Corrective Feedback and Learner Uptake

Negotiation of Form in Communicative Classrooms

Roy Lyster & Leila Ranta1997

Things to discuss concerning error treatment in the classroom…

• Should learners’ errors be corrected?• When should learners’ errors be corrected?• Which errors should be corrected?• How should errors be corrected?• Who should do the correcting?

---No clear answer to any of these questions

“This review of existing studies concerning error treatment in communicative language teaching

provides a sketchy picture at best.”(Lyster & Ranta 1997)

So Lyster & Ranta proposed a study whose purpose was:

•To develop an analytical model comprising the various moves in an error treatment sequence in L2 classrooms.

•To apply the model to a database of interaction in four primary-level French immersion classrooms with a view to documenting the frequency and distribution of corrective feedback in relation to learner uptake, that is, student responses to corrective feedback.

Some Definitions

• Negotiation of meaning – exchanges between learners and interlocutors as they attempt to resolve communication breakdowns and to work toward mutual comprehension

• Negotiation of form – corrective feedback that encourages self-repair involving accuracy and precision and not merely comprehensibility

• Error Treatment Sequence – the main unit of analysis in this study. A series of either/or options that constitute the handling of errors in a classroom

• Uptake – student’s utterance that immediately follows the teacher’s feedback and that reacts in some way to the teacher’s attempt to draw attention to the original utterance. There are two types: uptake resulting in “repair” of the utterance, and uptake resulting in utterances that still need repair (“needs-repair”)

• Repair (Other-Initiated Repair) – the correct reformulation of utterances in a single-student turn that is not self-initiated

• Reinforcement – short statements of approval often including metalinguistic feedback

Error Treatment Sequence

Types of Corrective Feedback Analyzed1. Explicit correction – the explicit provision of the correct form (“Oh,

you mean…” “You should say…”2. Recast – reformulation by the teacher of the student’s utterance,

minus the error.3. Clarification Request – indicates that the student’s utterance was

misunderstood by the teacher or that the utterance is ill-formed in some way (can refer to either problems in accuracy or comprehensibility, or both)

4. Metalinguistic Feedback – contains either comments, information or questions related to the well-formedness of the student’s utterance without explicitly providing the correct form (“Can you find your error?”) Points to the nature of the error but attempts to elicit the information from the student

5. Elicitation – strategic pauses to allow students to fill in the blanks, questions to elicit correct forms (not yes/no), or asking students to reformulate utterances

6. Repetition – repetition to isolate student’s utterance, with changes in tone or inflection to highlight the error

Types of Other-Initiated Repair1. Repetition – repetition of teacher’s feedback when

feedback includes the correct form2. Incorporation – repetition of teacher’s correct form,

which is then incorporated into a longer utterance by the student

3. Self-repair – self-correction produced by the student in response to teacher’s feedback when feedback does not include the correct form

4. Peer-repair – peer correction provided by a student other

than the one who made the error

The study• The immersion classroom is an ideal location for the study of L2 language

learning

• Four 4thgrade French Immersion Classes Were Studied (3, 4thgrade classes plus one combined 4th and 5th grade class).

• One of the four classes was from School Board A, in which students since the 1st grade are taught primarily in French, with one hour of English per day.

• The other three were from School Board B, in which students from 1st to 3rd grade are taught primarily in English, with a one-hour French lesson per day. From the 4th grade on, students are exposed to 60% French and 40% English.

• Teachers are identified as T3, T4, T5, &T6

• Microphones were placed about the classrooms, including one on each teacher, in order to record student/teacher interaction.

Research Questions

• What are the different types of corrective feedback and their distribution in communicatively oriented classrooms?

• What is the distribution of uptake following different types of corrective feedback?

• What combinations of corrective feedback and learner uptake constitute the negotiation of form?

In approximately 34% of the student turns, there were errors. Feedback after these errors was observed approximately 62% of the time.

Types of L2 Learner Error

• L1• Gender• Grammatical• Lexical• Phonological• Multiple

Feedback

• Explicit Correction• Recasts• Clarification Requests• Metalinguistic Feedback• Elicitation• Repetitions

Uptake

• As used by Lyster and Ranta, refers to student utterances immediately after teacher feedback. (Examples of later of the below.)

Repair

• Repetition• Incorporation• Self-repair• Peer Repair

Needs Repair

• Acknowledgement• Same Error• Different Error• Off Target• Hesitation• Partial Repair

Research Questions

• What are the different types of corrective feedback and their distribution in communicatively oriented classrooms?

• What is the distribution of uptake following different types of corrective feedback?

• What combinations of corrective feedback and learner uptake constitute the negotiation of form?

Answers to Research Questions

• What are the different types of corrective feedback and their distribution in communicatively oriented classrooms?

• Recasts (55%)• Elicitation (14%)• Clarification Requests (11%)• Metalinguistic Feedback (8%)• Explicit Correction (7%)• Repetition of Error (5%)

• What is the distribution of uptake following different types of corrective feedback?

– After recasting, 31%*– After Explicit Correction, 50%– After Repetition, 78%– After Metalinguistic Feedback, 86%– After Clarification Requests, 88%– After Elicitation, 100%

*In spite of the recast being the least likely to lead to uptake, it is the most likely form of corrective feedback to be employed.

What combinations of corrective feedback and learner uptake constitute the negotiation of form?

Must prompt more than a student’s repetition of a teacher’s utterance…

• Clarification Requests prompted student-generated repair 27% of the time.

• Repetition prompted student-generated repair 31% of the time.

• Elicitation prompted student-generated repair 45% of the time.

• Metalinguistic Feedback prompted student-generated repair 46% of the time.

“The feedback-uptake sequence engages students more actively when there is negotiation of form, that is, when the correct form is not provided to the students—as it is in recasts and explicit correction—and when signals are provided to the learner that assist in the reformulation of the erroneous utterance.” (Lyster & Ranta)