Exploring the relationship between high school efl students level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of

Research question 2: What are Truong Dinh High school’s Grade 10 students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

- ∞0∞ -

HOANG PHUONG TIEU ANH

EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HIGH SCHOOL EFL STUDENTS' LEVEL

OF EXTRAVERSION AND THEIR PREFERENCES

FOR ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Major code: 8 14 01 11

MASTER THESIS MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Supervisor: Dr NGUYEN THI THANH HA

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc

KHOA ĐÀO TẠO SAU ĐẠI HỌC

GIẤY XÁC NHẬN

Tôi tên là: HOÀNG PHƯƠNG TIỂU ANH

Ngày sinh: 26/11/1995 Nơi sinh: Tiền Giang

Chuyên ngành: Lý luận và phương pháp giảng dạy bộ môn Tiếng Anh

Mã học viên: 1781401110002

Tôi đồng ý cung cấp toàn văn thông tin luận văn tốt nghiệp hợp lệ về bản quyền cho Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh sẽ kết nối toàn văn thông tin luận văn tốt nghiệp vào hệ thống thông tin khoa học của Sở Khoa học và Công nghệ Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

Ký tên

Hoàng Phương Tiểu Anh

CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM

Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc

Ý KIẾN CHO PHÉP BẢO VỆ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ

CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN

Giảng viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hà

Học viên thực hiện: Hoàng Phương Tiểu Anh Lớp: MTESOL017A

Tên đề tài: Exploring the relationship between high school EFL students' level of extraversion

and their preferences for oral corrective feedback

Ý kiến của giáo viên hướng dẫn về việc cho phép học viên Hoàng Phương Tiểu Anh được bảo vệ luận văn trước Hội đồng:

Đồng ý cho học viên Hoàng Phương Tiểu Anh bảo vệ luận văn

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, ngày 04 tháng 10 năm 2021

Người nhận xét

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Hà

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis entitled “Exploring the relationship between high school

EFL students' level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback” is my own work

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which

I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Ho Chi Minh City, 2021

Hoang Phuong Tieu Anh

I would like to acknowledge the 367 Grade 10 students who kindly agreed to participate in this study despite their heavy learning schedules The pilot study and main data collection would not have been completed without their support and willingness

I would like to dedicate this MA thesis to my late grandfather who always cared for

me and believed in my ability to succeed My special thanks are given to my beloved family members, my parents, my aunt, my elder sister and my niece for their love and support throughout the years that promoted my strength to complete the present study

ABSTRACT The present study is an attempt to explore high school students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of whether, when, how, by whom and which errors should be corrected It also aims at examining the possible relationship between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback in the communicative classroom The study was carried out in a Vietnamese public high school with the participation of 314 Grade 10 non-English majored students The study adopted a mixed methods design with data collected by two self-reported questionnaires and follow-up interviews It was found that most Truong Dinh High School’s Grade 10 students in the study had an average level of extraversion In terms of their preferences for oral corrective feedback, it was revealed that the majority of participants agreed on the necessity of oral corrective feedback and they preferred a selective approach to error treatment Besides, students preferred delayed error correction; they favored input-providing feedback strategies and explicit error correction In addition, most students highly valued teacher correction and their least preferred errors to be corrected during class time were grammatical oral errors Interestingly, six statistically significant correlations were found between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback Specifically, extraversion level was found to correlate negatively with learners’ preferences for all-error correction and correlate positively with learners’ preferences for the correction of frequent errors and stigmatizing errors to native speakers, immediate correction, teacher correction and peer correction Findings from the study research reflect students’ desire to receive corrective feedback and their varied preferences towards error treatment, which possibly and partially resulted from individual differences factors, such as extraversion These findings offer pedagogical implications and suggestions for future investigation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

ABSTRACT iv

LIST OF FIGURES viii

LIST OF TABLES ix

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Rationale for the study 3

1.3 Research objectives and research questions 4

1.4 Scope of the study 5

1.5 Significance of the study 5

1.6 Organization of the research 6

LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Error Correction in the foreign language classroom 7

2.1.1 The Concepts of Errors 7

2.1.2 Error Treatment of Different Approaches to Foreign Language Teaching 8

2.2 Corrective Feedback in the foreign language classroom 9

2.2.1 Definitions of Corrective Feedback 9

2.2.2 Five Fundamental Issues of Oral Corrective Feedback 11

2.2.3 Learners’ Preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback 19

2.3 Extraversion and Language Learning 23

2.3.1 Extraversion as a Psychological Dimension 23

2.3.2 Extraversion as an Affective Factor in Classroom Setting 24

2.3.3 Summary 26

2.4 Extraversion and Corrective Feedback 26

2.5 Research Gap 29

2.6 Summary 30

METHODOLOGY 32

3.1 Research Design 32

3.2 Research Setting 32

3.2.1 Research Site 32

3.2.2 Participants 33

3.3 Methodology 35

3.3.1 Research Instruments 35

3.3.2 Research Procedures 41

3.4 Data Collection Procedure 47

3.5 Data Analysis 48

3.5.1 Quantitative data analysis 48

3.5.2 Qualitative data analysis 50

3.6 Reliability and Validity 51

3.6.1 Questionnaires 51

3.6.2 Interviews 57

3.7 Summary 58

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 59

4.1 Grade 10 students’ level of extraversion 59

4.2 Grade 10 Students’ Preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback 61

4.2.1 The Necessity of Oral Corrective Feedback 61

4.2.2 The Timing of Oral Corrective Feedback 66

4.2.3 Oral Corrective Feedback Strategies 68

4.2.4 Oral Corrective Feedback Providers 72

4.2.5 Types of Oral Errors to Be Corrected 74

4.3 The Relationship between Grade 10 Students’ Level of Extraversion and Their Preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback 76

4.3.1 Level of Extraversion and Necessity of Oral Corrective Feedback 77

4.3.2 Level of Extraversion and Timing of Oral Corrective Feedback 78

4.3.3 Level of Extraversion and Oral Corrective Feedback Strategies 79

4.3.4 Level of Extraversion and Oral Corrective Feedback Providers 80

4.3.5 Level of Extraversion and Types of Oral Errors to be Corrected 81

4.4 Discussion of findings 82

4.4.1 Research question 1: What are Truong Dinh High school’s Grade 10 students’ levels of extraversion? 82

4.4.2 Research question 2: What are Truong Dinh High school’s Grade 10 students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types? 83

4.4.3 Research question 3: Are there statistically significant correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types? 89

4.5 Summary 93

CONCLUSIONS 94

5.1 Summary of findings 94

5.2 Implications 96

5.3 Limitations and suggestions for future research 97

5.4 Summary 99

References 100

Appendix A: QUESTIONNAIRES (English version) 123

Appendix B: QUESTIONNAIRES (Vietnamese version) 128

Appendix C: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL (English version) 133

Appendix D: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL (Vietnamese version) 135

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 The conceptual framework for the current study 30 Figure 4.1 Frequency distribution of students’ level of extraversion (N = 314) 60

LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 The taxonomy of oral corrective feedback strategies (adapted from Sheen & Ellis (2011)’s study) 14 Table 2.2 Oral corrective feedback strategies 15 Table 4.1 Frequency distribution of five groups of students’ level of extraversion (N = 314) 61 Table 4.2 Students’ preferences for the necessity of oral corrective feedback (N = 314) 62 Table 4.3 Students’ preferences for the timing of oral corrective feedback (N = 314) 67 Table 4.4 Students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback strategies (N = 314) 69 Table 4.5 Students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback providers (N = 314) 73 Table 4.6 Students’ preferences for the frequency to correct each type of oral errors (N

= 314) 75 Table 4.7 Spearman Correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for the necessity of oral corrective feedback (N = 314) 77 Table 4.8 Spearman Correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for the timing of oral corrective feedback (N = 314) 79 Table 4.9 Spearman Correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback strategies (N = 314) 80 Table 4.10 Spearman Correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback providers (N = 314) 81 Table 4.11 Spearman Correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for the types of oral errors (N = 314) 82

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study

The world is widely referred to as a global village and one necessary part of becoming a global citizen is being able to successfully communicate in an international language English has been considered “a world language in both senses: international and global” (Halliday, 2006, p.362) As English is used in almost every respect of global interaction, there has been an increasing demand from English learners to enhance their communicative competence and thus the teaching of communication skills has been receiving greater attention

In most Vietnamese public schools, despite Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training’ rhetoric of the significance of communication skills and the growing needs from learners for better communication competence, English teaching practice is still “grammar-based, textbook-focused, and examination-centred” (Le & Phan, 2013,

p 248), which means Vietnamese language classroom practices adopt a traditional approach that focused on reading and lexico-grammatical knowledge for students to cope with national examinations rather than on communicative competence (Le, 2001; Nunan, 2003) The problems of large-sized classes, the lack of well-qualified language teachers, poor classroom facilities and resources (Hoang, 2010) as well as the lack of English-speaking environment inside and outside the classrooms throughout the country (Nguyen, 2004) also contribute to the deemphasizing of the teaching of English communication skills in Vietnamese public schools This can result in the situation that Vietnamese public school students do not have much communication practice and it is very likely that they frequently make errors when they speak Oral error correction is, therefore, unavoidable and factors that help to enhance the effectiveness of oral corrective feedback, one type of negative feedback given to learners’ erroneous utterances, are worth investigating

In the classroom, teachers, as the dominant feedback providers, have their own beliefs and intentions for the practice of oral corrective feedback and learners, in the meantime, have their own attitudes and preferences for these corrective moves Previous studies in the field of oral corrective feedback have at times revealed a mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and students’ expectations for classroom error treatment (Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2005; Rahimi, 2010; Elwood & Bode, 2014; Le, 2018) This mismatch, according to Nunan (1987), is “one of the most serious blocks to learning” (p 177) Thus, in a learner-centered classroom, it is recommended that “the best decision on how to correct learners’ errors effectively, which errors to correct, when to do so, and who should do it, can be made only with a thorough analysis of the needs and expectations of the learners” (Oladejo, 1993, p 85)

One key factor that can influence learners’ responses to corrective feedback is personality (Sheen, 2011) One major aspect of personality that has been most researched in language learning is extraversion (Dornyei, 2015) Extraversion reflects a continuum concerning “differences in preference for social interaction and lively activity” (McCrae & Costa, 2003, p 46), which means learners with different level of extraversion vary in their level of warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement seeking and positive emotion and this may lead to their varied preferences for communicative classroom practices Also, regardless of inconsistent and incomprehensive findings from previous studies, statistically significant correlations were found between extraversion and different aspects of oral performance and oral production (Busch, 1982; Oya et al., 2004; Gan, 2008; Zafar et al., 2017) All of the above lead to the assumption that extraversion is an influential factor that can mediate learners’ preferences towards oral corrective feedback

In the area of corrective feedback, various studies have been conducted in a quest for the answers to five fundamental questions raised by Hendrickson (1978) concerning whether, when, how, by whom and which errors should be corrected or in

other words, the necessity, timing of oral corrective feedback, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types Yet in terms of learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback, inconsistent and sometimes contradictory findings were found and only a few studies were conducted among high school students’ (Astuti, 2018) Moreover, the amount of literature exploring the impact of extraversion on learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback seems to be very limited (Ha et al., 2021) All

of these manifest a lack of empirical research on the topic, especially in the context of Vietnamese high schools and thus there is a literature gap to be filled

1.2 Rationale for the study

The researcher’s interest to do research on oral corrective feedback, firstly, comes from the actual teaching and learning practices in Truong Dinh High school where she has been working as an English teacher Truong Dinh is a public high school located in a small town of Tien Giang province English teaching and learning practices in this school share the same characteristics as the Vietnamese public school context mentioned above with exclusive use of grammar-translation method and a test-driven nature that may help students to achieve high scores on reading, grammar and vocabulary tests but they may not be able to communicate successfully in the target language As for Grade 10 students, the population of this present study, as an English teacher teaching several Grade 10 classes in three consecutive years, the researcher notices that Grade 10 students normally do not have many communicative lessons in Grade 9 as they have to cope with the entrance examination to upper secondary school with a written-format English test Besides, though Grade 10 students are given two lessons per week for listening and speaking practice, some teachers sacrifice some of these lessons for lexico-grammar and reading comprehension exercises to help them do well in the written tests, which leads to the situation that most of them are not used to communicating in English and usually make oral errors Consequently, when there are

communicative lessons, oral error treatment is unavoidable to help students communicate better in the target language

In her practice of oral error treatment in the classroom, the researcher notices two situations that can make her corrective moves not able to yield expected results First, students’ attitudes and preferences for oral corrective feedback are sometimes different from what the researcher believes Secondly, some students are more easily to

be emotionally affected by the act of correction than their counterparts These situations infer that it is necessary to carry out an investigation into learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback as well as affective factors that influence these preferences to provide emotionally effective feedback that can encourage learners to speak confidently and freely Also, among different affective factors that can lead to varied behaviors and attitudes of learners, extraversion can influence learners’ preferences for classroom interactions and external stimuli; if corrective moves are not sensitive enough to these preferences, they can impede students’ attempts to communicate in the target language Because of all the reasons mentioned above, the researcher is motivated to explore learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback and the relationship between extraversion and these preferences Moreover, learners’ preferences are examined in all five main aspects of oral corrective feedback including whether, when, how, by whom and which errors should be corrected as these aspects are in some cases inter-related to each other (Lee, 1990; Mohseni & Edalat Pour, 2012) and the researcher also wants to provide a relatively accurate and complete understanding of the population

1.3 Research objectives and research questions

Given all the above factors, the present study aims to investigate Truong Dinh High school’s Grade 10 students’ levels of extraversion and their preferences for oral error correction in terms of necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types In addition, the study aims to explore the relationship between

students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for these five main aspects of oral corrective feedback

Based on the purposes stated above, three research questions are addressed in this study:

Research question 1: What are Truong Dinh High school’s Grade 10 students’ levels of extraversion?

Research question 2: What are Truong Dinh High school’s Grade 10 students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types?

Research question 3: Are there statistically significant correlations between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types? 1.4 Scope of the study

The present study makes an attempt to explore learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback and the relationship between students’ level of extraversion and their preferences In the scope of this paper, oral corrective feedback is defined as negative feedback given to learners’ erroneous words, grammatical items or speech acts arising in a communicative activity; extraversion is examined as a continuum within the framework of the Five Factor Model by McCrae and John (1992) and five aspects of oral corrective feedback under investigation are necessity, timing, feedback strategies, feedback providers and errors types The participants are non-English majored students in a public-sector high school, but only grade 10 students were selected for the study because they usually make errors when they speak and are more eager and willing to participate in communicative activities than Grade 11 and Grade

12 students

1.5 Significance of the study

The study is supposed to have theoretical and practical implications Firstly, the study contributes to the current literature by making an attempt to fill a research gap concerning learners’ preferences for error correction and the relationship between extraversion and learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in Vietnamese public high school contexts Secondly, findings from this research are hoped to trigger teachers’ self-reflection for better implementation of oral corrective feedback in communicative classrooms

1.6 Organization of the research

The present study includes five chapters

Chapter 1, Introduction, describes the study’s context and addresses the two research questions that guide the whole study Chapter 2 is a review of relevant theories on errors, error correction, corrective feedback and its five fundamental aspects, extraversion and its role in language learning; also, findings from previous studies are presented to identify the research gap Chapter 3 is a presentation of the research methodology in which the research site, participants, research instruments, reliability and validity issues, data collection procedures and data analytical framework are clearly described Chapter 4 deals with data analysis and the discussion of findings Chapter 5 summarizes all the key finding with a discussion on the implications, limitations and suggestions for future research

LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to provide readers with the theoretical framework underpinning the present study The concept of errors and different approaches to error treatment are first discussed, followed by a review of literature on the definition of corrective feedback and five main issues concerning oral corrective feedback including whether, when, how, by whom and which errors should be corrected Afterwards, the literature on learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback is reviewed The next session presents the literature on the concept of extraversion in psychology and in second language learning (L2) Empirical studies on learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback given the extraversion continuum are discussed and a research gap

is drawn out

2.1 Error Correction in the foreign language classroom

2.1.1 The Concepts of Errors

According to Hendrickson (1978), an error is “an utterance, form, or structure that a particular language teacher deems unacceptable because of its inappropriate use

or its absence in real-life discourse” (p 387) Given the same context with similar conditions, the deviant linguistic forms including words, grammatical items or speech acts, would not, under any circumstances, be used by fluent or native speakers of the target language (Lennon, 1991; Richards & Schmidt, 2010) Errors are considered evidence of the learners’ incomplete linguistics knowledge, which means they can give indications of the learners’ language competence Learners make errors because they

do not know what the correct form is or in other words, their accumulation of the language knowledge is not enough to prevent them from misusing particular linguistics items (Corder, 1967; Ellis, 1997) Researchers also emphasized the significant role of contexts when defining an error Lennon (1991) stated that errors “will vary according

to situation, reference group, interlocutor, mode, style, production pressures” (p 32)

As stated by Brown (2007), there can possibly be different sources of errors Among these, two major sources of errors are thought to be the negative interlingual transfer from the learners’ native language and the intralingual transfer during the process of acquiring the target language Besides, errors can also result from the context of communication including learners’ classroom, teaching practices or the use

of language materials in formal schooling environment or the social situation where untutored learning happens Other sources of errors can be psycholinguistic, cognitive techniques and various affective variables

In general, many researchers agreed on the vital role of errors in language teaching and learning Errors signify learners’ gaps in their linguistic knowledge They reflect learners’ attempt in their acquisition of the language Moreover, errors can show teachers how effectively their approaches and materials can assist learners’ language learning Teachers can also acknowledge learners’ progress in their language acquisition (Corder, 1967; Ellis, 1997)

2.1.2 Error Treatment of Different Approaches to Foreign Language Teaching

When it comes to different methods and approaches to foreign language teaching, the responses to errors also vary How teachers respond to learners’ linguistic errors in the classroom is referred to as error treatment

Dating back into the late nineteenth century, Grammar Translation method focuses on the study of grammar of the target language, helping learners read and appreciate foreign literature with little attention given to listening, speaking and pronunciation On making errors, learners are provided with the correct answers

The late nineteenth century saw changes in the approaches to language teaching with more emphasis on language as a means of communication Direct Method, or the natural approach to language teaching, associates language sounds and meanings with realia, pictures or pantomimes Direct Method teachers avoid using mother tongue and try to get students to self-correct their errors in the target language

Between the 1950s and the 1960s was the emergence and flourishing of the audiolingual method In the classroom, learners are required to memorize and mimic structural patterns provided by their teachers Teachers are the models and controllers

of what learners are expected to say Errors are to be avoided at all costs as they hinder the formation of good habits in the target language and if there are errors, they are supposed to be corrected immediately by the teachers

The late 1970s and early 1980s witnessed the advent of Hymes (1971)’s concept

of communicative competence that put emphasis on the appropriate use of language for communication purposes in certain cultural and social situations Based on the perspective, communicative language teaching highlights the interdependence between language and communication Errors of form are expected to be tolerated during fluency-based activities and they can be corrected later in accuracy-based activities

It can be drawn that in the spoken foreign language classroom, the responses to oral errors are dependent on which pedagogical approach is embraced When teachers adopt a meaning-focused approach to their teaching practice, it is the effective and successful negotiation of meaning and communication that counts For researchers who are supportive of this approach, explicit corrections to learners’ errors are considered detrimental to learners’ language acquisition (Krashen, 1982) On the other hand, form-focused instruction calls attention to formal aspects of language and linguistic features arising from communicative needs, which can indicate the gap between the language ideal and learners’ current interlanguage (Klapper, 2006) When it comes to error correction in the classroom, corrective feedback is a matter for debate that originates from the key differences of these two approaches (Zhang & Rahimi, 2014)

2.2 Corrective Feedback in the foreign language classroom

2.2.1 Definitions of Corrective Feedback

According to Sheen (2011), “in the second language acquisition (SLA) literature, ‘corrective feedback’ has been used as an umbrella term to cover negative

feedback, error treatment, and error correction occurring in both natural and instructional settings” (p 1)

In language teaching, feedback “refers to comments or other information that learners receive concerning their success on learning tasks or tests, either from the teacher or other persons” (Richards & Schmidt, 2010, p 217) Feedback can facilitate L2 learning by drawing learners’ attention to the problematic aspects of their interlanguage and by giving them chances to reflect on their production or understanding of the target language (Gass & Mackey, 2015) Feedback can be positive

or negative According to Ellis (2009), positive feedback confirms the correctness of learners’ employment of the target language while negative feedback is given in response to the inadequacy, inappropriateness or the lack of veracity of learners’ utterances In communication, feedback can be provided either affectively or cognitively, which means by either kinetic or linguistic devices (Vigil & Oller, 1976)

Corrective feedback is one type of negative feedback According to Chaudron (1977), corrective feedback can be “any reaction of the teacher which clearly transforms, disapprovingly refers to, or demands improvement of the learner utterance” (p 31) Later, as influenced by the emergence of affective filter hypothesis and learner-centered approaches to language education, the practice of corrective feedback in the classroom is not only under teachers’ control but also performed by the learners themselves (Chaudron, 1988) or by other students (Sheen, 2011) Also, the focus of corrective feedback is both on the linguistic errors or ill-formedness (Ellis, 2009) and

on the negotiation of meaning as well (Sheen, 2011) To put it simply, corrective feedback refers to “any indication to a learner that his/her use of the target language is incorrect” (Lightbown & Spada, 2003, p 172) In communicative classrooms with form-focused instruction, oral corrective feedback is given to learners’ erroneous words, grammatical items or speech acts arising in an oral activity with a view to getting their errors noticed and corrected

In the current study, the term “error correction” or “error treatment” is also used

to refer to the practice of oral corrective feedback in the classroom

2.2.2 Five Fundamental Issues of Oral Corrective Feedback

In the area of corrective feedback, the main issues of discussion include the necessity of corrective feedback, the timing of oral corrective feedback, oral corrective feedback strategies, feedback providers and types of errors These issues have been addressed in an effort to answer the five fundamental questions raised by Hendrickson (1978) including whether, when, how, by whom and which errors should be corrected

Many researchers have been in favour of the idea that corrective feedback can assist L2 learning in many ways L2 learning is a process in which learners make continuous attempts to form, test and revise their hypotheses for the target language Errors may occur while learners try to develop their interlanguage towards the target, and this is where corrective feedback can make a significant contribution As discussed

by Corder (1967) and Doughty and Williams (1998), it is indefinable and unviable to let learners deal with the errors by themselves and thus, they need help from a competent speaker of the target language to make their errors noticeable Also, once the errors have been signaled by corrective feedback, learners can discover their problematic behavior and be ready to form an adequate and correct concept or rule in the target language (Corder, 1981) From a focus-on-form perspective, corrective feedback is, as stated by Long (1996), “facilitative of L2 development, at least for vocabulary, morphology, and language-specific syntax, and essential for learning certain specifiable L1-L2 contrasts” (p 414) The lack of corrective feedback can be considered as negative reinforcement as learners may misunderstand that their language use is faultless However, when teachers pay too much attention to errors and interrupt learners every time they commit errors, learners can be obsessed with malformations and this can destroy their confidence in using the target language to

communicate (Vigil and Oller, 1976) Given the fact that learners may be emotionally affected by corrective feedback in a negative way, to increase the effectiveness of corrective feedback, it is suggested that “teachers should ascertain their students’ attitudes towards CF, appraise them of the value of CF, and negotiate agreed goals for

CF with them” (Ellis, 2009, p.14)

The second important issue concerning oral corrective feedback posed by Hendrickson (1978) focuses on the timing for error treatment For the most part, it is challenging for teachers to decide when errors should be ignored and when they should

be corrected In the classrooms with oral activities involved, teachers often have to make a choice between giving corrective feedback immediately when errors come up and delaying error correction until later time

Back to the time in which audio-lingual method was in full swing, it was obligatory that learners’ errors be corrected immediately as flawless replication of the model language was the expected outcome Many researchers who regard making errors as an unavoidable and significant phenomenon in language acquisition, however, rejected this view They argued that it is affectively and cognitively acceptable to tolerate some deviant linguistic items in order not to discourage learners from communicating in the target language (Corder, 1967; Hendrickson, 1978; Krashen, 1982) Walker (1973) added that the practice of pointing out every single error which learners commit "forces them to expend so much effort on details that they lose the overall ability to use language" (p 103) Research has been carried out to find out the propitious pedagogical moments to call attention to the formal aspects In general, with

an underlying view that learners with limited linguistic knowledge can still become successful communicators, teachers are encouraged to tolerate learners’ errors in fluency-oriented activities In this case, delayed feedback can be more appropriate During accuracy-oriented activities, however, it is suggested that errors be noted and

corrected immediately Then, the timing of error correction can be dependent on the aims and objectives of the activities that teachers want to achieve According to Scrivener (2005), “if the objective is accuracy, then immediate correction is likely to be useful; if the aim is fluency, then lengthy, immediate correction that diverts from the flow of speaking is less appropriate” (p 299) Also, researchers explore different exact timing for delayed correction including at the end of learners’ utterances (Elcin & Ozturk, 2016), at the end of the speaking task (Papangkorn, 2015) or at the end of the lesson (Gomez Arguelleset al., 2019) However, it is considered almost impossible to reach an agreement on whether immediate and delayed corrective feedback is more effective, as Kelly (2006) put it, “there is no one simple answer to the question of when

to correct: it will depend on many interrelated factors including learner sensitivities, learning situation, learning purpose or task type” (para 5)

In their observational study in 1997, Lyster and Ranta noted six types of oral treatment used by teachers in communicative interaction with their students in four meaning-based classrooms including explicit correction, recast, metalinguistic feedback, repetition, elicitation and clarification Ranta and Lyster (2007) later divided these six techniques of oral treatment into two categories of reformulation and prompts The former consists of explicit correction and recast as these two types of feedback

“supply learners with target reformulations of their nontarget output” (p 152) Metalinguistic feedback, repetition, elicitation and clarification requests belong to the category of prompts that “push learners to self-repair” (p 152) The model was then developed and reconceptualised in the study of Sheen and Ellis (2011) According to the researchers, the main distinction for oral corrective feedback strategies can be based on the continuum of explicitness and implicitness (i.e., whether there is overt indication of ill-formedness), and the issue of input-providing (i.e., learners are provided with the correct form) and output-prompting (i.e., learners are supplied with

clues that help them retrieve the correct form by themselves) Sheen and Ellis’s taxonomy of oral corrective feedback strategies is presented in the table below

explanation Output-

prompting

Repetition Clarification requests

Metalinguistic clue Elicitation Paralinguistic signal

The definitions of each oral feedback strategy are discussed in the following table, drawing from the studies of Panova and Lyster, 2002; Ellis, 2009; Sheen, 2011; Sheen and Ellis, 2011 Examples are also provided to show teachers and learners’ utterances

Table 0.2

Oral corrective feedback strategies

Conversational

recasts

T reformulates L’s erroneous utterances when there is a communicative breakdown

“L: How much weigh?

T: What?

L: How weight are you? T: How much do I weigh?” (Sheen, 2011, p 3)

Repetition

T repeats L’s utterances with different means of stress to highlight the errors and elicit the correct form from the

students

“L: I will showed you T: I will SHOWED you.” (Ellis, 2009, p 9)

Clarification

requests

T uses phrases such as

”Pardon me?” or “I don’t understand” as indicators of L’s erroneous utterances

“L: I want practice today, today

“L: On May

T: Not on May, in May We say,

it will start in May.” (Ellis, 2009, p 9)

with metalinguistic

explanation

errors, provides them with a correct answer and gives explanation to help L understand why their utterances were erroneous

T: The fox was clever You should use the definite article

‘the’ because fox has been

mentioned.”

(Sheen, 2011, p 3)

Metalinguistic clue

T gives an explanation or asksa Yes-No question and waits for students’ self-correction

“L: I’ll come if it will not rain T: I’ll come if it ……?” (Ellis, 2009, p 9)

Paralinguistic signal

T uses non-verbal language

to signal the ill-formedness

of L’s utterances

“L: Yesterday I go cinema T: (gestures with right forefinger over left shoulder to

indicate past)”

(Ellis, 2009, p 9) Note T = Teacher; L = Learner

Although there has been an abundance of observational and experimental studies on the efficacy of these oral corrective feedback strategies, there have not been any conclusive evidence of which strategy proves the most effective to promote learning (Ellis, 2009; Sheen, 2011) Also, learners can benefit differently from a certain type of corrective feedback Therefore, it is necessary that teachers “develop the intuition, through experience and solid eclectic theoretical foundations, for ascertaining what kind of corrective feedback is appropriate at a given moment” (Brown, 2007, p 280)

2.2.2.4 Oral Corrective Feedback Providers

In terms of error correctors, three main sources of corrective feedback providers are teachers, peers and the learners themselves

Traditionally, teacher correction has been dominating classroom interaction and error correction procedures Most of the time, teachers take the responsibility for supplying learners with appropriate information, examples, explanation or even the model answer as well as deciding on the correctness of learners’ utterances in their process of making hypotheses for the target language (Corder, 1973)

In a modern educational setting, the focus of classroom practice has been shifted onto learners and learner-learner interaction, which means learners play a more active role in the classroom Peer correction and self-correction have gained increasing concerns Peer correction occurs when learners correct their partners’ errors, which can not only inform teachers of learners’ current language level but also promote cooperative learning and help bolster their egos (Mendez & Cruz, 2012) However, according to Lyster, Saito and Sato (2013), without teacher’ guidance on how to provide appropriate feedback in communicative activities, there can be problems concerning peer correction Most of the time, as feedback providers, learners hardly point out linguistic errors in their partners’ utterances whereas as feedback receivers, learners usually question their partners’ ability to correct them and are afraid of face-losing Self-correction, on the other hand, can help them save face while encourage learners’ autonomy (Mendez & Cruz, 2012) However, one possible problem with self-correction is that learners’ incomplete linguistic knowledge may hinder their ability to recognize and correct their errors

Researchers adopt various approaches to error categorisation For example, Corder (1971) distinguished between overt and covert errors Overt errors are ungrammatical errors at sentential level whereas covertly erroneous utterances are

grammatically correct but not interpretable considered at supra-sentential level Quite similarly, Burt and Kiparsky (1972) made a difference between local and global errors While local errors are subtle violations from the standard forms which in overall do not hinder communication, global errors prevent the proper exchanging of information and thus hold back communicative purpose achievement Hendrickson (1978) suggested three meaningful types of errors including “errors that impair communication significantly; errors that have highly stigmatizing effects on the listener or reader; and errors that occur frequently in students’ speech and writing” (p 392) These categorizations are not necessarily based on linguistic level or clear-cut criteria, but on error gravity, or the seriousness of errors in the eyes of correctors, in which errors are considered “relative rather than absolute terms, with reactions also varying according

to age and academic discipline” (Lee, 1990, p 62) A more clear-cut and influential way to categorize oral errors was proposed by Lyster and Ranta (1997) The researchers addressed four types of oral errors including phonological, syntactic, lexical and discourse errors, respectively concerning with pronunciation, grammar, word choice and the coherence of the utterance within a communicative context

Regardless of the approach to error categorization, it is always a difficult decision to make for teachers on the amount of errors to be corrected or the degree and frequency of error treatment practice in the classroom One suggestion for this problem has been a focused approach to error correction (Han, 2002) According to Sheen (2011), focused corrective feedback is “intensive corrective feedback that repeatedly targets one or a very limited number of linguistic features” while unfocused corrective feedback is “extensive corrective feedback that targets a range of grammatical structures” (p 8) In the classroom setting, it is considered more effective to correct only a few oral errors of particular linguistic features than to point out all the problematic items (Ellis, 2009)

2.2.2.6 Summary

On reviewing literature on oral corrective feedback, there has not always been conclusive evidence on the necessity of oral corrective feedback in the classroom Furthermore, it is risky to jump to any conclusion on the best timing for error treatment, the most appropriate feedback providers, the most effective feedback techniques and the most suitable oral errors to be corrected Also, as the main practitioners of error correction the classroom, teachers have their own choices concerning these five main issues of oral corrective feedback and learners, as the receivers and sometimes feedback providers, have their own perceptions and preferences as well Furthermore, studies have noted the mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and learners’ preferences towards classroom error treatment (Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2005; Rahimi, 2010; Elwood & Bode, 2014; Le, 2018) and the mismatch between teachers’ beliefs and learners’ expectations can have a disastrous impact on learning (Nunan, 1987) Hence it is important to examine learners’ preferences for various aspects of oral corrective feedback in order to enhance the efficacy of oral error treatment in the classroom

2.2.3 Learners’ Preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback

Generally, preference is defined as “a greater interest in or desire for somebody/something than somebody/something else” (“Preference”) Bohner and Wanke (2002) consider preferences as factors that determine behavior and can lead to the formation of behavioral routines Thus it is suggested that preferences are highly influential over language learners (Kara, 2009)

There have been an abundance of studies trying to throw light on learners’ preferences for error correction Yet, more interest has been directed to corrective feedback in writing (Hyland, 1998; Jones & Wang, 2004; Lee, 2005; Rahimi, 2010; Elwood & Bode, 2014; Ranjbar & Zamanian, 2014; Shokrpour & Moslehi, 2015;

Irwin, 2017) while learners’ preferences for oral error correction may have received less attention

On reviewing various descriptive and experimental studies on learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in various educational settings, there can be some noticeable issues

First, most of the studies on oral corrective feedback were conducted with adult learners; few studies investigate secondary school students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback This is supported by findings from a systematic review by Astuti (2018) with only 10 out of 1009 articles on preferences for oral corrective feedback published from 2008 to 2017 on two databases including ERIC and Springer Exemplar explore secondary school students’ preferences

Secondly, research on students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback in terms of whether, how, by whom and which errors should be corrected generally shows inconsistent results Though most learners tend to appreciate the necessity of corrective feedback and usually show preferences for being orally corrected (Katayama, 2007; Azad & Kalam, 2016; Le, 2018; Astuti, 2018; Gamblo, 2019), in a study by Agudo (2012), error correction is thought to discourage learning as some students feel embarrassed when they are orally corrected in front of the class In terms of the timing

of error correction, the participants in Ananda et al (2017)’s study favored immediate correction while in Unsal Sakiroglu (2020)’s study, most learners agreed that delayed correction was their preferable timing As for oral feedback strategies, clarification requests are considered the most effective correction techniques in Sarra and Houda (2018)’s research while in Kazemi et al (2013)’s study, learners preferred a combination of repetition, explicit correction with metalinguistic explanation or metalinguistic clues In terms of feedback providers, most learners wanted to be corrected by their teachers (Gamblo, 2019); in other studies, learners preferred self-correction (Septiana et al., 2016) or peer correction (Katayama, 2007) In addition,

there is a strong need from students for their grammatical errors to be corrected (Oladejo, 1993) while other learners think phonological errors should be given the highest attention (Le, 2018) That means learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback vary due to various factors, for example, “learners’ cultural backgrounds, previous and current language learning experiences, or proficiency levels” (Lyster et al., 2013, p 7) or individual difference variables (Sheen, 2011)

Finally, among various studies on learners’ preferences for corrective feedback, there is a growing number of recent studies that investigate the possible relationship between individual differences and learners’ preferences These studies attempt to find out whether individual differences account for learners’ preferences and whether they help to explain learners’ varied preferences towards oral corrective feedback in a classroom setting Some of the individual difference factors having been explored in such studies include language aptitude (Sheen, 2011), proficiency level (Kazemi et al., 2013), extraversion (Kelahsarayi, 2014), age and gender (Motlagh, 2015), anxiety level (Fadilah et al., 2017), learning styles (Tasdemir & Arslan, 2018) and gender, motivation and extraversion (Ha et al., 2021) Nevertheless, the number of such studies

is limited and the impact of individual difference factors on learners’ preferences still lacks conclusive evidence, which suggests that whether individual differences can shape learners’ preferences for oral corrective feedback is still open to debate

In Vietnamese EFL contexts, studies on learners’ beliefs, attitudes and preferences for oral corrective feedback mostly focus on adult learners at tertiary level (Hoang, 2009; Thai & Bui, 2012; Nguyen, 2014; Dao, 2018; Le, 2018; Nguyen & Newton, 2019; Luu, 2020) In her attempt to search for studies that investigate high school students’ preferences for oral corrective feedback, the researcher saw a paucity

of research on this domain A very small number of such studies that she could find were conducted by Do (2011), Ha and Nguyen (2021) and Nguyen and Luu (2021)

The study by Do (2011) explored the attitudes of 120 Grade 10 students in a boarding high school towards teachers’ oral error correction in terms of the necessity, timing, feedback providers, feedback techniques and error types The study adopted a mixed methods design with questionnaires and follow-up interviews It was found that most students understood the necessity of oral corrective feedback and their most preferred timing, feedback providers, feedback techniques and error types were respectively immediate timing, teacher correction, metalinguistic clues and grammatical errors One issue that may need consideration can be the correction techniques mentioned that adopted from Edge (1989) and Lyster and Mori (2006), as there are recent updated models of correction strategies suggested by different researchers up to now

Ha and Nguyen (2021) conducted a study on teachers and students’ beliefs about the targets and sources of oral corrective feedback with the participation of 250 Grade 10 to Grade 12 students and 24 teachers Data was collected with questionnaires and follow-up interviews In terms of students’ beliefs, the study highlighted that the students were positive about the correction of all types of errors including less important errors and they also preferred teacher correction to self-correction or peer correction Interestingly, there were mismatches between students and teachers’ beliefs

in that teachers preferred a selective approach to error correction and they highly valued the role of students as the main feedback providers Yet the study only explored two main aspects of oral corrective feedback including the types of errors categorised according to error gravity and feedback providers

Another recent study on high school students’ perceptions of corrective feedback and their preferences for feedback on pronunciation was carried out by Nguyen and Luu (2021) among 97 Grade 10 to Grade 12 students Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were data collection instruments It was found that students had positive perceptions about the significance of teachers’ corrective feedback on