key concepts in elt

Oral corrective feedback

Shaofeng Li

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Corrective feedback (CF) refers to teacher and peer responses to
learners’ erroneous second language (L2) production. The recent
burgeoning of research into oral CF is attributable to its pedagogical
and theoretical significance. Practitioners are interested in whether,
when, and how to incorporate CF in classroom instruction; theorists
(for example Krashen 1981; Gass 1997) are divided over whether
the negative evidence afforded by oral CF about what is ‘wrong’ or
unacceptable in the target language is necessary for L2 development, or
whether exposure to positive evidence about what is correct is sufficient
by itself. Experimental studies to date have demonstrated that oral CF
can facilitate L2 development but that its effects may be constrained by
contextual factors and individual learner differences (Li 2010; Lyster
and Saito 2010).

Lyster and Ranta (1997) identify six types of corrective strategy. Thus,
one can respond to the erroneous utterance ‘He has dog’ by:
■■ reformulating it (recast): ‘A dog’;
■■ alerting the learner to the error and providing the correct form
(explicit correction): ‘No, you should say “a dog”’;
■■ asking for clarification (clarification request): ‘Sorry?’;
■■ making a metalinguistic comment (metalinguistic feedback): ‘You
need an indefinite article’;
■■ eliciting the correct form (elicitation): ‘He has …?’; or
■■ repeating the wrong sentence (repetition): ‘He has dog?’
Lyster and Ranta (ibid.) make a distinction between recasts and explicit
correction on the one hand, and the other four feedback types on the
other, in that the former provide the correct form and do not encourage
a response from the learner (‘uptake’), while the latter, collectively called
prompts, withhold the correct form and are more likely to be followed
by learner uptake. For instance, in the following episode, metalinguistic
feedback is followed by uptake involving self-correction:

Student: I go to a movie yesterday.

Teacher: You need the past tense.
Student: I went.

196 ELT Journal Volume 68/2 April 2014; doi:10.1093/elt/cct076

© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Advance Access publication December 13, 2013
 Regarding who should perform correction, Lyster (2004) argues that
learners should be encouraged to self-correct via prompts, and that
recasts are less effective because they may be perceived by learners
as relating to the message being communicated rather than the
problematic nature of a linguistic form. Also, feedback encouraging
self-correction is relatively motivating and makes classes more dynamic
and interactive. However, students may often expect teachers to
correct, and self-correction is unlikely if the learner does not have basic
knowledge about the linguistic form in question. One solution is to
attempt to elicit self-correction, and to follow this by teacher correction
if the former fails (Ellis 2010).

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This ‘prompt-then-provide’ approach is also supported by Sociocultural
Theory, according to which CF should be contingent (i.e. provided only
when it is necessary) and tailored to the needs of individual learners
(Lantolf 2000). Thus, ‘indirect CF’ (for example clarification request,
elicitation, or repetition) should be favoured, at least initially, over
‘direct CF’ (recasts, explicit correction, or metalinguistic feedback),
because excessive feedback can thwart learner autonomy.
Moving on to the issue of the timing of CF, teachers face the question
of whether CF should be provided immediately after learners receive
instruction on, or are exposed to, a linguistic structure. Given that some
errors are developmental (that is, are a consequence of the learner’s
developing internal language system and in this sense are similar to
those made by children acquiring their mother tongue) and that it takes
time to internalize linguistic knowledge, it may be advisable to assist
learners only with errors which are not repairable via their own internal
resources and which persist over time. At the more micro-level of the
timing of CF, errors can be responded to during a task, in which case
what is called ‘online CF’ occurs. ‘Offline CF’ refers to feedback after
a task has been completed. Both online and offline CF can focus on a
particular linguistic target or on a variety of linguistic features. Online
CF (especially in the form of recasts) affords opportunities, according
to Long (2007), for a brief timeout from the ongoing interaction for
learners. It involves an immediate juxtaposition of the wrong and
correct forms, and serves as an ideal form-focusing device in task-based
language teaching. In the case of offline CF, the teacher can note down
main errors and then go through them with the class. Willis and Willis
(2007) are particularly in favour of providing CF during the post-task
stage because, in this way, form-focused instruction is contextualized,
and learners will not be predisposed to focus on a particular linguistic
structure during the task. Willis and Willis argue that when linguistic
forms are addressed in a pre-task phase, learners’ consequent obsession
with form can undermine the primary focus on meaning, which is of
overarching importance in a task-based or communicative approach.
A final issue is what errors to target. Hedge (2000: 289) suggests
that teachers should respond to ‘errors’, which are due to a lack of
knowledge about a linguistic item, rather than ‘mistakes’, which
are non-systematic and occur as a result of factors such as fatigue.
However, this is easier said than done because it is difficult for

Oral corrective feedback 197

 teachers to distinguish errors from mistakes in spontaneous classroom
discourse. Perhaps it is easier to follow Hedge’s other suggestion, that
only ‘global’ errors (those which cause communication problems) be
addressed, but not ‘local’ errors (those which do not). This suggestion,
however, prioritizes the conversational function of oral CF and seems
to neglect its generally recognized pedagogical importance, which is
to provide opportunities for exposure to negative (as well as positive)
evidence and the consolidation of L2 linguistic knowledge.

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References
Ellis, R. 2010. ‘Cognitive, social, and psychological
dimensions of corrective feedback’ in R. Batstone
(ed.). Sociocognitive Perspectives on Language Use and
Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gass, S. M. 1997. Input, Interaction, and the Second
Language Learner. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hedge, T. 2000. Teaching and Learning in the
Language Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S. 1981. Second Language Acquisition
and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon
Press.
Lantolf, J. 2000. Sociocultural Theory and Second
Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Li, S. 2010. ‘The effectiveness of corrective
feedback in SLA: a meta-analysis’. Language
Learning 60/2: 309–65.
Long, M. H. 2007. Problems in SLA. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Lyster, R. 2004. ‘Differential effects of prompts
and recasts in form-focused instruction’. Studies
in Second Language Acquisition 26/3: 399–432.
Lyster, R. and L. Ranta. 1997. ‘Corrective feedback
and learner uptake’. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition 19/1: 37–66.
Lyster, R. and K. Saito. 2010. ‘Oral feedback in
classroom SLA: a meta-analysis’. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition 32/2: 265–302.
Willis, D. and J. Willis. 2007. Doing Task-based
Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The author
Shaofeng Li is a Lecturer of Applied Language
Studies at the University of Auckland, where
he teaches postgraduate and undergraduate
courses in second language acquisition and
language pedagogy. He received his PhD from
Michigan State University. His recent and
forthcoming publications appear in Language
Learning, Modern Language Journal, Applied
Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, and
RELC Journal.
Email: s.li@auckland.ac.nz

198 Shaofeng Li