Effects Of Oral Corrective Feedback On Article Acquisition Of Students With Different Foreign Language Anxiety

In recent years, oral corrective feedback(OCF) has been regarded as a significant and complex issue in the field of second language acquisition(SLA). Previous studies investigated whether errors should be corrected or not; when teachers gave OCF; how errors were corrected efficiently. Existing researches probe effects of various types of OCF on L2 development, emphasizing that it is necessary to provide students with OCF. However, few empirical studies systematically explore the relationship between OCF and foreign language anxiety(FLA).The present study adopts recasts and MF as teaching techniques, which are typical representatives of implicit and explicit OCF types. It investigates effects of recasts and metalinguistic feedback(MF) on the acquisition of English articles, definite ―the‖ and indefinite ―a‖, by Chinese senior high school students with different FLA. It also compares efficacy of recasts and MF on improving the accuracy of article use in writing. The Interaction Hypothesis, the Comprehensible Output Hypothesis and the Noticing Hypothesis act as theoretical foundations for the present study. Qualitative and quantitative methods are employed, adopting one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA), two-way ANOVA and post hoc pairwise comparisons.Two research questions are proposed:(1) Do Chinese senior high school students with different FLA benefit from recasts and MF to improve accuracy of article use in writing?(2) Which type of OCF, recasts or MF, is more effective for students with different FLA to improve accuracy of article use in writing?The research design consists of five parts, including a pilot study, the pretest, treatments, immediate posttest/posttest 1 and delayed posttest/posttest 2. Participants were in six natural classes of Grade Two in No. One Senior High School of Jingyuan, Baiying, Gansu Province. Fifty-two students who had higher and lower FLA based on scores of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale(FLCAS) participated in this study. These students of two anxiety groups were subdivided into recasts, MF and control group. Participants of recasts and MF groups received three treatments with the provision of OCF, but two control groups did not have any OCF. Picture description writing tasks were employed from the pretest to posttest 1 and posttest 2, and the data was analyzed by Statistical Products and Service Solutions(SPSS) 16.0. From the pilot study to posttest 2, it lasted 10 weeks.The present study has three major findings:(1) Recasts and MF show positive effects on improving the accuracy of article use in writing for Chinese senior high school students with higher and lower FLA.(2) Students with higher FLA could benefit more from recasts to improve the accuracy of article use in writing.(3) Students with lower FLA could benefit more from MF to improve the accuracy of article use in writing.The significance of this empirical study lies in exploring the effect and efficacy of two different types of OCF on article acquisition by the higher and the lower FLA students in Chinese senior high school. The positive effect of recasts and MF on improving the accuracy of article use manifests the vital role of OCF in foreign language teaching. The results indicate that Chinese senior high school students with different FLA benefit differently from recasts and MF to improve the accuracy of article use in writing, suggesting that teachers should adopt appropriate OCF types in accordance with students‘ different levels of FLA. Since different FLA students show different preferences for recasts and MF, teachers may take affective factors into consideration when they employ other types of OCF in EFL teaching. This study also provides certain references on Chinese teachers‘ teaching and students‘ acquisition of articles in senior high school.