Teachers’ error correction techniques in speaking lessons at the academy of international studies

This research was conducted to explore teachers‟ practice of error correction techniques in their speaking lessons, compare teachers‟ and students‟ viewpoints towards this issue and seek

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

**************

LÊ NGUYỄN DIỆU ANH

TEACHERS’ ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

AT THE ACADEMY OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

(Nghiên cứu các phương pháp sửa lỗi sai trong giảng dạy

kỹ năng Nói của giáo viên Học viện Quốc tế)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111

HÀ NỘI - 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

**************

LÊ NGUYỄN DIỆU ANH

TEACHERS’ ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES

IN SPEAKING LESSONS

AT THE ACADEMY OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

(Nghiên cứu các phương pháp sửa lỗi sai trong giảng dạy

kỹ năng Nói của giáo viên Học viện Quốc tế)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111

Supervisor : Dr Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa

HÀ NỘI - 2017

DECLARATION

I, Lê Nguyễn Diệu Anh, an M.A student of the Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies of ULIS, hereby declare that this thesis is my own work Documented references have been provided full In addition, this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in other formal courses in any other university I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library

Hanoi, December 2017

Lê Nguyễn Diệu Anh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, for giving me valuable guidance and encouragement, without which my thesis could not be successfully completed

My special thanks also go to the Management Board, lecturers and staff members of Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their precious support for learners throughout the course

I am thankful to teachers and students at the Academy of International Studies for their enthusiastic participation and devotion to my thesis Their countributions motivated me to finish the research despite some arising obstacles during the conducting process

Finally, I would like to convey my great gratitude to my beloved family and colleagues for providing me endless companionship and assistance throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing the thesis

Without all their help, this accomplishment would not have been possible

Hanoi, December 2017

Lê Nguyễn Diệu Anh

ABSTRACT

Spoken error correction is perceived and practiced diversely together with the changing pedagogical approaches in modern language teaching, especially in the context of Vietnam This research was conducted to explore teachers‟ practice of error correction techniques in their speaking lessons, compare teachers‟ and students‟ viewpoints towards this issue and seek to explain their preferences following the case study approach The data was collected by triangulation method which involved class-room observation, interviews with teachers and questionnaires with students at the Academy of International Studies (AIS) in Hanoi, Vietnam The findings revealed that teachers at the AIS employed six error correction techniques

in their speaking lessons, i.e Explicit correction, Repetition, Recast, Clarification, Elicitation and Delayed correction, among which Delayed correction was the most frequently used technique by both teacher-participants There also appeared significant dissimilarities between teachers‟ perceptions and practice of corrective feedback themselves as well as the discrepancies in teachers‟ and students‟ preferences of error correction techniques It is recommended that teachers should make students aware of modern pedagogical theories about error correction and explain why teachers apply such error correction techniques in speaking lessons; simultaneously, make appropriate adaptations in their teaching practice with reference to their students‟ preferences

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1.4 Significance of the study 3

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Teaching speaking skill 5

2.2 Errors 6

2.3 Error correction 7

2.4 Oral error correction techniques 11

2.4.1 Explicit correction 11

2.4.2 Recast 11

2.4.3 Clarification request 11

2.4.4 Metalinguistic clues 12

2.4.5 Elicitation 12

2.4.6 Repetition 12

2.5 Teachers‟ versus learners‟ attitudes on oral error correction techniques 15

CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Research Design Method 17

3.2 School‟s setting 17

3.3 Participants 18

3.4 Research Procedure 20

CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 21

4.1 Research question 1: Oral error correction techniques applied by AIS teachers

21

4.1.1 Findings 21

4.1.2 Discussion 26

4.2 Research question 2: Discrepancies between teachers‟ and students‟ viewpoints on error correction 30

4.2.1 Whether to correct every error of students‟ 30

4.2.2 Correction time 32

4.2.3 Explicit versus implicit correction 33

4.2.4 Preferences of correction techniques 35

CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUSION 39

5.1 Major findings and implications 39

5.2 Limitations 41

5.3 Recommendation for further studies 41

REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I APPENDIX A QUESTIONAIRE FOR STUDENTS I APPENDIX B INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS VI APPENDIX C TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH TEACHER 1 IX APPENDIX D TRANSCRIPT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH TEACHER 2 XII APPENDIX E CLASS-ROOM OBSERVATION CHECKLIST XV

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: A taxonomy of oral corrective feedback strategies Table 2: Teacher participants‟ profiles

Table 3: Class-room observation of error correction techniques Figure 1: Students‟ views on correcting every error

Figure 3: Students‟ preferences of correction time

Figure 2: Correction‟s effects on students‟ confidence

Figure 4: Students‟ preferences of explicit or implicit correction Figure 5: Students‟ most preferable correction techniques

Figure 6: Students‟ least preferable correction techniques

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Diversified pedagogical approaches have been developed and adapted by the world-wide community of English language teaching since its early outset Throughout the history of teaching theory, every single stage witnesses one or two approaches dominating the others For example, Grammar Translation Method (GTM) was the very first longest one popularized during the 19th century Other well-known methods like the Direct Method, the Audio-Lingual Method, the Total Physical Response (TPR) and the Natural Approach (Richards and Rodgers, 2014) have continued to lengthen the list The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been the second most influential approach since the 1980s up to present Meanwhile, those approaches perceive the role of oral errors and oral error correction in different and even contradictory ways Error correction used to be one

of the greatest concerns in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Grammar Translation method grew prominent in the language teaching environment As Brooks (1960, p 58) stated, “like sin, error is to be avoided and its influence overcome, but its presence is to be expected.” Later on, with the emergence of Audio lingual and Direct Method approaches, the critical view of errors became questioned Errors started to be seen as natural part of the learning process and fluency rather than accuracy is important in accordance with Communicative Language Teaching (Larsen-Freeman, 2011) Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) with a more error-tolerant attitude in language teaching believes the goal of instruction is the development of fluency and acceptable language use, which remains widely recognized by far

However, this story has been more complicated since CLT was introduced into Vietnamese teaching contexts While adopting communicative theory, Vietnamese teachers were confused in managing how to realize their beliefs and understandings

in practice (Pham, 2007) In terms of speaking skill, a decade has passed; yet,

debates on how to teach speaking effectively remain endless The significant differences between Vietnamese, a generally monosyllabic language, and English,

an either monosyllabic or polysyllabic one (Thompson, 1965 cited in Hwa-Froelich, 2002), produce many difficulties to Vietnamese students in their English learning process Hence, errors, especically spoken ones, are inevitable While many teachers are critical of students‟ errors, not few teachers underestimate the role of error correction and even neglect most of students‟ spoken errors Additionally, giving corrective feedback in speaking classes requires more immediate and instant reactions from the teachers than in any other English skills It involves numerous factors, including students‟ attitudes, to be taken into consideration while teachers are supposed to take an immediate response to students‟ spoken errors Consequently, how to respond reasonably to each of students‟ oral error has become

a tough question to both teaching practitioners and researchers Since then, although

a number of studies have been implemented on oral error correction, no proper answers are given to satisfy the demands of every specific English teaching and learning context As Hyland and Hyland (2006) state that corrective feedback is “a form of social action designed to accomplish educational and social goals” and “for this reason needs to be viewed contextually” (Sheen & Ellis, 2011) Thus, this research is implemented in an attempt to explore what oral error correction techniques that teachers in the specific teaching context of the Academy of International Studies are adopting as well as whether there exist any discrepancies between teachers and students‟ viewpoints on error correction, in so doing, to provide some implications for teachers and researchers in Vietnamese modern teaching context

1.2 Aims of the study

The research‟s purpose is to investigate what error correction techniques that teachers at the AIS apply in their speaking lessons The study also explores whether there exist differences between teachers‟ and students‟ opinions towards oral error correction and the error correction techniques employed by their teachers; hereafter,

provide the teachers with some implications in giving corrective feedback in their

speaking lessons

The research aims at answering the TWO questions:

1 What are the error correction techniques (ECTs) applied by the teachers at the AIS in their speaking lessons?

2 Are there any discrepancies between teachers‟ and students‟ opinions towards spoken error correction and the ECTs used by their teachers?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study limits its scope within the English teaching context at the AIS with two teacher participants who are frequently appointed to teach speaking lessons and

56 students who were studying speaking classes at the AIS during the research time Student-participants are at Intermediate level specialized in international affairs Moreover, the study focuses on the AIS teachers‟ oral error correction techniques which are reflected through classroom observations with reference to those proposed by Lyster and Ranta (1997) and Diane and Barbara (1998) Within the limited scope, this research is attempted to provide a general overview of oral error correction techniques used by teachers rather than investigating deeper into types of errors or stages of the lessons

1.4 Significance of the study

There have been numerous studies on written error correction; whereas, research

on spoken error correction is limited The ultimate goal of this research is to provide some implications to the AIS teachers regarding error correction strategies in their speaking lessons; simultaneously, contribute to the research literature on this field The results illustrate the specific situation of applying error correction techniques by teachers at the AIS and investigate both teachers‟ and students‟ views on the issue Although this reflects a “case”, the findings can be generalized to some extent Specifically, teachers and researchers involved in public security school system may find this study useful for their similar teaching and learning contexts, where English

teachers have to face with students and in-service students as well as the speaking syllabus is majorly for special purposes Furthermore, the findings may also be a source of reference on error correction techniques for teachers who are giving speaking lessons to students of intermediate level

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Teaching speaking skill

Learners‟ language competence is normally and initially evaluated through their oral performance; hence, the mastery of speaking skill has always been a high priority for language learners On the other hand, speaking is one of the hardest skills to learn because it is a spontaneous activity and speakers have little time to think before uttering This skill also challenges teachers and instructors in how to apply the best methodology in their lessons, which is obviously reflected in the changing trends of speaking teaching

According to Larsen-Freeman and Anderson (2011), during the prime time of Grammar Translation Method, the emphasis was put on vocabulary and grammar with reading and writing skills are primary ones Most in-class activities were

accuracy-oriented and drilling based methodologies with repetition and memory

activities were majorly used to teach speaking skill Thus, accuracy and error

correction were of great significance With the introduction of Communicative

Language Teaching approach, the role of teaching speaking skill has been enhanced

to a more meaningful and practical one Learners are offered opportunities to

interact and communicate purposefully in both accuracy-based and fluency-based

activities Error correction becomes more flexible and patient with error of form

being more tolerant in fluency based activities In balancing between fluency and

accuracy in teaching, many scholars such as Hemmens (2011) and Cotter (2013)

have recommended that accuracy should be introduced first in the beginner level and fluency follows as the learners‟ language vocabulary and grammar have improved

Regarding the content of teaching speaking, Nunan (2003) states that teachers should teach learners to:

1 Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns

2 Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second language

3 Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting, audience, situation and subject matter

4 Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence

5 Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments

6 Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is called as fluency

(Nunan, 2003) For such various goals that a speaking course needs to acquire, error correction should cover the respective aspects from speaking content, pronunciation, grammar

as well as word-use Jones (1996) and Burns (1998) also put forward the three

functions of speaking; i.e talk as interaction, talk as transaction and talk as

performance Each of these speech activities are quite distinct in terms of form and

function and require different teaching approaches

2.2 Errors

The definitions of “error” differ among linguists and changed over the time George (1972, p.2) defined error as “an unwanted form, specifically, a form which a particular course designer or teacher does not want”, which was considered as subjective because it did not base on any linguistic criteria With a more objective view, Corder (1974b) supposed error as a deviation in learners‟ language which results from lack of knowledge of the correct rule Later, Delisle (1982, p.39) defined error as “a failure to communicate” reflecting Communicative Language Teaching approach at its early outset An utterance though incorrect in grammar was seen as acceptable provided that it succeeded in conveying the intended message According to Richards et all‟s definition, errors were recognized following grammatical rules and use accepted by fluent or native speakers of the

language Another issue regarding errors is that there have been arguments over the concepts of “errors” and “mistakes” (Corder, 1967) or “global” and “local errors” (Burt and Kiparsky, 1974) in linguistic aspect The most well-known distinction may be that a mistake is the incorrectness of students caused by carelessness or called as “performance error” (Chomsky, 1965) According to Hendrickson (1978), global errors need not be corrected and they are generally held true In this viewpoint, mistakes are those which should not receive too much attention in learning process because even native speakers can experience a slip of their tongue (Corder, 1975)

In brief, the definition taken in this research is the one given by George (1972, p.2) “an unwanted form, specifically, a form which a particular course designer or teacher does not want” because the focus is put on teachers‟ role in correcting errors

2.3 Error correction

The definition of error correction is perceived in different viewpoints Each definition reflects the attitude of its author to error treatment Chaudron (1986) sees that the concept of correction is “any reaction by the teacher which transforms a students‟ behavior or utterance” With a view of minimizing the tensions of error correction, Edge (1989) obviously states that correction does not always mean making everything absolutely correct but helps learners to express themselves more accurately Oral error correction can also be understood as the definition of Richards and Lockhart‟s (1996), i.e “a response either to the content of what a student has produced or to the form of the utterance” Error treatment, corrective feedback or error correction are used interchangeable in this study This concept can

be understood as “teachers‟ reactions when an error is committed” which includes

“ignoring the error completely, giving the correct response by the teacher, or eliciting the correct response from either the error maker or the whole class” (Mosbah, 2007)

Most of the researchers working on error correction area have heard of the famous framework given by Hendrickson (1978) (as cited in Hinkel, E (2011)) in

one of the first comprehensive reviews of the issue of error correction in the classroom; that is,

1 Should learners‟ errors be corrected?

2 When should learners‟ errors be corrected?

3 Which errors should be corrected?

4 How should errors be corrected?

5 Who should do the correcting?

(Hendrickson, 1978, p.389) More than 30 years have passed without any of these questions being answered properly, especially for every single teaching context Nevertheless, some certain questions receive more concern over the others Perhaps the first and foremost disputable one is whether errors should be corrected at all Typically such research has involved experimental designs with pre- and post-tests and explicit teaching of a specific feature of the target language

Regarding the question “Should learners’ errors be corrected?”, one

well-known view strongly supported by Truscott (1996) is that correction “makes little or

no contribution to the development of accuracy in writing, possibly even harming the learning process, and therefore has no place in writing classes” On the contrary, Ferris (1999, 2003) or Russell & Spada (2006) holds a more favorable view of correction, recommending it is beneficial for learners‟ acquisition process Taking the similar stance on this issue, Lightbown and Spada (1990); Carroll et al (1992); Lyster and Ranta (1997); Sheen (2011) confirm the significance of error correction The reason might be that students are encouraged to be aware of the corrct form with the assistance of teachers‟ corrective feedbacks, which are viewed as

“evidence of the learner‟s positive contribution to foreign language learning rather than as a sign of learner‟s inability to master the new language as many teachers view it” (Haifaa I.F., 2012) Many language teachers believe that errors are inevitable yet indicators of the progress in language learning With a positive view

on error making, Davis and Pearse (2000, p.103) believe “errors are integral part of language learning and not evidence of failure to learn”; in other words, errors are signals that learning occurs and indicate learners‟ stage which reflects parts of lesson that have been understood and to be improved (Hedge, 2000)

The question of “When should learners’ errors be corrected?” involves teachers‟ immediate response or “on-line attempts to make learners aware that they

have produced an utterance that contains an error (i.e., the feedback is provided more or less immediately following the utterance that contained an error)” and

delayed response or “off-line attempts (i.e., the feedback is withheld until the

communicative event the learner is participating in has finished)” (Sheen & Ellis, 2011)

Despite the numerous research studies on corrective feedback in the last decade, these questions remain largely unanswered today Lyster and Mori‟s (2006) Counterbalance Hypothesis perhaps comes the closest to answering the question

“How should errors be corrected?” because the researchers explicitly state that the

instructional setting and discourse context of the classroom will dictate the best error correction type for teachers to use The oral error correction depends on various factors, which consist of lesson objectives, learners‟ attitude and expectations, motivation, level, etc Whenever a spoken error is made, the teacher has to think hard to make multi-decisions at one time as Jim Scrivener writes:

1 Decide what kind of error has been made (grammatical? pronunciation? etc.)

2 Decide whether to deal with it (is it useful to correct it?)

3 Decide when to deal with it (now? end of the activity? later?)

4 Decide who will correct (teacher? student self-correction? other students?)

5 Decide on an appropriate technique to indicate that an error has occurred or

to enable the correction

(Jim Scrivener, 1994, p.299)

As emphasized in several recent meta-analyses of empirical corrective feedback studies (Lyster & Saito, 2010; Mackey & Goo, 2007; Russell & Spada, 2006; Li, 2010), it is of great importance to take into consideration “moderating

factors, such as feedback type, error type, interaction type, mode (oral/written/computer-mediated), L2 instructional contexts, age, gender, proficiency, L1 transfer, schema, anxiety and cognitive abilities, which in turn influence the extent to which corrective feedback can be beneficial to L2 learners” (Sheen, Y & Ellis, R., 2011) Sheen and Ellis also conclude that error correction is

a “highly complex social activity” Investigating error correction, hence, should be implemented simultaneously with exploring the attitudes and opinions of both teachers and learners The harmony between these two subjects would contribute to the efficiency of error correction and learning process

The issue of which errors should be corrected can be recognized in selective

correction theories developed by Byrne (1998), Edge (1989), Raimes (1983), Ferris (1999) However, these proposals are not that simple for teachers in practice, especially for speaking activities which require immediate decision-making from teachers Another theory is the distinctions between “error” versus “mistake” suggested by Corder (1967) or “local” versus “global” error recommended by Burt (1975) This is complicated as well since there have been no generally accepted theory of grammatical complexity to assist teachers in their decisions; moreover, it

is likely that the inconsistence of error correcting will arise as Truscott (1996) warns Nevertheless, it does not mean there is no hope in selective correction One promising proposal is that teachers should focus on one type of errors to be corrected For example, they could just correct “-s” ending sound at one time and leave the correction of past tense errors to another time (Sheen & Ellis, 2011)

Last but not least, who should correct learner’s errors is also worth debating

According to Hedge (2000), teachers are advised to provide opportunities for students to self-correct, if that fails, other learners will be asked to do the correction This approach suits the ideology of leaner-centeredness which is trending in modern western teaching philosophy Notwithstanding, there appear many problems with learner self-correction such as students‟ habitual dependence on teachers‟ correction

or their essential linguistic knowledge for error correction Another alternative is

peer correction, which poses several troubles as Ferris (2003) affirms that students need careful training before being able to peer review One solution comes along with the advice to teachers that they should apply the two stages into their correction activities; i.e to encourage self-correction or peer correction first, then to provide the correction later (Sheen & Ellis, 2011) In conclusion, teachers still play the key role in correcting students‟ errors, even to decide whether the error is treated

by students themselves or their peers as well as to give the final feedback to confirm the correct version

2.4 Oral error correction techniques

In this study, the techniques of spoken error correction reflect the ways or methods of correcting students‟ oral errors; sometimes they can be referred to correction strategies These techniques have been developed and added from time to time Remarkably, Lyster and Ranta (1997) proposed six common techniques which teachers use to treat their students‟ errors as below:

2.4.1 Explicit correction

Directly indicating that the student‟s utterance was incorrect, the teacher provides the correct form

S: The movie is interested (Word form)

T: You should say the movie is interesting, not interested

2.4.2 Recast

Without directly indicating that the student‟s utterance was incorrect, the teacher implicitly reformulates the student‟s error, or provides the correction

S: I see a great movie yesterday (Tense)

T: Oh great, you saw a great movie

2.4.3 Clarification request

By using phrases like “Excuse me?” or “I don‟t understand,” the teacher

indicates that the message has not been understood or that the student‟s utterance

contained some kind of mistake and that a repetition or are formulation is required

S: My father is a cooker (Word use)

T: Pardon? Can you say it again?

2.4.4 Metalinguistic clues

Without providing the correct form, the teacher poses questions or provides

comments or information related to the formation of the student‟s utterance

S: Many person like pop music (Noun form)

T: “Many” should go with plural noun Is “person” a plural noun?

S: People, many people like pop music

2.4.5 Elicitation

The teacher elicits the correct form from the student by asking questions (e.g.,

“How do we say that in English?”), by pausing to allow the student to complete the teacher‟s utterance (e.g., “It‟s a ”) Elicitation questions differ from questions that are defined as metalinguistic clues in that they require more than a yes/no response

S: I have a boy child (Word-use)

T: I have a… ?

2.4.6 Repetition

The teacher repeats the student‟s error and adjusts intonation to draw student‟s attention to it

S: Today, I will tell you about your family

T: Your family? (Pronoun)

S: Sorry, my family

Those above mentioned techniques have been categorised according to their

degree of explicitness (overtness) to the learner Any indication to the learners that their use of the target language is nonstandard, draw learners “attention to language

in two ways: implicitly and/or explicitly” (Loewen, 2005) Recasts, clarification requests, elicitation, and repetition are described as implicit feedback Explicit correction and metalinguistic feedback fall within the category of explicit feedback Those above mentioned techniques all refer to immediate feedback or “online attempts” (Sheen and Ellis, 2011) from teachers Sharing the same opinion, Diane and Barbara (1998) illustrate the types of feedback as follow: 1) Explicit correction; 2) Recast; 3) Clarification; 4) Elicitation; 5) Repetition On the contrary, Truscott is likely to view all techniques of oral error correction as explicit without acknowledging implicit types such as recasts and clarification requests (Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Shaffer, 2002) Modern researchers also recommend new techniques such as using body language and facial expressions; however, these techniques have not used widely among language practitioners and few researches investigate their effectiveness Sheen and Ellis (2011) provide a more thorough picture of error

correction strategies covering input-providing (i.e., the learner is supplied with the correct form) or output-prompting (i.e., it can attempt to elicit a correction from the learner); implicit as when the teacher simply requests clarification in response to the learner‟s erroneous utterance or explicit as when the teacher directly corrects the

learner and/or provides some kind of metalinguistic explanation of the error (see Table 1)

By and large, Lyster and Ranta (1997)‟s techniques, based on which later theories are developed, have been the most fundamental and well-known among researchers and language practitioners Thus, the model supplied by Lyster and Ranta (1997) is also the focus of this study

Table 1 A Taxonomy of Oral Corrective Feedback Strategies

(Sheen & Ellis, 2011, p.601)

Numerous studies have been contributing to investigate the correction techniques of spoken errors in TEFL lessons, most of which are based on the Lyster and Ranta (1997)‟s techniques Prominiently, Iliana Panova and Roy Lyster (2002) acknowledge seven types of feedback including recast, translation, clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, explicit correction and repetition Likewise, Saeideh Ahangari and Somayeh Amirzadeh (2011) record eight corrective feedback techniques at advanced level, i.e recast, classification, metalinguistic, elicitation, repetition, explicit correction, translation and multiple feedbacks Among the correction techniques, recast remains the most frequently used by teachers towards oral errors Additionally, teachers and learners‟ attitudes are also of great concern becoming the purpose of study in many researches

2.5 Teachers’ versus learners’ attitudes on oral error correction techniques

A great number of researches were conducted to examine teachers‟ beliefs and attitudes towards error correction; wherease, learners‟ preferences and viewpoints have been trivialized James (1998) once asked “why learners‟ perceptions should

be ignored in error treatment when we are urged to consider them in other aspects of second language pedagogy?” The way studentss perceive error correction is critical (Allwright 1975; Cathcart and Olsen 1976; Schulz 1996 and Lee and Ridley 1999) Given the fact that the discrepancies of teachers‟ versus students‟ attitudes can have negative effects on instructional outcomes, many research studies have been implemented to investigate the harmony between teachers‟ and learners‟ views on error correction In a study by Schulz (1996) with 824 students and 92 teachers, he reveals some discrepancies among teachers and students One noticeable finding is that students are more “receptive” in receiving error correction in both writing and speaking skills than teachers Nunan (1993) discovers a clear mismatch between learners‟ and teachers‟ beliefs in error correction According to Nunan (1995), major causes for such discrepancies are the differences between pedagogical agendas of the teacher and the learner arising from individual perceptions concerning “how learning should take place” Peacock‟s (1998, 2001) studies found that the gaps between teacher and learner beliefs reduced learner confidence and satisfaction; and caused learner reluctant to participate in communicative activities; and consequently resulted in negative learning outcomes Cathcart and Olsen (1976, p.41) noted: “bias and attitude may prove to have a strong influence on the effectiveness of corrections

In conclusion, the review of literature sheds a light to what extent the key questions raised by Hendrickson (1978) have been investigated The viewpoints and techniques which are presented in this part build a profound foundation for the research to be conducted There remains a need to explore the real situation of teachers in a contextual language teaching to make adaptations of previous research

findings In other words, literature review plays a crucial role in assisting the researcher to compare the practices and beliefs applied by international teachers and researchers and those from AIS with a hope that the results of this study recommend some beneficial implications to language teaching practitioners

CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design Method

The research follows case study approach The participants are teachers and learners of the AIS, which constitute a “bounded unit” in the definition of case study by Gerring (2007, p.33) Case study is used to “describe, explain and interpret the findings which focuses on participants contextualized perspectives and interpretations of behavior, events, and situations” (van Lier, 1988) Data collection methods were the combination of classroom observations, in-depth interviews and questionnaires, which qualify a feature of case study approach, i.e., “case study representation is the product of a number of different processes brought together to create the sense of a unified whole” (Hinkel, E., 2011, p.214) Thus, it is appropriate

to implement a case study research to describe how the AIS teachers apply their error correction techniques, explain their choices as well as explore the AIS students‟ attitudes towards error correction

Adopting three instruments of class-room observations, interviews and

questionnaires with two groups of participants, i.e teachers and students at the AIS

for exploring the same research questions is also a form of triangulation method, which “involves the conscious combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies as a powerful solution to strengthen a research design where the logic is based on the fact that a single method can never adequately solve the problem of rival causal factors” (Holtzhausen, 2001)

3.2 School’s setting

The Academy of International Studies provides English courses for two major groups of students, i.e bachelor‟s degree students (mentioned as undergraduates) and in-service ones (working as security officers) English courses play a crucial role in the training program at the school It normally takes five semesters to complete an English course categorized into two stages including general English

and specialized English for international affairs Approximately 15 English teachers graduated from universities in Vietnam and overseas are currently in charge of lecturing English courses for more than 190 students All of the teachers have studied in English speaking countries for at least several months to advance their English competence Thus, most of them have had the chance of access to modern pedagogical methods and shown their innovations in their teaching

Regarding students, the undergraduates come from various provinces with different backgrounds taking English course as a compulsory subject in their degree; whereas, the in-service students graduated from different universities and colleges specialized in various fields sent to the AIS to earn a certificate in English for international affairs The challenge to teachers here is the mixed levels and personalities of students in a class However, their common feature of high discipline and seriousness in study becomes an advantage for teaching process

3.3 Participants

The selection of research participants is a combination between purposeful sampling and stratified sampling, which are generally utilized in case study research (Creswell, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994) As Maxwell (2013) emphasizes, the case-study researcher's purpose is “not to generalize from the sample to a population, but to explain, describe, and interpret” the case; consequently,

“sampling is not a matter of representative opinions, but a matter of information richness” Purposeful sampling involves two teacher-participants who majorly take charge of speaking lessons so far Teacher 1 is a highly experienced and traditional teacher inheriting mainstream education of teacher training provided by Hanoi National University - University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), one of the most prestigious English teacher training institutes in Vietnam Teacher 2

is a young and innovative teacher who did not initially follow the pedagogy field until her MA course with the major in TESOL Teacher 2 has benefited from

education provided by foreign lecturers both in her Bachelor and MA courses She also had the chance of studying in the USA for six months

6 years

Table 2: Teacher participants’ profiles

The researcher would like to compare their beliefs and practices of error correction; simultaneously, seek to answer whether there is a discrepancy between their views and their students‟ ones on this issue To achieve that goal, 56 students from three classes who have all been taught by these two teachers are chosen to join this research One more reason is that all those three classes were studying under the same speaking syllabus at Intermediate level with political news (Thematic Speaking), consisting of two classes of undergraduates (namely A1 for students with higher results and A2 for students with lower results in the placement test) and one class of in-service students who were employed as security officers and sent to enhance English skills at the AIS All of the student-participants were at intermediate level when the research was conducted

3.4 Research Procedure

The initial stage of the research was class-room observations, which were undertaken over six speaking lessons lectured by two AIS teachers (three lessons per teacher) with the teachers‟ permission but without their awareness of the research topic The purpose of class-room observations was to explore what error correction techniques were employed by the teachers, how many times teachers applied each technique as well as how many times they skipped correcting among

the total of error making times recored by the researcher (the Class-room

Observation Checklist in Appendix E) The typical examples of teachers‟ corrective

feedbacks were also noted to illustrate remarkable cases of teachers‟ correction Following the stage of classroom observations, teacher-participants were interviewed to explore their attitudes and beliefs of error correction and explain the rationale of their practice in class All the interviews were taken in Vietnamese to avoid ambiguity and misunderstandings resulted from language barrier

At the final stage, students were requested to complete questionnaires to survey their viewpoints and attitudes of error correction and their teachers‟ correction strategies The list of teachers‟ correction strategies in the questionnaires would be compiled from the class-room observation results Students would not be interviewed because direct contacts might hinder them from sharing their true opinions Instead, questionnaires would cover both closed and open questions for students to reveal more of their sharing

After all the data was collected, the researcher made a comparison between the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards spoken error correction and error correction techniques together with referring to those of linguistics experts and researchers in the world In this way, the study can suggest some implications to the teachers of AIS as well as other TEFL teachers in their teaching

CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This Chapter presents the results of data collection and analyzes them in reference with background knowledge attained in the Chapter 2 - Literature Review For the study was conducted in accordance with triangulation method, the research questions would be analyzed and explained through three data collection instruments: observations, questionnaires and interviews

This part is aimed at answering:

 Research question 1: What are the correction techniques that teachers at the

AIS use in their classroom?

 Research question 2: Are there any discrepanices between teachers‟ and

students‟ opinions towards error correction and the ECTs used by their

4.1.1.1 Class-room Observations

In these 90-minute-speaking lessons, teachers assisted students to brainstorm the ideas on one given topic related to a current political issue in accordance to weekly syllabus of Thematic speaking skill This stage was performed in pairs or in groups first and then teachers elicited the answers individually with the attention of

the whole class Thereafter, teachers guided and supervised students to take part in speaking activities such as information exchange, discussions, debates, presentation

or interviews depending on the lesson plan of each individual teacher Hence, most

of speaking activities were to function as “transaction” and “performance” rather than “interaction” (Jones 1996 and Burns 1998) and fall into “fluency” activities rather than “accuracy” ones

Table 3: Class-room observation of error correction techniques

(adapted from Lyster and Ranta’s proposal, 1997)

As presented in Table 3, teacher participants took six correction techniques in their practice; i.e Explicit correction, Repetition, Recast, Clarification, Elicitation and Delayed correction, among which Delayed correction was the most frequently used technique by both teacher-participants Teacher 1 employed a variation of six techniques in her correction including Explicit correction, Repetition, Recast,

Techniques

Teacher 1 (total moves:

19)

Frequency (%)

Teacher 2 (total moves:

15)

Frequency (%)

Clarification, Elicitation and Delayed correction; meanwhile, Teacher 2 incorporated only four techniques, i.e Explicit correction, Recast, Elicitation and Delayed correction The second most frequently used technique by Teacher 1 is Elicitation by 21.05%, followed by other three strategies On the contrary, Explicit correction‟s frequency was as pre-dominant as Delayed correction in Teacher 2‟ lessons She adopted Elicitation merely once during the observed lessons to correct students‟ content error

It is remarkable that both teachers applied delayed correction for most of their

time, with 42.1% and 40% for Teacher 1 and Teacher 2 respectively Among eight times of off-line correction, Teacher 1 wrote the errors on the whiteboard while the student(s) were speaking for five times At other times, she provided the correction based on her memory of the students‟ errors On the other hand, Teacher 2 was dependent on her memory to correct the errors most of her time (five out of six times); whereas, she took note of learners‟ errors at only one time as observed Surprisingly, there were quite a great number of times that both teachers skipped the correction of learners‟ errors with about 11 times of Teacher 1 (36,67% of the error-making times recorded) and 14 times of Teacher 2 (48,27% of the error-making times recorded) Teacher 1 skipped correcting learners‟ errors in their mini-presentations and short conversations either by merely giving positive feedback or general comments to wrap up the activity Let‟s take the Observation 1 below as an example

Observation 1: Extract from Teacher 1’s lesson

Two students were performing a brief discussion exchanging their opinions on Brexit

Student 1: … most Britain people (Noun phrase: British people) support for

Brexit because their country get disadvantages (pronunciation: wrong, no word

stress, no ending sound) from EU

Teacher 1 skipped correcting grammatical errors such as “Britain people”,

“support it” or “culture”, all of which are grammatical errors and do not significantly hinder the message conveyance By contrast, she immediately corrected the pronunciation error, i.e “disadvantages” with neither word stress nor ending sound “iz” At the end of the students‟ conversation, instead of providing corrective feedback, she just gave a general comment on students‟ speaking content With respect to Teacher 2, she employed Explicit correction either after the student finished his speaking turn or at the end of the activity Observation 2 as follows is a typical illustration

Observation 2: Extract from Teacher 2’s lesson

A pair of students came in front of the class to perform a mini-presentation on

“What is NATO” using PowerPoint slides that they had prepared at home

Student 1: …NATO was formed after the end of the Second World War There are

(Verb tense: were) 12 nations sign (Grammatical structure: signing/ which signed)

Teacher: Sorry, “their country get”…? (Elicitation)

Student: disadvantages (other students reminded: “disadvantages”)

Teacher: disadvantages/disədˈvan(t)ijiz/

Student: Ah, disadvantages/disədˈvan(t)ijiz/

Teacher: Ok, let‟s continue

Student 2: I think only old people support it (preposition: support for it), but the

younger don‟t want Brexit because they like travelling and learning new culture

(plural form: cultures) from other countries…

Teacher: Thank you very much You guys have quite different ideas about the topic

and both of you have persuasive arguments for your viewpoints This is understandable for a hot issue like Brexit Thanks for your interesting sharing Now let‟s move to…

the North Atlantic (pronunciation: /atlantic/ no word stress, no ending sound)

Treaty in 1949

Student 2: … Article 5 say (Verb form: says) that if a member is attacked

(pronunciation: no ending sound /kt/), other members will consider it as an act of attack (pronunciation: no ending sound /k/) against all members

Teacher 2: Good job You should notice the ending sounds like “is attacked

/əˈtækt/” or attack /əˈtæk/ (Explicit correction)

In accordance with the above observation, Teacher 2 also skipped the grammatical errors like “there are (were)” and “sign (signing/ which signed)” and focused more on pronunciation errors; for example, the ending sound of “attack” or

“attacked” She grouped the errors into a category; in this case, it is the ending sound errors However, the mispronounced word “Atlantic” was not corrected; maybe because the teacher did not take note of the error so she missed it or she thought it was a minor one As a matter of fact, Teacher 2 favored correcting the repeated errors and remarkable ones

4.1.1.2 Interviews with teachers

Teacher 1 stated that she frequently used Repetition and Elicitation in her speaking lessons Explicit correction was the last resource she turned to after the mentioned techniques did not work In her opinion, Clarification and Recast were ineffective so she rarely used to provide correction

In contrast, Teacher 2 affirmed that Explicit correction was the most frequently used by her She believed that the other techniques were ineffective; hence, she did not frequently applied in her class

Besides, both teachers confirmed that they often employed Delayed correction

by writing students‟ errors on the board while they were speaking

4.1.2 Discussion

The observation stage illustrated some similarities as well as differences between these two teachers in their practice of spoken error correction Hence, post-observation interviews with teachers were implemented to clarify the reasons why they employed such ETCs in their class

With regard to similarities, the two teacher-participants paid more attention to pronunciation errors Teacher 1 explained that teachers should correct the pronunciation or grammar errors at the initial stages; when students‟ level became more proficient, the word-use errors would be treated As stated by Teacher 2, she determined that pronunciation errors were more frequently treated than the grammar ones because pronunciation normally affected the meaning of the message conveyed Second, the number of correction skipping times is quite big in comparison with the correcting ones; which reflect the fact that the two teachers appeared to be rather tolerant with students‟ spoken errors The result of interviews with teachers shed some light on this issue Both teachers affirmed that they did not try to correct every error of students; alternatively, they would adopt selective correction, which has been developed by language teaching methodologists (e.g., Byrne, 1988; Edge,1989; Raimes, 1983; Ferris, 1999) As revealed in the interview

question number 2 about the criteria that they normally took into consideration

when correcting students‟ oral errors, Teacher 1 emphasized on the elements like objectives of speaking activities (accuracy or fluency), types of errors, learners‟ proficiency She would proceed correcting the students‟ errors more in accuracy activities than fluency ones Additionally, at the initial levels, she directed the correction towards proununciation and grammar errors rather than word-choice ones In response to low proficient learners‟ errors, she avoided over-correcting; in contrast, she gave praises to encourage their learning and confidence As reported

by Teacher2, some factors were normally considered when responding to a spoken error First, only the types of errors which contain learnt knowledge and understandable to students were worth correcting One example she gave as follow:

A student says “I go back to my hometown” In this case, a native speaker may relate “hometown” to the place where one was born, not “my father‟s hometown” as Vietnamese people exactly mean At beginning levels, this error is not necessary to

be corrected Teachers should wait until their students advance to a higher proficiency level to notice the cultural gaps between two countries

(Teacher 2) Additionally, she mentioned that students‟ traits also exerted influence on teachers‟ error correction Students with shyness and unconfidence could receive less correction or even individually after the class; whereas, those who were excited and enthusiastic in class might be corrected more frequently Another impacting factor was students‟ age because some students in in-service classes were at higher age or even older generation than the teacher This is one typical feature of the teaching context at AIS As a young teacher, Teacher 2 was more cautious in giving corrective feedback, which she explained to be due to Vietnamese cultural effects This concern was not mentioned by Teacher 1

In correlation with this, Krashen, 2003, p 6; Morris & Tarone, 2003; Schulz,

2001 affirmed that individual and affective factors have been shown to impac on the effectivenes of error treatment and the influences on these factors should be taken into account in the study of and decisions regarding classroom practices Concerning factors such as anxiety, motivation, and attitude are easy enough to intuit and relate to, but difficult to quantify and have been suggested as factors that affect not only the effectiveness (Dekeyeser, 1993; Krashen, 1994; Sheen, 2008; Truscott, 1999) of error correction but also in teacher selection of correction strategies (Yoshida, 2008), and even whether or not a teacher will choose to correct

a student error (Yoshida, 2008)

Last but not least, delayed correction was widely used, especially at the end of students‟ speech This finding was in line with tearchers‟ sharing in the interviews