This classroom study investigated the effects of oral teacher and peer corrective feedback on the acquisition of the German present perfect tense, including auxiliary verb selection (a rule-based structure) and past participle formation (an itembased structure). Intermediate learners of German were assigned to a teacher feedback condition, a peer feedback condition, or a control group. Learners in the teacher feedback group were corrected by their course instructor, while learners in the peer feedback group were trained to provide guidance to each other at the beginning of a twoday instructional treatment. Results from both an immediate and delayed posttest showed that while both experimental groups significantly improved in grammatical accuracy with both auxiliary selection and the past participle, the largest improvement was seen among the learners in the peer feedback group. These findings suggest that peer corrective feedback heightens learners' awareness of linguistic forms and that learners who provide such feedback may benefit not only from receiving but also from providing it. The results further demonstrate that peer feedback can be effective with less-proficient learners and with different types of grammatical structures.

This study explored whether form‐focused instruction (FFI) and peer corrective feedback (CF) facilitated vocabulary development during peer interaction (PI). Third‐semester learners of German were assigned to a PI group (peer interaction only), PI FFI group (peer interaction and form‐focused instruction), or PI FFI CF group (peer interaction, form‐focused instruction, and peer corrective feedback). Participants in all groups engaged in peer interaction activities, but only the PI FFI group and the PI FFI CF group received form‐focused vocabulary instruction on German nouns, along with their grammatical genders and plural forms. Only the PI FFI CF group was taught to provide feedback to peers during peer interaction. Results from a pretest and two posttests revealed that both experimental groups outperformed the control group on measures of productive and receptive vocabulary, grammatical genders, and noun plurals. In addition, the PI FFI CF group outperformed the PI FFI group on measures of productive and receptive vocabulary. These results highlight the importance of metacognitive instruction for vocabulary development during peer interaction.

This study investigated the long-term effects of peer and teacher feedback on pronunciation development. Participants included 94 learners of German. They were assigned to a teacher feedback group (TeacherF Group), a peer feedback provider group (PeerF Providers), a peer feedback receiver group (PeerF Receivers), or a control group. After completing general pronunciation training on a segmental and a suprasegmental feature in German, the TeacherF Group received feedback on their pronunciation from a teacher, the PeerF Providers gave feedback to peers, and the PeerF Receivers received feedback from peers. The control group did not complete pronunciation training or receive feedback. Results from native speaker comprehensibility ratings of learners’ productions indicated that while the TeacherF Group and the PeerF Receivers improved in the short term, only the PeerF Providers maintained their gains in pronunciation development over time. Methodological and pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.

This study investigated the relationship between learner beliefs about peer feedback and development of second language (L2) pronunciation skills after peer feedback on pronunciation had been used in the classroom. Seventy-four first-year learners of German were assigned to a peer feedback provider group, a peer feedback receiver group, and a control group. After completing a questionnaire designed to elicit learner beliefs about peer feedback, the provider group and the receiver group received general pronunciation training. Following the training, the provider group gave feedback to peers on their pronunciation and the receiver group listened to this feedback. Participants’ learning gains were measured by means of native speaker comprehensibility ratings of their productions both before and after the intervention. Statistical analyses revealed significant, positive relationships between learner beliefs about peer feedback and their learning gains. These results suggest that learners who held more positive beliefs about peer feedback tended to improve more after peer feedback had been implemented into their classroom. Pedagogical implications of these findings are discussed.

This study investigated to what extent teacher and peer feedback promote L2 lexical stress perception skills and how gains are maintained over time. Eighty-two participants from 11 sections of first-year German courses at three universities were assigned to a teacher feedback group, a peer feedback provider group, a peer feedback receiver group, or a control group. After completing a pronunciation training on word stress in German–English cognates, the teacher group received feedback on their pronunciation from a teacher, the provider group gave feedback to peers, and the receiver group received feedback from peers. The control group did not complete the pronunciation training or receive feedback. Results comparing learners’ pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest perception accuracy revealed that the teacher group and the provider group made significant gains in terms of their ability to perceive word stress in cognates, whereas the receiver group and the control group showed no improvement.