| CF refers to the responses to learner utterances containing an error,which has been one of the hotly debated topics in the field of language acquisition in recent years.In general,previous research mainly concentrated on the effectiveness of CF in lexical,morphosyntactic,pragmatics aspects,little research considered the effectiveness of CF in L2 speech perception and production.Since Sait o & Lyster(2012a)published their influential work,a number of studies have been conducted to explore the availability and application of CF in L2 speech perception and production(Bryfonski & Ma,2019;Gooch et al.,2016;Lee & Lyster,2016 a,2016b,2017;Parlak & Ziegler,2017;Saito & Lyster,2012b;Saito,2013 a,2013b;Saito & Wu,2014;Saito & Saito,2017).However,the research on CF in L2 speech perception and production is in its infancy,and its role remains unclear.To investigate the pedagogical effectiveness of CF in L2 speech,the present study initially conducts a meta-analysis to synthesize extant empirical research,including 12 overseas empirical studies.The analysis is designed to explore whether CF is effective in L2 speech and,if so,whether its effectiveness varies according to CF types,research setting,research context,target structure,training activities,treatment duration,mode of delivery,time of post-test,scoring method and proficiency.Results show that CF has medium-to-large effects on L2 speech,and its effectiveness is mediated by a host of variables,including CF types,target structure,training activities,treatment duration,time of post-test and proficiency.Sub-group analysis further shows that the effects are larger for recasts+prompts and recasts than prompts and explicit correction,for suprasegments than segments,for perception-based training than production-based training,for long treatment than short treatment,for immediate post-test than delayed post-test and for intermediate learners than beginners.Based on the results of meta-analysis,the above mediating variables of CF effectiveness provide a structured framework in the following experimental design and form the propose of the present study: the influential mechanism of CF in perception and production of English tense-lax vowel contrast /i/-/(?)/ by Chinese EFL learners.Next,the present study examines the effectiveness of three types of CF-recasts(input-providing),elicitations(output-providing),elicitations+recasts(output-providing+input-providing)on the perception and production of English tense-lax vowel contrast /i/-/(?)/.This empirical study lasts about 5 weeks,and employs a pre-test,6 task-based interactional treatment sessions,an immediat e post-test,a delayed post-test and an exit questionnaire,and all the instances of CF and the participants' immediate uptake are video-recorded.The effectiveness of CF is examined using 3 versions of perception test,controlled production test and spontaneous production test.The perception test is designed with forced-choice identification task.There are 44 sets of minimally paired words in total,22 sets are minimally paired words targeting /i/ and /(?)/(i.e.,sheep-ship)with 22 sets of distractors.1-14 sets are used as trained items and 15-22 sets are used as untrained items.As for the controlled production test,there are 7 sets of target paired words with 7 sets of distractors,1-4 sets are used as trained items and 5-7 sets are used as untrained items.The participants are shown 14 worksheets one by one,each of which has 2 words,they are required to produce utterances using a carrier sentence “I said [X].” As for the spontaneous production test,there are 4 sets of target paired words with 4 sets of distractors,1-2 sets are used as trained items and 3-4 sets are used as untrained items.Participants are first given 20 seconds to memorize a written list of 4 key words,including 2 target paired words and 2 distractors.Immediately after the list is taken away,they are given a piece of paper containing four pictures and asked to describe the pictures one after another by using all of the key words they just memorized without any preparation,1 key word for each picture.Moreover,3 awareness tasks including English Karuta task,bingo task and fill-in-the-blank task are employed during the treatment sessions.100 non-English major freshmen at university are randomly assigned into 4 groups: recasts group(n=25): the instructor responds to participants' nontarget forms by enhancing the salience of those forms through recasts,and pause for a short time to wait for participants' repair.If the participants cannot provide a repair,the instructor will continue the conversation without pushing them to produce a repair.In order to control the variables,the recasts in the present study are all partial,didactic,ended in falling tone;elicitations group(n=25): the instructor responds to participants' nontarget forms by means of an open-ended elicitation with rising tone but there is no target form provided;elicitations+recasts group(n=25): both elicitations and recasts are provided to participants for their nontarget forms.The first step for the instructor is to respond to participants' nontarget forms by means of an open-ended elicitation with nontarget form,and then immediately followed a recast with target form;control group(n=25): no feedback is provided.Questionnaires are also used for all groups to gather information on their noticing of CF and their perceptions towards the activities included in the experiment.Three principle research questions are formulated as follows:(1)How do three CF types differentially impact Chinese EFL lea rners' perception of English tense-lax vowel contrast /i/-/(?)/?(2)How do three CF types differentially impact Chinese EFL lea rners' production of English tense-lax vowel contrast /i/-/(?)/?(3)Does improvement in perception accuracy resulting from CF predict improvement in production accuracy?The quantitative analysis is conducted as econometric and statistical method.The econometric and statistical techniques employed for analysis are MANOVA,Two-way Repeated Measures ANOVA and Regression Analysis.Through the statistical analysis,three conclusions are gene rated:(1)As for both the trained and untrained items,recasts,elicitations and elicitations+recasts all have beneficial effects on Chinese EFL learners' perception of English target vowel contrast /i/-/(?)/,and there is no significant difference among CF.(2)As for both the trained and untrained items,recasts and elicitations+recasts demonstrate significantly superior effects than elicitations group on Chinese EFL learners' production of English target vowel contrast /i/-/(?)/.(3)As for both the trained and untrained items,the regression analysis demonstrates that improvement in perception accuracy resulting from CF is a significant indication of production accuracy.Based on the above conclusions,the pedagogical implications of the present study for speech instruction in Chinese EFL classroom are recommended and several topics that future studies should examine are pointed out. |
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