Corrective Recasts Research Articles

Effects of Types of Oral Corrective Feedback and Learner Aptitude on the Acquisition of Explicit and Implicit Knowledge of English Articles

This study investigated the effects of two types of corrective feedback (CF), recasts and metalinguistic feedback (implicit vs. explicit CF), on the development of implicit and explicit knowledge of English articles. It also examined the relationship between learners’ language aptitude, in particular language analytic ability, and their knowledge development through different types of CF. Six intact intermediate communication English classes (a total of 104 students and two English-speaking teachers) at a university participated in the present study. In CF groups, learners received recasts or metalinguistic feedback (MF) to the errors of the English articles during communicative activities, while no CF was given to the control group. The study employed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design, and four different tests were used to measure learner implicit and explicit knowledge. The study found both recasts and MF effective in the development of implicit knowledge and selective effects of recasts on the improvement of explicit knowledge. This suggests that both implicit and explicit CF bring about the development of implicit and explicit knowledge. In addition, language analytic ability was found to be closely related to learners’ gains through both CF and development of explicit and implicit knowledge of English articles.

Corrections as multiparty accomplishment in L2 classroom conversations

Much research on classroom talk has had a dyadic teacher-student bias. This study documents multiparty aspects of repair work through analyses of talk in a classroom community. Drawing on 40h of video-recordings from Swedish L2 lessons in a language immersion classroom, participant contributions were analyzed as those of a party (Schegloff, 1995), rather than merely as individual contributions. The detailed analyses of correction trajectories reveal that both the teacher and the students produced exposed corrections (Jefferson, 1987) as well as embedded corrections (corrective recasts). The analyses illuminate the teacher's sustained efforts in tailoring classroom talk to the classroom community's displayed understanding and varying skills, something that involved a continuous balancing act between form-accuracy and conversational progressivity. Moreover, the analyses document student agency (e.g. vicarious responses, chorus responses and peer corrections). In moving away from a dyadic bias, this study of repair work contributes to situated analyses of classroom corrections.

Revisiting Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication: Learner Perception and the Meaning of Corrective Feedback

Effectively exploring the efficacy of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) for pedagogical purposes can be achieved through the careful investigation of potentially beneficial, inherent attributes of SCMC. This study provides empirical evidence for the capacity of task-based SCMC to draw learner attention to linguistic forms by offering opportunities for corrective feedback and incidental recasts, highlighting learners’ errors. The findings open up the discussion on the meaning of feedback considering learners’ perceptions and the unique SCMC features. The findings indicate that learners do not attend to corrective feedback that promote “the corrector” and “the corrected” relationships. Rather, they benefit from incidental recasts that coincidentally contrast with their ill-formed L2 production. This study also challenges the previous assumptions regarding certain SCMC features believed to be beneficial to learners. Features like split turns increase learners’ cognitive load and make it difficult for learners to follow the flow of the conversation. Considering split turns of SCMC and learners’ different perceptions on tasks, this study calls for reframing recasts in SCMC and more sensitive research methods for investigating SCMC interaction.

Differential Effects of Corrective Feedback on the L2 Acquisition of Korean Demonstratives andIndirect Quotation

This study investigates the effects of two explicit types of corrective feedback techniques, explicit recasts (declarative partial recasts with the correct form) and metalinguistic clues (metalinguistic information without the correct form) on the acquisition of two Korean target forms, demonstratives and indirect quotation, which differ in the degree of the learning difficulty they pose in terms of either the meaning or form. The study employed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design with two treatment sessions between the pretest and the posttest. The participants included 26 Korean adult learners who were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and a control group. The results show that both explicit recasts and metalinguistic clues are effective in promoting the acquisition of the demonstratives. For an indirect quotation, only the metalinguistic group significantly differed from the control group, even though the two experimental groups were not significantly different.

The effects of foreign language anxiety on EFL learners' perceptions of oral corrective feedback

The study reported in this paper explored if learners' perceptions of two types of oral corrective feedback, recasts, and metalinguistic feedback, are influenced by their foreign language anxiety in classrooms. Corrective feedback was provided to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners who were homogeneous with regard to their proficiency during task-based interactions between learners and their interlocutors. Learners' perceptions of corrective feedback were subsequently collected via stimulated recall interviews. Learners' perceptions were classified as noticing the gap, recognized as corrective, and other. Learners were also classified as low- and high-anxiety learners according to scores they obtained in an anxiety questionnaire. The analysis of learners' perceptions along with their anxiety level indicated that the learners with lower anxiety were more successfully able to notice the gap between their erroneous utterances and target-like forms or recognize as corrective both the recasts and metalinguistic feedback.

What affordances of synchronous text-based chat tools help promote noticing and negotiation of meaning in language learner interactions?

Current research suggests that synchronous text-based chat tools encourage both noticing and negotiation of meaning in language learner interactions, both of which are regarded as important procedures in language learning. This paper seeks to identify what affordances of synchronous text-based chat tools may encourage such language behavior. Using concurrent think-aloud report data from a language learner interaction, it was found that learner perceptions of chat tools as social tools may actually inhibit noticing and meaning negotiation. However, the lack of turn-taking conventions in text chats may serve to encourage modifications of output, while visual adjacency of corrective recasts to error may promote noticing.

Uptake, Modified Output, and Learner Perceptions of Recasts: Learner Responses as Language Awareness

Recent research has shown that certain learners' responses to feedback, specifically repair and modified output, are predictive of subsequent second language (L2) development. Yet, little is understood about why these responses are associated with second language acquisition (SLA). The current study investigated this question by exploring the cognitive processes underlying learner responses. Learners of Japanese (n = 24) engaged in task‐based interactions during which they received recasts of their errors. Each learner then watched video clips of the recast episodes and commented on them. The learners' stimulated recall reports were analyzed in relation to their responses to the recasts: uptake, repair, and modified output. In recast episodes where they produced uptake, their reports indicated that they perceived the recasts as corrective feedback significantly more frequently compared to cases where they did not produce uptake. In episodes where learners correctly repaired their errors, they were significantly more likely to report not only recognizing corrective recasts but also noticing the interlanguage–L2 mismatch. Modified output was also significantly related both to learners' recognition of corrective recasts and to their noticing of the gap (Schmidt & Frota, 1986). Given the developmental benefits commonly associated with noticing the gap, these findings may partly explain why repair and modified output have been found to be predictive of SLA.

Retroalimentación negativa mediante reformulaciones correctivas: impacto en el desarrollo de la distinción modal en español como segunda lengua

The first part of this paper briefly deals with the possibilities of interaction and corrective recasts to facilitate interlanguage development. Following, we discuss the acquisition of an inherently difficult structure in Spanish/Second Language (S/L2), mood selection. In the second part of the paper, we report on a study that focuses on the possibilities of corrective recasts to aid the acquisition of mood selection in second- type conditional sentences in S/L2. Conclusions are drawn about how our data might inform second language teaching and learning.

Argumentation and Debate in Foreign Language Instruction: A Case for the Traditional Classroom Facilitating Advanced‐Level Language Uptake

In response to a growing demand for highly proficient speakers of foreign languages, both from private and government sectors, an added emphasis has been placed on immersion‐type programs that offer extensive contact time in a target language. Although time in a target language certainly plays a valuable and needed role, this research demonstrates that innovative curricular design and development in the university foreign language classroom can equal if not exceed uptake that occurs in extended immersion environments. A thorough description of the research design is provided, including the application of “memory box” items, laboratory self‐recordings, listening, reading, and written exercises, and in‐class practicum in the target language involving British parliamentary‐style debate and Model United Nations. Preliminary findings based on certified pre‐ and post‐Oral Proficiency Interview and Written Proficiency Test ratings suggest that such an approach yields significant gain. Vygotsky's (1978) idea of the Zone of Proximal Development serves as a useful framework for explaining a high percentage of gain at the Advanced‐high/Superior threshold in oral proficiency, whereas native‐speaker written corrective recasts followed by revision and resubmission of written assignments offer a useful paradigm for facilitating threshold gain across a range of proficiency levels for all participants involved.

Corrective recasts: what teachers might want to know

Teachers, in particular those who operate in communicatively oriented classrooms, frequently use recasts (i.e. reformulations) when interacting with students. Research has nevertheless shown that, as a corrective feedback strategy, recasts are the least effective, particularly in terms of helping students to recover from grammatical errors. One reason for the lack of efficacy is that recasts are sometimes intended to fulfil a corrective function and sometimes a communicative function. In consequence, the corrective function, when intended, is often obscured and hence ignored. This paper garners insights from the existing research, presenting them in the form of five pedagogic strategies buttressed with authentic classroom examples. The goal of these strategies is to increase the saliency of the corrective function of the recasts so that they become more noticeable, and hence more effective in drawing learners' attention to gaps between their interlanguage and the target grammar.

The Prerogative of ‘Corrective Recasts’ as a Sign of Hegemony in the Use of Language: Further Thoughts on Eric Hauser's (2005) ‘Coding “Corrective Recasts”: The Maintenance of Meaning and More Fundamental Problems’

The objective of this response article is to think through some of what I see as the far-reaching implications of a recent paper by Eric Hauser (2005) entitled ‘Coding ‘‘corrective recasts’’: the maintenance of meaning and more fundamental problems’. Hauser makes a compelling, empirically-backed case for his contention that, contrary to widespread belief, so-called ‘corrective recasts’ in SLA ought not to be seen as preserving meaning. Upon closer inspection, Hauser’s point can be read as a powerful indictment of the notoriously unequal power distribution in the use of the English language world-wide. Corrective recasts are used not only in the context of EFL teaching but also in the sphere of academic publishing where NS editorial assistants pay special attention to correctively recasting submissions by NNS contributors. Although the justification offered is typically that of ‘polishing up’ the text language-wise, such corrective recasts sometimes tamper with the intended meanings of the text’s author(s), irretrievably distorting the outcome. Needless to say, this is by no means unique to the English language, but given the fact that English is by far the world’s number one language of academic publishing, and that an important part of what is expected of editorial assistants and copy editors is a very good command of the language of publication, the NS/NNS divide is most prone to coincide with institutionally sanctioned unequal power relations.

Language learning

Language learning

Coding ‘Corrective Recasts’: The Maintenance of Meaning and More Fundamental Problems

A fair amount of descriptive research in the field of second language acquisition has looked at the presence of what have been labeled corrective recasts. This research has relied on the methodological practice of coding to identify particular turns as 'corrective recasts'. Often, the coding criteria make use of the notion of the maintenance of meaning across turns, implicitly incorporating a theory of meaning. Through the use of empirically-based arguments, this paper demonstrates the problematic nature of this theory of meaning, and of the notion of the maintenance of meaning. However, the purpose of this paper is not to suggest ways that problems with such criteria may be rectified or mitigated. Rather, the exploration of problems with this notion is used to introduce more fundamental problems related to the use of coding. It is argued that the nature of the methodological practice of coding may be different from how it is generally understood. It is also argued that the use of coding obscures what is happening for participants in interaction. These arguments apply beyond research on corrective recasts within the field of second language acquisition, to all research on interaction which involves the methodological practice of coding.

Negative evidence and grammatical morpheme acquisition.

Children's use of negative evidence in language acquisition was investigated. Recent research has demonstrated that parents differentially correct children's ungrammatical sentences compared with grammatical sentences through recasts (i.e., negative evidence). This study investigated children's imitations of new gramamtical morphemes contained in corrective recasts. These imitations were compared with imitations of grammatical morphemes contained in positive evidence provided by discourse type such as topic continuations. One hr of conversation in twelve 23-month-old children and their mothers was examined