Corrective Feedback, Spoken Accuracy and Fluency, and the Trade-off Hypothesis

Abstract

The current study was an attempt to investigate the effects of different corrective feedback (CF) conditions on Iranian EFL learners' spoken accuracy and fluency (AF) and the trade-off between them. Consequently, four pre-intermediate intact classes were randomly selected as the control, delayed explicit metalinguistic CF, extensive recast, and intensive recast groups. All participants took part in spoken reproduction tasks for six sessions and their spoken grammatical errors were treated differently. Then, the data was transcribed, coded for AF, and analyzed. The results indicated that the different CF conditions had insignificant effects on spoken general accuracy. Considering fluency, there was a significant correlation between pruned and unpruned speech rates, with a large effect size; however, the different CF conditions had insignificant effects on the spoken temporal fluency. The correlations between general accuracy and temporal fluency of all groups were positive and significant with a small effect size. In addition, different CF conditions had insignificant effects on the relationship between accuracy and fluency. These findings suggest that there is no trade-off between general accuracy and temporal fluency. In addition, different CF conditions, particularly when they are focused on a specific form, have insignificant effects on the EFL learners' spoken general accuracy, temporal fluency, and their relationships.

Exploring the effects of automatic speech recognition technology on oral accuracy and fluency in a flipped classroom

“…For example, consistent prioritization of fluency might lead to over-lexicalized performance and fossilized learner interlanguage, which may be difficult to change. By contrast, consistent prioritization of accuracy might lead to a lack of fluency (Chehr Azad et al, 2018).…”

Feedback on Pronunciation: Vietnamese EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practice

“…The concern of feedback as a source of students' anxiety has also been reported as the reason for teachers' reluctance in giving feedback elsewhere (e.g., Kartchava et al, 2020;Roothooft & Breeze, 2016). As for the accuracy-fluency trade-off, concern has been grounded in the hypothesis of learners' limited attentional capacity (see Skehan, 1998, for an example); however, empirical research in the field of ELT, such as that by Azad et al (2018), has revealed that feedback does not necessarily result in the reduction of fluency. Additionally, teachers' lack of belief in the efficacy of feedback on pronunciation at lower English levels hereby was not well supported by findings of previous studies.…”