Teacher's Feedback And Learner's Uptake In Classroom Error Correction

In recent twenty years the researches about the classroom interaction have drawn much attention to second language studies, and the studies on feedback have important position in the researches of the classroom interaction. Feedback is a concept that relates to many aspects. This thesis only studies one aspect of feedback— teacher's corrective feedback and learner's uptake during the process of correction in language classrooms.The existing studies on ESL classrooms show that students could approach the target language, obtain useful feedback information and have more language output to benefit their language development through the interaction between teacher and student. This thesis quotes two relevant theories: the interaction hypothesis and comprehensible output hypothesis. According to the interaction hypothesis, in an NNS-NS (nonnative speaker -native speaker) encounter, both parties will experience difficulty in comprehension and expression. When misunderstanding occurs, those involved in the interaction have to try and 'repair' it by a process known as 'negotiation of meaning'. A number of applied linguists have suggested that the process of negotiating meaning may be particularly useful to language acquisition. The teacher's corrective feedback and learner's uptake in the classroom could also be seen as negotiation of meaning, which can help students develop their language competence.Comprehensible output hypothesis is based on the idea that understanding language and producing language are different skills, and that the latter can only be developed by pushing the learner to produce output. During the process of classroom teacher-student interaction, student output is necessary especially after the teacher has provided corrective feedback. If the learner responds to teacher's corrective feedback by means of comprehensible output, the teacher will understand whether the learner has repaired his or her errors. This will help the teacher evaluate his correctivefeedback and decide whether to provide it again or to continue the topic. This will also help the learner test his or her hypothesis about the target language, so comprehensible output may facilitate language development.The coding definitions of the data in the present study are adapted from those developed by Lyster and Ranta. Error types are categorized as grammatical, phonological, and lexical;corrective feedback are labeled as recast, explicit correction, elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, clarification request, and repetition;uptake is divided into repair and needs-repair.In the current study the database is collected from two secondary schools in Changsha—Yali High School and The First High School of Changsha. The database consists of 20 EFL lessons (15 hours) of the interaction between 9 teachers and their students. The interaction was taped and transcribed, and then coded according to Lyster and Ranta's corrective discourse model. The results show both similarities and differences to and from those in Lyster and Ranta's study.The results of the present study are showed as following: (1) Grammatical error is the most frequent type of errors responded with teachers' feedback. (2) The students respond to most of the teachers' feedback in a repaired or needs-repaired form. (3) Recast is the feedback type most preferred by teachers, but resulting in the least student repairs. (4) Elicitation is the most effective feedback type in causing student-generated repairs, but not fully exploited by teachers. (5) Negotiation of form (elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, clarification request and repetition) facilitates grammatical repairs, while recast and explicit correction favor phonological repairs.Three pedagogical implications are given at the end of the thesis. First, teachers should pay more attention to the error correction in the classroom setting. Second, it is important to let the learner self-correct, and thus recast and explicit correction may give way to negotiation moves, which may be more effective than the provision of correct forms. Third, teachers have tochoose different types of feedback moves in response to different types of errors in order to ensure the most effective learner's uptake. Negotiation move facilitates grammatical repairs, while recast and explicit correction favor phonological repairs.