Investigating The Effects Of Recasts On Question Production In English By Chinese University EFL Learners

Ever since the 1990s,research on recasts has attracted increasing attention of SLA researchers.Yet the studies on the effectiveness of recasts have yielded mixed results,and in what way recasts facilitate L2 learning is still controversial.Compared to the abundant research in French immersion and ESL context,the number of studies conducted in the Chinese EFL context,especially the studies targeting the production of question forms by learners at different proficiency levels,has remained small.This study,therefore,intends to investigate the effectiveness of recasts on Chinese EFL learners at three levels.Adopting a pretest,posttest,and delayed posttest design,the study aims to examine the effects of recasts on English question production in mainly four aspects,learners' noticing of recasts,their perceptions of the use of recasts,their immediate and delayed responses to recasts in the dyadic interactions,and their production of question forms in the three tests.A total of 45 college students participated in the study and were grouped into three developmental stages of the target structure,English question forms.The major sources of data were video-recorded interactional tasks during the treatment sessions,and the pretests,posttests and delayed posttests,supplemented by learning journals and semi-structured interviews.Both information-exchange and information-gap tasks on a one-on-one basis were employed in a counter-balanced manner to elicit the target structure in the interactions.The three tests were completed by the learners in order to examine their production of English questions before and after receiving recasts.The learning journals were collected to examine the learners' noticing of the recasts,and the semi-structured interviews were used to obtain the students' perceptions of the recasts they received in the interactional tasks.For data analysis,the transcribed protocol of data was coded in terms of recasts,noticing of recasts,perceptions of recasts,learner uptake,primed production,developmental stages of questions(Mackey&Philp,1998),and upgrade of developmental stages respectively.The interview data were read carefully to seek the similarities and differences of students'perceptions of recasts and preferences for feedback types.Results of the study revealed that both patterns and discrepancies showed in learners' noticing of recasts reported by the three groups.Over half of the learners in each group reported noticing the recasts in their learning journals,but the three groups showed differences concerning the relationship between noticing of recasts and development of question production.It is also found that the participants of this study tended to hold positive perceptions of the recasts they received in the interactional tasks.Most of the participants who reported noticing of the recasts considered the recasts as beneficial.Most students considered it necessary for teachers to provide corrective feedback for students and expressed strong preferences for recasts over other feedback types.In addition,it has been found that the role of primed production,learners'delayed responses to recasts,in L2 development was greater than that of uptake,learners' immediate responses to recasts.Successful uptake was rather low in frequency and was not significantly correlated with noticing of recasts for all three groups.It had a significant impact on the question development of lower-level and intermediate-level students but not on higher-level students' accuracy of question production.By contrast,primed production of question forms was found to be significantly correlated with noticing of recasts for all three groups,and it was facilitative of subsequent L2 development of all groups.Furthermore,primed production opens a window to learners' processing of recasts with repeated trials and errors during dyadic interactions,indicating the prolonged effects of recasts in the interactions.In terms of the effects of recasts on English question production by learners at three levels,all the three groups were found to have produced more stage-3,stage-4 and stage-5 questions on at least one of the posttests,especially on the delayed posttest,but no group produced any stage-6 questions on the posttests.Concerning the upgrade of developmental stages,more than half of the lower-level and intermediate-level students upgraded to a higher stage,including one lower-level student skipping from Stage 3 to Stage 5 directly.However,none of the higher-level students upgraded to a more advanced stage.In terms of the improvement in question production,recasts played a facilitative role for all three groups.Each group produced a significantly smaller amount of non-targetlike questions,especially on the delayed posttests.The findings lend support to the claim that the effects of recasts on L2 development were sustained over time.These findings demonstrate the facilitative role of recasts,primed production and strong preference for recasts in L2 development.Recasts have benefited learners at different levels by improving their accuracy of question production and facilitating their "sequenced" acquisition of English question forms in a "step-by-step upgrading"pattern.Meanwhile,the findings of this study support the claim that the effects of recasts on L2 development were sustained over time.Primed production is found to be a better indicator of learners' noticing of recasts and a better predictor of L2 development than learner uptake is.Moreover,primed production provides the evidence of learners' use of the input-providing recasts with repeated trials and errors in the interactions.This suggests the need of research focusing on the process of learning as well as on the outcomes of learning.In addition,the favorable perceptions of recasts and high motivation of the participants are likely to step up the effectiveness of recasts in this study to some extent.This study concludes that recasts provided in dyadic interactions have facilitated the English question production by Chinese EFL learners at different levels.The findings shed light on Chinese tertiary EFL education.Efforts can be made to take students' proficiency level into consideration,pay due attention to the sustained effects of recasts,make efforts to collect reports on noticing of recasts and attach importance to learners,perceptions of recasts.Limitations of this study and recommendations for further research were presented at the end of this dissertation.