L2 Learners’ Proficiency Development through Noticing Feedback

Seyed Saber Alavi, Thomas Chow Voon Foo, Mansour Amini

Abstract


This experimental study investigated the relationship between noticing of corrective feedback and L2 development considering the learners’ perspective on error correction. Specifically, it aimed to uncover the noticeability and effectiveness of recasts, prompts, a combination of the two, to determine a relationship between noticing of CF and learning of the past tense. The participants were four groups of college ESL learners (n = 40). Each group was assigned to a treatment condition, but the researcher taught the control group. CF was provided to learners in response to their mistakes in forming the past tense. While noticing of CF was assessed through immediate recall and questionnaire responses, learning outcomes were measured through picture description administered via pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test design. Learner beliefs about CF were probed by means of a 40-item questionnaire. The results indicated that the noticeability of CF is dependent on the grammatical target it addresses and that the feedback techniques that push learners to self-correct alone or in combination with target exemplars are more effective in. In relation to the learning outcomes, the overall past tense accuracy increased more than that for questions, but there were no significant differences between the groups. Finally, in relation to the beliefs about CF, the participants’ responses centered on the importance of oral CF, recasts as CF technique, prompts as CF technique, and affective consequences of CF, two of which mediated the noticeability of the supplied CF, but none impacted the learning outcomes.

Keywords


Noticing; L2 development; Corrective Feedback (CF); Recasts; Prompts; ESL

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18415/ijmmu.v2i5.24

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