2011).In relation to teachers' oral CF provision, Chaudron (1988) mentions: teachers will likely correct learners' errors either when they pertain to the pedagogical focus of the lesson or when they significantly inhibit communication (p. 136). One teacher's oral CF might differ from others, and one of the reasons is because different classes would have different pedagogical focus. This means that a teacher might provide oral CF strategies differently when he or she teaches classes with different pedagogical focus. Chaudron (1988) claims that in terms of when to correct learners' errors, pedagogical focus is a determinant (p. 137).This sparks the writer's interest to look more deeply into oral CF in an EFL conversation class. The writer would focus on finding (1) the types of oral CF strategies used and (2) the pedagogical focus in relation to the teacher's oral CF in the conversation class. The writer would look further into the classroom activities, including in what kind of activity and to what kind of error (grammatical or lexical) the oral CF is given to see the link between the oral CF provision and the pedagogical focus of the lesson.TYPES OF ORAL CF STRATEGIESThere are eight major types of oral CF strategies by Sheen and Ellis (2011), namely recasts (didactic or conversational), explicit correction, explicit correction with metalinguistic explanation, clarification requests, repetition, elicitation, metalinguistic clue, and paralinguistic signal. …