An Initial Study Of Corrective Feedback And Modified Output In Vocational College English Listening Classes

Since Lyster and Ranta classified corrective feedback in 1997, many studies have been conducted to discuss the most effective corrective feedback type in second language acquisition. Generally the research questions on the effects of corrective feedback type were analyzed from three aspects: second language learners'modified output, attention and development of target language form. At present, the studies on effects of corrective feedback and second language learners'modified output have mainly covered English grammar learning aspect with very few conducted to investigate problems in English listening ; in addition, most related studies have dealt with second language learners of middle schools, university students and adults except for vocational college students. In comparison with English learners in universities, non-English majors in vocational colleges have relatively lower listening and speaking levels. But, to them English is a compulsory course, and they are required to have basic competence of listening and speaking. In the paper, the questionnaires on teachers'adoption of corrective feedback types revealed that the recast was the most extensive corrective feedback type utilized in vocational college's English listening discourses. However, is it really effective to generate more students'modified output and improve their listening test performance? This paper chose recast and elicitation the most representative types of implicit corrective feedback and studied their effects on learners'modified output respectively with listening pretest and posttest in vocational colleges. All the 62 first-year non-English major participants were divided into two groups by class unit, the control group and the experimental group, and both groups had equivalent participants of 31 students. During the English listening classes, students'errors in control group were responded by traditional corrective feedback type, which is heavily relying on the recast, while the students'errors in experimental group were approached by corrective feedback type of maximizing elicitation. The experiment lasted for 2 months which consisted of three rounds of listening tests and one interview arranged after completion of all tests to see participants'evaluations on the two particular corrective feedback type used in listening classes. All 62 pieces of listening test papers and 8 volunteers'interviews contents from both groups were collected to analyze the experiment result with the aid of Statistical Package for the Social Science. The figures in experimental results manifested that students in experimental group generated more modified output rate under the conduction of elicitation, besides they outperformed control group who received primarily the recast in delayed listening test performance. The author finally put forward a suggestion that teachers should adopt elicitation as much as possible in addition to the recast rather than heavily relying on monotonous recast with teachers'available correct answers in vocational colleges'English listening classes. Because elicitation can improve learners'initiative in learning English and provide them with more chances to modify non-target output by eliciting students-generated repairs.