Oral Feedback in Classroom SLA By Roy Lyster and Kazuya Saito

The Study Meta-analysis of 15 published studies on corrective feedback. Classroom-based studies only (as opposed to lab-based) Factor for consideration: Types of corrective feedback Outcome measures Instructional setting Treatment length Learner age

Types of Corrective Feedback Recasts “The teacher’s reformulation of all or part of a student’s utterance, minus the error” Explicit Corrections Providing the correct form while “clearly indicating what the student had said was incorrect.” Prompts “Withhold correct forms and instead provide clues to prompt students to retrieve these correct forms from their existing knowledge.” Prompts can include metalinguistic clues, clarifications requests, repetition

Types of Corrective Feedback Clarification Requests Repition Elicitation Metalinguistic Clues Metalinguisitc Clue and repetition or elicitation Implicit Explicit PROMPTS REFORMULATIONS Recasts Explicit Corrections

Findings about Types of Corrective Feedback Recasts, prompts, and explicit correction are all significantly effective Prompts were more effective than recasts Prompts are more pedagogically oriented Students respond the the negative evidence from prompts Prompts impose a greater demand for students to produce modified output Explicit corrections could not be distinguished from prompts or recasts

Outcome Measures 4 different types: Free constructed-response measures Require learners to produce the target language freely without many constraints Constrained constructed-response measures Require learners to complete tasks in which the use of the target features was necessary. Selected-response measures Requires learners to select the correct answer among several alternatives Metalinguistic judgements Require learners to judge the grammaticality of target structures

Findings about Outcome Measures Free Constructed-response measures Most effective form of CF CF is given in conversational context “with relatively few constraints and with meaningful communication as the goal of L2 production” Constrained constructed-response measures Metalinguistic judgements Selected-response measures

Durability Measure of the effectiveness of corrective feedback from immediate to delayed posttests (outcome measures) Immediate = within 1 week Delayed = after 2 weeks and up to 6 weeks Findings: The impact of corrective feedback does not decrease between immediate and delayed posttests. Corrective feedback has long-term learning effects.

Instructional Setting Foreign Language vs Second Language “Second language usually has official status or a recognized function within a country which a foreign language does not” (p 280) Findings: There is no difference between FL and SL classrooms Underlying learning process is essentially the same

Length of Treatment Brief treatments = less than 1 hr Short treatments = 1-2 hrs Medium treatments = 3-6 hrs Long treatments = 7+ hrs Findings: Long treatments are much more effective than short to medium treatments May not be a reliable variable to measure effectiveness

Age Factors Knowledge going into the study: Child learners – Elementary (10-12 yrs old) Young adult learners – End of high school/college (17-20 yrs old) Adult learners- language school/community college (ESL) (~23 yrs old) Knowledge going into the study: older students: higher expectations for and encouraged to take more risks Younger students: given more structure so less opportunity for mistakes.

Age Factors Findings Age contributed to a significant percentage of the variance in effectiveness of CF Younger students are much more affected by CF than older learners More sensitive to impact CF engages learning mechanisms that are found more often in younger learners Received longer treatments

Take away Corrective Feedback has a significant impact on student learning Prompting is the most effective feedback Free constructed-response are the most effective assessment Corrective feedback has more impact on younger learners The study was limited so all information should be interpreted with caution, however, the findings are sufficient for use in a classroom and to guide future studies.