A Comparative Study Of English Teachers’ Beliefs And Students’ Attitudes Towards Oral Corrective Feedback In The Junior High School Classroom

In the process of second language acquisition,errors are inevitable.Classroom is the main place for students to learn English,and students often make oral errors in the classroom.Since students at the middle school level are at a critical period of English learning,it is crucial for teachers to handle students’ errors in the classroom.Appropriate error correction can boost students’ confidence and motivation and pave the way for further learning while inappropriate ways can be disorienting to students.Teachers and students may have different opinions towards teachers’ oral corrective feedback in the classroom.Understanding students’ attitudes helps teachers adjust their error correction strategies.At the same time,comparing teachers’ beliefs and students’ attitudes towards error correction can also help teachers identify the problem of their correcting strategy,strengthen their conceptual alignment of students’ view,and improve error correction efficiency.Therefore,from this perspective,this study investigates 83 junior high school students and 23 English teachers of their attitudes and beliefs towards oral corrective feedback in the classroom.Under the framework of the five questions proposed by Chaudron(1987): 1)Is it necessary to correct errors;2)When to correct errors;3)Who to correct errors;4)What errors to correct;5)How to correct errors,the author list three research questions:(1)What are teachers’ beliefs and students’ attitudes towards these five questions in the classroom?(2)Are there significant differences between teachers’ beliefs and students’ attitudes towards the five questions in the classroom? In what ways do they differ significantly?(3)What are the reasons and sources for teachers’ and students’ significant difference towards the five questions in the classroom?In order to answer the research questions,the instruments of questionnaires and personal interviews are used.After the quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis of the collecting data,the results show that there are significant differences to varying degree on these five issues.The findings are as follows:(1)Teachers and students differ in their beliefs and attitudes towards these five questions.First,on the issue of whether every mistake needs to be corrected,32% of teachers and 63% of students believed that teachers should correct every mistake in class.Second,in terms of the timing of error correction,82% of teachers choose to correct students’ errors at the end of class,while 64% of students feel that errors should be corrected immediately in class.Then,on the question of who should correct errors,41% of teachers feel that teachers-correction are more effective than peer-correction,while 60% of students regard the teachers as the main role of correcting errors,while only 33% of students choose peer-correction.In terms of the method and types of error correction,86% of teachers favour recasting,while 73% of students prefer teachers to guide them to correct errors themselves,followed by recasting 31%.As for types of correcting,91% of teachers correct phonological errors the most,followed by grammar 86%.78% of students choose to correct grammatical errors,followed by phonics 66% and vocabulary 61%.(2)There are significant differences between teachers and students on the(2)There are significant differences between teachers and students on the questions of necessity,timing and subject of error correction,with p-values of 0.008,0.017 and 0.406 respectively.First,students are more in favour of correcting every error than teachers on the question of whether every error should be corrected;Second,in terms of preference for the timing of error correction,students are more expected the errors to be corrected immediately,whereas teachers feel it is sometimes possible to correct errors after the class;Third,as for the subject of error correction,both teachers and students agree that teachers should correct errors,while teachers are more in favour of peer correction than students.(3)The causes of the significant differences in teachers’ beliefs and students’ attitudes are concluded through the results of the questionnaires and personal interviews:1)Influence of traditional teaching ideology: students are more influenced by teachers’ traditional teaching views that errors should not be tolerated and students should be punished for every error;while teachers have become more tolerant of students’ errors since their teaching ideology gradually update.2)Practical classroom conditions: teachers sometimes choose to correct after class considering many practical factors such as class time restriction or the completion of learning objectives;while students fail to consider these practical factors,only to expect their errors to be corrected in time because of the effectiveness.3)Affective factors: students do not trust peer correction to some extent.At the same time,they believe that being corrected by their peers is a sign of inferior to their classmates.They believe that the teacher is more trustworthy.Finally,in combination with the second language acquisition theory,some suggestions are made for teachers’ corrective feedback practice in the classroom.For example,teachers should first realize that there are differences in teachers’ beliefs and students’ attitudes on the issue of error correction.Then teachers should enhance communication with students to understand their ideas.Meanwhile,they may strengthen theory learning and improve error-correction strategies in order to improve the efficiency of second language learning.