Corrective Feedback Methods Used

Corrective Feedback Use of a Native English Speaker Teacher and a Non-Native Teacher INTRODUCTION The importance and benefits of corrective feedback have been debated in many aspects in SLA field. Most of the teachers take correcting errors as their responsibility. There is no doubt that the first aim of corrective feedback is to make students aware of their mistakes so that they can correct.The way teachers carry out this progress may differ from eachother hence I dedicated this paper to find out differences or similarities in correcting feedback patterns of a native English teacher and a non-native English teacher lecturing at University of Kocaeli ELT Department. After observation , I asked them their opinions about students’ mistakes and corrective feedback so as to understand dynamics that effect the type and rate of Corrective feedback they give. LITERATURE REVIEW Corrective feedback is called any reaction from teachers to students’ â€Å"non-nativelike use of th e target language† indications. Kim, 2004)The approaches towards corrective feedback differ. Rezaei, Mozaffari&Hatef, 2011 summarize these approaches; some schools of thought like Behaviorism considered errors as taboos in their discourse and believed that theyshould be immediately corrected by the  teacher (Brown, 2007; Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Richards &Rodgers, 2001)while others claimed that error correction was not only unnecessary, but also harmful to language learning(Krashen, 1981a;1981b). With the emergence of communicative approaches, error correction underwent aradical shift (Nicholas, Lightbown, &Spada, 2001; Russell, 2009).CLT advocates created a balance betweenwhat Audiolinguists and Cognitistvists do and suggested that an error must be viewed as evidence of learners'linguistic development, not as a sin to be avoided. CLT advocates recognized the need for fluency and thisallows teachers to leave  some errors uncorrected. Nevertheless, currently SLA researchers st rongly believe in error correction and corrective feedback (Ellis,2006). While carrying out corrective feedback, different methods are implemented during the classroom period. Researchers have begun to focus on these different methods so as to find out which ones are more or less ffective. When it comes to practice in the class the methods may differ according to the students’ language level and type of error, teachers’ attitudes towards errors and also time for feedback. Types of Corrective Feedback:(Lyster, 1997; Lyster;Ranta, 1997). 1. Explicit correction: Clearly indicating that the student's utterance was incorrect, theteacher provides the correct form. â€Å"S:   Some diamonds  used to  decoration. T:Please say, ‘Diamonds  are used for  decoration’. ‘Don’t say,used to’. You must use a passive form of the present simple tense here. â€Å" 2.Recast: Without directly indicating that the student's utterance was incorrect, the teacher implicitly reformulates the student's error, or provides the correction. â€Å"S:   Some diamonds  used to  decoration. T: Some diamonds are used for decoration† 3. Clarification request: By using phrases like â€Å"Excuse me? † or â€Å"I don't understand,†the teacher indicates that the message has not been understood or that thestudent's utterance contained some kind of mistake and that a repetition or a reformulation is required. â€Å"S:   Some diamonds  used to  decoration. T: Excuse me? â€Å" 4. Metalinguistic clues.Withoutproviding the correct form, the teacher poses questions or provides comments or information related to the formation of the student's utterance . â€Å"S:   Some diamonds  used to  decoration. T: Do diamonds use something to decorate ? 5. Elicitation:The teacher directly elicits the correct form from the student by asking questions (1), by pausing to allow the student to complete the teacher's utterance (2) or by asking students to reformulate the utterance(3). Elicitation questions differ from questions that are defined as metalinguistic clues in that they require more than a yes/no response. â€Å"S:   Some diamonds  used to  decoration. – T: People used some diamonds, so †¦? 2- T: Some diamonds†¦? 3- T: Say that again. â€Å" 6. Repetition. The teacher repeats the student's error and adjusts intonation to draw student's attention to it. â€Å"S:   Some diamonds  used to  decoration. T: Some diamonds used to decoration â€Å" METHODOLOGY This research is conducted in Kocaeli University, English Language Department. I observed and voice recorded preparation class Listening course in which native English speaker teacher Ms. Costa lecturing and 1st year class Listening & Pronunciation course in which non-native teacher Mr. Kurtaran lecturing .I removed material listening parts of recordings from both and student to student discussions from Ms. Costaà ¢â‚¬â„¢s class. In that way I had 25minutes lasting data of student-teacher interactions. After transcribing and clarifying their corrective feedbacks, I interviewed with these teachers so as to understand the dynamics lying under the way and frequency they give corrective feedback. FINDINGS Corrective Feedback use by teachers are in the tables below: CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK TABLE OF NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER TEACHER| Recast| T: What did you do yesterday? S: I watched TV and I sleep, sleep, sleep. T: I slept, I slept, I slept. Okey. |Explicit Correction| T: What are the three things that you ate yesterday? S: I ate rice, meatballs and coke. T: Lets repeat, I ate rice, meatballs and coke. (Class repeats after the teacher for studying intonation) S: I guess you didn’t eat the coke, probably drink. Don’t eat your coke. | Recast with stress| T: What would you buy if you were rich? S: I want to buy.. T: I would buy S: I would buy a car and†¦. | Explicit Correction| T: Enver, where yould you go? S: I would go Dubai, Hon Khong, Paris. T: Okey, Dubai, Honkong and Paris. Umm, guys make sure you are using â€Å"to† go to, go to, everybody go to†¦( Class repeats after the teacher)|Recast & Explicit Correction| T: What would you buy if you were rich? S: Build a tall and big house T: You’d build a big and tall house, word order is like that. | Recast & Clarification Request| T: If you were rich, would you work? S: I think being rich and having a job is different things. Having a job you asked to a statu /statu/ in our life, it is important. T: Status /st? t? s/, is that what you mean? S: Yes, it is important. | CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK TABLE of NON-NATIVE TEACHER| Recast with stress| S: Is one road /r d/ to success / ’sakses/ better than another? T: Is one road / r d/ to success / s? k? es/ better than another ? | Recast| T: Of course here, the word â€Å"road† is used symbolicly, road is a methaphore, what does it actually suggest? S: Method, way.. T: Methodology, way, okey. | (1)Clarification Request & (2)Metalinguistic Clue| S: To be successful means that you can do whatever your aims are. T: What does it mean ‘to do an aim’? (1)Do we do an aim? Do we do an aim? Are the aims things to be done? What do we do the aims? (2) Ss: We achieve. | Repetation| T:What is your interpertation of success? S:Being able to reach the necessary knowledge. T: Reaching necessary knowledge? S: Requiring the necessary knowledge. (1)Repetation (2)Clarification request (3)Explicit Correction| S: My friend shatters†¦ brochures. T: Shatters? (1) What do you mean with shutters? (2) She shatters? You mean hands out, distrubutes? Shatter oyle dag? tmak degil. Darmadag? n etmek, an earthquacke shutters an area. (3)| Recast with stress| T: What is one skill or talent you wish you had? S: The leadership T: So you don’t think you have leadership skills. S: Uhmm, I have but not enough T: You wish you had more or bet ter leadership skills, okey. | Explicit Correction| T: I mean how do you think you could improve your communication skills?S: Going.. En.. T: Could ! Could! (clicks his fingers) I could do this, I could do that.. S: I could go to England†¦. | (1)Repetation (2)Metalinguistic Clue| T: Other suggestions please. S: Creator, idea creator in an commercial company. T: Idea creator,(1) that is not what they call it. Yarat? c?.. What do we call it in Turkish? (2) Ss: No idea. T: Advertising, lets call it advertising. | Explicit Correction| T: In what ways has the typical career part changed in the last few decades? S: In the past they climb the ladder but now they†¦ T: Nobody climbs no ladders. Is that what you are suggesting?S: No, they go to better job easily. One step to third step†¦Something like that. T: Something like that is not a sort. You mean; in the past, there was only one ladder to climb, the ladder you would climb, staying with one company but now, there are many opportinuties; many different jobs, companies, okey? That is it. | Corrective Feedback types and percentages given by two teachers’ are shown on the graphics below : It is seen that NT gives less CF during student talking time which is 2,24 times more than in NNT’s class. As it is seen in the graphic, NT uses Recast as a half of CF she gives.NNT teacher uses Recast, Explicit Correction and Repetation at the same level which are the mostly used first thee. Out of 8 CF; 4 Recast, 3 Explicit correction and 1 Clarification Request is used by NT. NNT uses more different types of CF. Out of 13 CF NNT uses; 3 of Recast, Explicit Correction and Repetation in addition to 2 of Metalinguistic clue and Clarification Request. Both teachers give more than one CF at a time. Native Teacher considers the students as language learners, Non-Native Teacher considers them as future teachers. Regarded to their consideration, their approaches to student’s mistakes differ.NNT thinks m aking mistakes is a part of progress but some mistakes of ELT students at that level are not acceptable. NT gives more importance to fluency and complexity hence she does not want to stop students speech so as not to make them feel uncomfortable. She thinks that she gives CF at a low rate than she should do as she focuses on meaning. NNT gives more importance to accuracy and thinks that they don’t have much time left as the students are about to become teachers, he tries any kind of Corrective Feedback so as to make sure that the students realise their mistakes and correct them.He thinks that he gives CF at a high rate than he should do as these classes are the last chances of the students to learn from their mistakes before they start teaching. According to the interview it could be concluded that being Native or Non-Native effect theachers’ expectations from students and these expectations effect the frequency and type of CF they give. References Kim, J. (2004). Issu es of corrective feedback in second language acquisition,Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics  4(2), 1. â€Å"Gass, S. (1997). Input, interaction, and the second language learner.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Schachter, J. (1991). Corrective feedback in historical perspective. Second Language Research, 7† Lyster, R. &Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner uptake: Negotiation of form in communicative classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition,19, 37-66. Rezaei, S. , Mozaffari, F. , &Hatef, A. (2011). Corrective feedback in sla: Classroom practice and future directions,International Journal of English Linguistics,1(1), 1. Corrective Feedback Use of a Native English Speaker Teacher and a Non-Native Teacher Betul Okcan Kocaeli University Reseach Skills A. P. Dogan Yuksel 2012