The Effects Of Recast And Repetition On College Non-English Majors' Acquisition Of English Verbs In The Past Forms

The empirical study is designed to investigate the effects of the two typical corrective feedback techniques called recast and repetition on the intermediate non-English majors'acquisition of regular and irregular verbs in English Past Form in task-based interactional activities. Specially, it examines whether recast and repetition have the different effects on the acquisition of regular and irregular verbs in the past form.The experiment lasted seven weeks and employed a pre-test, four treatment sessions, an intermediate post-test and a delayed post-test. The subjects were 24 freshmen from a university in Hubei Province. These subjects were divided into three groups randomly: the recast group (n=8, 4 girls and 4 boys): in which only two-word recast moves are provided; the repetition group (n=8, 4 girls and 4 boys): in which only two-word moves are provided; the control group (n=8, 4 girls and 4 boys): in which no feedback is provided.The SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 13.0) is used as a statistical analytical instrument. The statistical techniques employed for analysis are Descriptive Statistics, One-Way ANOVA Analysis, Paired-Sample T test and Independent-Sample T test. Through analysis, this paper found the following results:1) In the pretest, the subjects'mastery of the regular and irregular verbs in English Past Form in the three groups is not satisfactory, but there is no significant difference. After the four treatments, all the subjects make a significant improvement. Among them, the subjects in the recast and repetition groups benefit more than those in the control group. The effects of recast and repetition are still sustained in the delayed post-test. However, the subjects in the control group do not make any significant improvement in the delayed post-test. It manifested that both recast and repetition were useful for learners to use the regular and irregular verbs in the past form accurately.2) Learners made more progress in their mastery of the irregular verbs than regular verbs in the past form after receiving the corrective feedback in the form of recast. In other words, recast was more effective for the learner's development of irregular verbs. Repetition facilitated the EFL learners'accuracy in the use of regular verbs in the past form to a larger extent.Based on the results above, the pedagogical implications of the present study for second language teaching and learning are explored. Teachers need to be consistent in the provision of the corrective feedback and attention should be paid to use different types of corrective feedback for different errors. In the teaching process, enough time and opportunities should be provided for students to have more uptakes and modify their output.