The Relationship between learners` oral errors and teachers` corrective feedback in three EFL classes

Abstract

ABSTRACT Citle: The relationship between learners' oral errors and teachers* corrective feedback in three EFL classes Uithor: Ismail Hakka. Erten Thesis Chairperson; Dr. Ruth A. Yontz, Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program Thesis Committee Members: Ms. Patricia Brenner, Dr. Linda Laube, Bilkent University, MA TEFL Program This study sought to provide a description of how EFL students ' oral îrrors are treated by three EFL teachers. This study had four research fuestions. Three EFL teachers (from BUSEL, Bilkent University School of înglish) participated in this study. Two lessons of each teacher were recorded and analyzed using Chaudron's (1988) taxonomy of corrective feedback types and Chaudron's (1986) definitions of error types. Frequen ces were tabulated for feedback types and error types. The first research question was how frequently and which oral errors »f learners are corrected. The data revealed that the three teachers lorrected 57% of the total oral errors. Of these errors, 88% were content irrors, 86% were discourse errors, 64% were lexical errors, 46% were inguistic errors, and 25% were phonological errors. The second research question was what types of corrective feedback re used by EFL teachers. The data showed that the three teachers used ighteen types of feedback: 'ignore', 'acceptance', 'delay', 'provide', loop', 'interrupt', 'questions', 'attention', 'explanation', 'negation', repetition with change', 'complex explanation', 'prompt', 'transfer', repetition with no change', 'emphasis', 'repeat', and 'exit'. The third research question investigated the relationship between rror types and corrective feedback types. A simple calculation of requencies of feedback types for corrected errors revealed that phonologi- al errors were responded to mostly with the type 'provide' (71%). The eachers also tended to prefer using the type 'provide' for discourse rrors (46%). Teachers used the feedback type 'delay' as most frequently or linguistic and lexical errors, 27% and 44% respectively. However, no ominant preference for any feedback type was found for treating content rrors. The fourth research question sought to find the differences between ıe three teachers in correcting errors. Three teachers tended to correct Lfferent amounts of errors, though two of the teachers corrected similaramounts of errors. The teachers corrected 50%, 55%, and 66% of total oral srrors. For feedback types teachers did not show great differences, they all used the feedback types 'ignore', ' acceptance ', 'delay', 'provide*, and 'loop' most frequently. Only teacher B used the type 'explanation' more frequently than the other teachers. There also appeared differences in the teachers' feedback type preferences for certain types of error. The three teachers used different feedback types for content errors; teacher A used the type 'negation' (27%), teacher B used the type 'questions' ( 25%), and teacher C used the types 'delay' (33%) and 'attention' (20%). For dis course errors, teacher A and B used the type 'provide' most frequently but teacher C used the types 'negation' and 'loop' most frequently. No major difference was found in three teachers' feedback preferences for other types of error.