The Roles Of Negative Feedback In Junior Students' English Language Acquisition

Some preliminary classroom research found that feedback is both frequently and consistently provided by teachers to their students (Lyster& Ranta, 1997), and it is used by the learners in their subsequent language production. Pinker (1989), Grimshaw and Pinker (1989), and Beck and Eubank (1991) argued that acquisition cannot occur without feedback. According to their argument, NF must be demonstrated to be both provided and used by all teachers and all learners, regardless of ages, language levels, contexts, types of lessons and pedagogic organizations and so on.Most studies at home and abroad explored the impact and types of provision and use of NF in various interaction contexts. Some of the research focused on college classroom or elementary classroom or natural setting, few on secondary classroom. Their conclusions lack further experimental evidence. Only a few researchers carried out experiments to test their findings, but they were mostly under college classroom settings and few under junior school classroom settings. So in this study, the students were in Grade Two, their English proficiency was generally on the same level, and the participants were the author's Grade Two students in the author's school. An automatic record pen was used as well as observation helped check the transcriptions. The author recorded and observed lessons for two periods: the first period contained 8 lessons for one month, (2 lessons each week) and the second period contained 16 lessons in three-round observation. The time span between the first and the second round was 3-4 days and the author designed exercises according to tense and forms of v. error type and provided elicitation and clarification requests to check students' delayed uptake. The time span between the second and the third round was 2 weeks and the author again designed different exercises according to tense and forms of v. error type and provided the same two types of NF to check students' delayed uptake.This study aimed at:1) the impact of teacher's NF on learner-immediate-uptake: Which type of NF would help learners' , immediate-uptake most?2) according to the first period observation, the most effective type of NF would be taken and then observe both learners' immediate and delayed-uptake.This paper was composed of six chapters.Chapter 1 mainly introduced the whole picture of the present study and the purpose and significance of the present study. Chapter 2 gave a general background analysis of the present situation of the feedback at home and abroad and the definition of the key words.Chapter 3 provided some theoretical framework for the present study. It mainly relates to Long's Theory of Interaction Hypothesis and Swain's theory of Comprehensible Output Hypothesis.Chapter 4 introduced how the data of the present research were collected, including students' errors, teacher's NF and students' following uptake and so on.Chapter 5 was a detailed discussion about the data collected and then a sound conclusion based on the data. It can be concluded from the levels of immediate uptake in the first round and delayed uptake in the second and third rounds that on the whole, the teacher's NF had both immediate and delayed effects on the students' uptake over time. On the other hand, it indicated that the selected types of NF: elicitation and the clarification requests did affect both the students' immediate and delayed uptake on the tense and forms of verb error type a little more than the other types of NF. It was necessary for the teacher to check the students' performance again and again in a comparatively reasonable time span (no more than 2 weeks) before the students could apply the items in question correctly in flexible situations.Chapter 6 provided some pedagogical suggestions and also limitations of the present study.The conclusions of the present study:1. The statistic results of the analyses suggested that the lower language level students (Grade 2 students in junior school in this study) might be the weakest in grammar among the four types of errors (lexical, grammatical, phonological and unsolicited use of the first language);2. It was found that the teacher's NF was helpful to learners' immediate uptake. It can help the learners notice and correct the errors they made. In our teaching in the future, we can attempt to use more frequently NF in our teaching. The most effective NF that led to the most immediate uptake seemed to be elicitation and clarification requests;3. The teacher's selected NF: elicitation and the clarification requests did affect both the students' immediate and delayed uptake on the tense and forms of verbs error type a little more than the other NF.The pedagogical suggestions of the present study:1. Findings of the present study seemed to support that it was necessary for the teacher to deal with the learners' errors in the classroom setting. The teacher's NF should be classified as more than the immediate treatment. Teacher's NF of elicitation and clarification requests should have delayed characteristics and be carried out in a reasonably time span so as to check the students' actual understanding of the immediate NF.2. The results of this study showed that focus-on-form was an essential part for the students to learn a language in the classroom setting. Teachers should focus both on form and meaning when teaching and learners should also drew attention not only to meaning, but also to form.