VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES NHẠC THANH HƯƠNG CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND UPTAKE PATTERNS IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY SPEAKING LESSONS (HÀNH VI SỬA LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ VIỆC TIẾP NHẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN TRONG GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH) M.A Combined Program Thesis English Methodology Major code: 60 14 10 Hanoi - 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES NHẠC THANH HƯƠNG CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND UPTAKE PATTERNS IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY SPEAKING LESSONS (HÀNH VI SỬA LỖI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ VIỆC TIẾP NHẬN CỦA SINH VIÊN TRONG GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH) M.A Combined Program Thesis English Methodology Major code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Lê Văn Canh, M.A Hanoi - 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Acceptance…………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………… ii Abstract………………………………………………………………………. iii Table of contents……………………………………………………………… v Lists of abbreviations………………………………………………………… viii Lists of tables and figures……………………………………………………. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………….1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study…………………….2 Aims of the study………………………………………………………….3 Scope of the study………………………………………………………… 3 1.5 Methods of the study……………………………………………………… 4 1.6 Significances of the study………………………………………………… 5 1.7 Terminology used in the study…………………………………………….8 Organization of the study…………………………………………………. 7 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 8 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………… 9 2.1 Definition of language errors…………………………………………… 9 2.2 Classification of language errors……………………………………….3 Approaches to error correction………………………………………….2 Teachers‘ corrective feedback…………………………………………….
16 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Definition of teachers‘ corrective feedback…………………………….2 Types of teachers‘ corrective feedback………………………………….4 Issues in second language acquisition…………………………………….4 Studies on corrective feedback in second language acquisition………….2 Data collection instruments……………………………………………….1 Procedures of data collection…………………………………………….2 Procedures of data analysis…………………………………………… 37 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 39 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS…………………………………………………….1 An overview of students and teachers turns……………………………….2 Two research questions…………………………………………………… 44 4.1 What patterns of corrective feedback occur in English speaking lessons 44 for second- year students in Hanoi Law University?.2 To what extent does that corrective feedback lead to students‘ uptake?. 53 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION………………………………………………… 54 Summary………………………………………………………………………. 66 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION……………………………………………….1 Brief summary of the findings…………………………………………….3 Limitation of the study…………………………………………………….4 Suggestions for further studies……………………………………………. 73 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………… 75 APPENDIX Appendix 1…………………………………………………………………… I Appendix 2…………………………………………………………………….
II 7 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS ESL English as second language ELT English Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language L2 Language 2 T1, 2, 3 Teacher 1, 2, 3 Sts Students 8 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Frequency of Turns with Students Error, Teacher Feedback and Student Uptake in 6 English- speaking periods of Pre-intermediate level. Table 2: Frequency of Turns with Students Error, Teacher Feedback and Student Uptake in 6 English- speaking periods of Intermediate level. Table 3: Distribution of Total Corrective Feedback Types (of both pre-intermediate and intermediate level) Table 4: Distribution of Corrective Feedback of Pre-intermediate classes. Table 5: Distribution of Corrective Feedback of Intermediate classes Table 6: Uptake Moves following Different Types of Feedback of both Pre- intermediate and Intermediate levels.
Table 7: Uptake Moves following Different types of Feedback (of Pre-intermediate level) Table 8: Uptake Moves following Different types of Feedback (of Intermediate level) Table 9: Number and Percentage of Feedback Turns leading to Repair Table 10: Number and Percentage of Repair attributed to each Feedback Type Table 11: Distribution of Repairs across Feedback Types and Error Types. Figure 1: The Total for the entire Database of Pre- intermediate level Figure 2: The Total for the entire Database of Intermediate level 9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter introduces the study. It begins with the presentation of the statement of the problem and rationale for the study. Next, it presents the aims and scopes of the study as well as the research questions to which the study seeks to find answers.
This is followed by a brief description of methodology used in the present study. Finally, the chapter concludes with a description of the organization of the thesis.1 Statement of Problem and Rationale for the Study. The impact of corrective feedback on learners‘ L2 acquisition remains controversial in the second language acquisition (SLA) literature. In fact, there has been some polarization of thought regarding the effectiveness of corrective feedback, leading to different or even contradicting theories.
For example, DeKeyser (1993) states that corrective feedback is unnecessary to L2 learning. In other words, corrective feedback does not lead to the acquisition of L2. However, scholars such as Brooks, Schraw, and Crippen (2002) and Mason and Bruning (2000), for example, disagree with DeKeyser, holding that feedback plays an important and crucial role in the language learning process. Recently, there has been increasing empirical evidence that corrective feedback provided by teachers at least enables students to notice the gap between their inter- language forms and the target language forms, thus helping them to restructure the inter-language grammar.
Additionally, corrective feedback from teachers also helps enhance students' meta- linguistic awareness (Panova and Lyster, 2002). Therefore, teachers' corrective feedback is of great importance in promoting student- generated repairs and in turn, language acquisition. A literature review shows that researchers have been increasingly interested in examining the relationship between corrective feedback and uptake (Wai King Tsang, 2004). For example, negotiation of form has been shown to be able to elicit uptake and successful repair more effectively than 10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com explicit correction.
Also it has shown that different types of feedback moves tend to function differentially according to different types of errors. One issue related to corrective feedback, which has gained little agreement among researchers and scholars is which type of feedback, i., explicit or implicit, is more effective to learners‘ uptake. For example, Carrol and Swain (1993) have suggested that learners would benefit more from direct, explicit corrective feedback, whereas other researchers, such as Lyster and Ranta (1997), Oliver (2000) and Oliver and Mackey (2003) suggest that learners learn better, when the feedback is more implicit. It can be interpreted that while consensus has been reached regarding the effectiveness of corrective feedback on students‘ L2 acquisition, whether explicit or implicit corrective feedback is more effective remains open.
This has led to confusion at the practical level. As Lyster and Ranta (1997) points out that ―because of so many different approaches to feedback, second language teachers have trouble finding research that addresses practical issues of corrective feedback‖ (p. One of the research gaps regarding corrective feedback is that the majority of research on feedback on second language classrooms has been conducted either in the context of immersion programs (Lyster, 1998; Lyster & Ranta, 1997) or in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms (Fanselow, 1977; Lyster & Panova, 2002). Unfortunately, few of any studies have been conducted at the University level.
In other words, little has been known about how adolescent EFL learners respond to different kinds of teachers‘ corrective feedback. The situation is similar in Vietnam, where this research avenue seems to be unattractive to researchers. Despite the efforts made by the researcher of this study, she was unable to identify any documented study on the relationship between teachers‘ corrective feedback and learners‘ uptake which is conducted on Vietnamese university EFL students. This motivates the researcher to carry out the present study, which is an expansion of the one she conducted previously in a high school context.
The study 11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com focused on the correlation between teachers‘ corrective feedback and learners‘ uptake in speaking lessons. The number of participants was rather small as it focused only one level: elementary level, thus, the results, to some extent, could not reflect the behavior of a larger population at different levels. For all those reasons, this study is a modest attempt to contribute to the common knowledge of the impact of corrective feedback on learners‘ L2 acquisition. It also attempts to narrow the research gap in this area.2 Aims of Study This research aims to: Find out the patterns of teachers' corrective feedback and learners' uptake in English speaking lessons for second- year students in Hanoi Law University.
Examine the relationship between different kinds of teachers' corrective feedback and learners' uptake, so as to inform teachers of English in the context of Vietnamese university classrooms of how to enhance the effect of their corrective feedback. Identify the same and differences in the use of corrective feedback at two different levels.3 Scopes of the Study This study limits itself to the exploration of the types of corrective feedback that were commonly used by the teachers in the study and the relationship between different corrective feedback types on students' oral errors. Thus, teachers' feedback on students' written errors is beyond the scope of this study. Given the scope of the study, data for this study were collected from the observations of English speaking lessons taught to the second year students of pre- intermediate and intermediate levels at Hanoi Law University.
12 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research Questions This study focused on (a) subsequent language teacher feedback to student errors and (b) learner uptake patterns (learner responses to feedback) at University level. Comprehensive observations of corrective feedback to students and the students‘ subsequent uptake in English language classroom were conducted to determine answers to the two following research questions: What patterns of corrective feedback are observed in English speaking lessons for second- year students taught by the teachers in an EFL context of Hanoi Law University? To what extent does that corrective feedback lead to students‘ uptake? And one sub- research question What are the differences in the use corrective feedback in English speaking classes of two levels: pre- intermediate and intermediate 1. Methods of the Study This is a quantitative study.
Classroom observation was employed as the sole instrument of data collection. Data were then analyzed by means of descriptive statistics to identify the patterns of corrective feedback employed by the observed teachers. Participants in this study are four teachers. Two of them were teaching English at pre- intermediate classes and the other two were teaching at intermediate classes from Hanoi Law University were selected for observation.
Each teacher was observed in three periods. 13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.6 Significance of the Study Feedback is a necessary part of every learning process. Feedback provides students with the information on their performance and learning progress. Therefore, it is very important to know the feedback types that lead to more effective learning, especially in the secondary foreign language classroom.
The literature review demonstrated that there are many contradictory views on the issue of feedback provision. As a result, there is still no agreement between researchers on which type language feedback is more effective in terms of language learning. Moreover, there is also no information regarding feedback effectiveness in relationship to students‘ language development. The study was conducted to find out whether there was a correspondence between and the extent to which teachers‘ oral corrective feedback led to students‘ uptake depending on types of errors that students made.
This information should be useful to foreign language teachers as they develop practical feedback classroom strategies because Lyster and Ranta (1997) noted that ―because of so many different approaches to feedback, second language teachers have trouble finding research that addresses practical issues of corrective feedback‖ (p. Particularly, it offers teachers of English a number of important pedagogical implications in terms of error treatment. Specifically, teachers can be informed about the effects of different corrective feedback patterns, based on which they can choose the ones that suit their students‘ levels and work for the types of errors that these students make.7 Terminology Used in the Study 1. Second Language (L2) (language that is learned by a student which is different from the first language) 14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.