Rethinking the Role of Corrective Feedback in Communicative Language Teaching

Abstract

The history of second language teaching has witnessed changing perceptions of corrective feedback. Under the extreme view of communicative language teaching, which appears to be prevailing in some communicatively-oriented classrooms, learning can only come about through learner-learner interactive output practice. Form- focused instruction is deemed detrimental. Corrective feedback is consequently accorded low status in classroom processes. In this paper, I examine the 'equation' drawn between communicative language teaching and the exclusion of form-focused instruction and error correction. By bringing in a cognitive-skill-acquisition perspective to bear on the role of corrective feedback in second language acquisition, I argue that in communicative language teaching, corrective feedback remains an important vehicle for facilitating L2 knowledge construction and enhancing knowledge use. Issues related to the actual provision of corrective feedback in the classroom are considered, which include matching teaching and learning, teacher adaptation, and output enhancement. Pedagogical insights are provided into two questions that are of major practical concern to L2 teachers: namely, how to increase the effectiveness of corrective feedback in the classroom and how to integrate corrective feedback into communicative language teaching to enhance learning.