Nonverbal Corrective Feedback And Learner Uptake

Although the role of corrective feedback in foreign language teaching has been proved by considerable research,the effects of nonverbal behavior in corrective feedback has not been paid much attention to.The current study was designed to investigate the relationship between nonverbal corrective feedback and learner's uptake in Junior high school English classes.In this study,McNeill(1992)'s gesture classification scheme and Wang&Loewen(2015)'s nonverbal behavior classification method were integrated to analyze nonverbal corrective feedback,and Lyster&Ranta(1997)'s research framework was used to analyze learners'responses to corrective feedback.The data from the 10~thh National English Demonstration Teaching in Junior High School was collected through screenshots and transcripts.The purpose of this research is to reveal the answers to the following two questions:1.What is the relationship between the frequency of error types and the frequency of nonverbal corrective feedback provision?2.What is the relationship between nonverbal corrective feedback and learner uptake?The major findings of the current study are as follows:1.Among the three types of errors,students'grammatical errors were the most frequent and received the most nonverbal corrective feedback.Lexical errors were the least frequent and received the least nonverbal corrective feedback.2.Of the seven types of nonverbal corrective feedback,affect displays were used by teachers most frequently.Emblems were the least frequent type.3.Deictic gestures led to the highest rate of uptake and repair,while emblems led to the lowest rate of uptake and repair.4.The phonological errors received the highest rate of uptake and repair.Lexical errors received the lowest rate of repair.5.Most phonological repairs and grammatical repairs of students were resulted from teachers'affect displays,while it was difficult to judge which nonverbal corrective feedback type tended to lead to lexical repairs.The current study provides some pedagogical implications for the English as a foreign language(EFL)classroom teaching.As teachers'nonverbal behaviors in corrective feedback play a crucial role in students'language learning,teachers should appropriately use them to correct errors.Meanwhile,nonverbal corrective feedback should be employed to encourage students to correct their errors by themselves as much as possible rather than repeat the teachers'feedback.In addition,teachers should give full play to the role of various types of nonverbal corrective feedback and provide students with more opportunities so that they have time to make uptake and repair.