The Effects Of The Timing Of Corrective Feedback On Two Different Grammatical Structures

Over the past two decades,corrective feedback has been a major domain of investigation in SLA.Although the positive effects of corrective feedback have been proven by a large number of studies,among various factors that interact to mediate the effectiveness of CF,the timing of feedback has been overlooked.There were just a small number of studies investigating the timing of corrective feedback,and these studies were mainly focused on the effects of written corrective feedback(e.g.Kim 2003;Oliver&Mackey 2003)and the effects of feedback timing on one particular target structure(e.g.Li et al.2016;Yang&Lin 2012).Based on an experiment,this study seeks to contribute to current feedback research by investigating the interaction between oral corrective feedback timing and different target structures.A total of 45 students from two intact classes at a University in Hunan province participated in the present study.They were randomly assigned to three conditions:immediate feedback,delayed feedback,and control.All of the groups attended a 3-hour treatment session about English past tense and English adjective comparatives where they performed a picture-cued descriptive task and a mini talk activity.During the treatment,the two experimental groups received either immediate feedback or delayed feedback while the control group received no feedback.The pretests,the immediate posttests and the delayed posttests,which were consisted of an elicited imitation test(EIT)and a grammaticality judgment test(GJT),were conducted respectively one week before the treatment,on the same day of the treatment and two weeks after the treatment to test the effects of the two different modes of feedback on the acquisition of the target structures.The experimental data was analyzed by SPSS 19.0.According to the results,the delayed feedback group outperformed the immediate feedback group and the control group,especially in the EIT,which could be attributed to the explicit nature of delayed feedback.The differential effects of the two modes of feedback on the two target structures were also found in the GJT,in which the immediate feedback group achieved larger gains for the comparatives while the delayed feedback group had larger achievements for the past tense.It was believed that the differences were related to learners' different noticing levels and cognitive resources they needed when dealing with the two different target structures.The study carries some implications for SLA study and grammar teaching in China.It has proven the significant effects of delayed feedback and the interaction effects between feedback timing and target structures.Teachers should appropriately handle the relationship between feedback timing and target grammatical structures,and select appropriate timing of feedback when they handle different structures to facilitate efficient learning.