Oral corrective feedback on L2 writing: Two approaches compared

Abstract

Corrective feedback (CF) research conducted within a cognitive-interactionist framework has examined the effectiveness of specific types of CF (e.g. Ellis et al., 2006). In contrast, CF research conducted within a sociocultural framework has sought to show how tailoring the feedback to the learners' zone of proximal development assists learning (e.g. Aljaafreh and Lantolf, 1994). The study reported in this article was designed to compare these two approaches to investigating CF by examining two types of feedback on students' errors in oral conferences following two pieces of writing. Some students received 'graduated feedback' in accordance with sociocultural theory and others explicit feedback in accordance with cognitive-interactionist theory. The detailed analysis of the feedback sessions showed that while the graduated feedback was effective in promoting self-correction, there was no evidence of any systematic reduction in the level of assistance provided over time. In contrast, the explicit feedback resulted in less selfcorrection but was accomplished much more quickly. Crown

The Impact of Teacher Corrective Feedback on EFL Student Writers’ Grammatical Improvement

“…This is in line with the conclusion made by Erlam et al (2013) which indicates that indirect feedback enables students to self-repair their grammatical errors. Eslami (2014) also lends support to the effectiveness of indirect feedback after proving that it is more useful to help low-intermediate EFL students self-correct simple past tense errors.…”

“…Previous studies (Cepni, 2016;William, 2003) indicate that oral feedback makes corrective feedback given by a teacher more effective because it gives an opportunity to both teachers and students to clarify their doubts. Erlam et al (2013) assert that oral corrective feedback can help promote students' self-correction of past tense verb forms and articles. According to Sobhani and Tayebipous (2015), oral feedback significantly reduces students' grammatical errors.…”

Corrective Feedback in SLA: Theoretical Relevance and Empirical Research

“…The study revealed that properties of negotiation and tuning situated in scaffolding make it outperform recasts and contribute to higher levels of language development. However, when examining graduated CF in accordance with sociocultural theory and explicit CF in accordance with cognitive theory, Erlam et al (2013) did not discover any evidence that graduated CF results in systematic reduction in the level of assistance provided over time, disaccording with the assertions of previous research. Although there have been encouraging findings from these studies, it seems that the effect of CF within sociocultural perspectives on language development have not yet reached a consensus.…”

Usage-based SLA: A Research Habitus Whose Time Has Come

“…These feedback design capabilities resonate strongly with the Vygotskian ideal for corrective feedback proposed by Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1995; see also Erlam, Ellis, and Batstone 2013) as "graduated": feedback that is neither less nor more explicit than required for the learner to solve the nontargetlike puzzle in the moment-to-moment of engagement with language during a usage event. Although is contains a wealth of consolidation activities that tap implicit processing, eCALL also allows for the engineering of ways to direct learner attention quite explicitly to relevant input data.…”