The Effect of Implicit versus Explicit Corrective Feedback on Intermediate EFL Learners' Speaking Self-efficacy Beliefs

Abstract

Although a majority of previous studies have investigated the efficacy of corrective feedback (CF) and a number of them have compared implicit and explicit CF types, there are still many variables, one of which is speaking self-efficacy, that have not been investigated along with CF. Therefore, this study aimed to compare implicit versus explicit CF to see if they affect EFL learners' speaking self-efficacy beliefs differently. To this aim, 44 intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to two implicit (n=22) and explicit groups (n=22). All participants were female students whose age ranged from 14 to 35. In the first session, speaking self-efficacy questionnaire (Hairuzila et al., 2011) including 23 items with choices on a 5-point Likert scale was administered to the participants. After 18 sessions of receiving two different types of CF, the same questionnaire with some changes in the order of the items was given to the participants. The results revealed that there were no significant differences between the implicit and explicit groups regarding their speaking self-efficacy beliefs. Moreover, a follow-up interview was held with 12 participants two weeks after the end of the treatment. The results of the interview showed that the participants in the implicit group had more positive beliefs towards speaking self-efficacy than the explicit group. The results have some implications for EFL learners, EFL teachers, curriculum designers and teacher trainers.