Oral Corrective Feedback on Grammatical Errors: An Analysis of Learner Beliefs, Teacher Beliefs, and Classroom Practices


Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Gazi University, Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Department Of English Language Teaching , Turkey

Approval Date: 2021

Thesis Language: English

Student: SEDA CAN

Supervisor: Cemal Çakır

Abstract:

With the increasing importance of language teaching, questions about teacher practices in this field and their effectiveness are increasing. Although teachers are expected to act under the influence of their personal beliefs while performing their profession, a study conducted by Baştürkmen, Loewen, and Ellis (2004) revealed that there are differences between teachers' professional practices and beliefs recently. One of the most controversial issues in language teaching is error correction. Error correction can be made in oral and written forms. Oral Corrective Feedback (OCF) is preferred for grammatical errors made by students during the lesson, especially during speaking activities and exercises related to the grammar topic learned. There are six different types of OCF. These have been classified in the literature as ‘elicitation’, ‘recast’, ‘explicit correction’, ‘metalinguistic feedback’, ‘repetition’ and ‘clarification request’ (Lyster & Ranta, 1997) and teachers' beliefs about which one is more comprehendible or more effective for the students has been investigated many times. In addition, students' beliefs about the OCF given to them for error correction in the classroom is also important in terms of whether these feedbacks are effective in error correction, and for this reason, it also has been the subject of research. Unlike studies that have so far only examined teacher beliefs or student beliefs, this study is important because it analyzes and compares both teacher beliefs and practices; and student beliefs together with the uptake rate and type of each feedback. For this study, the opinions and practices of students in five different classes who receive English education at the beginner level (A1) in a preparatory program of a foundation university and the opinions of five instructors who teach English in these classes were examined. The video recordings of five lessons taught by the instructors with their classes were collected and analyzed, and then the instructors and students were asked to fill in a survey to measure their beliefs about OCF. The video-recordings and the answers given in the surveys were examined and compared with the content analysis method, and the relationship between these two was revealed. According to the results of the research, the types of OCF that the instructors found most useful for their students were recast and metalinguistic feedback, and the most frequently used ones were recast and elicitation. Thus, it is possible to talk about partial match between the beliefs and practices of instructors. Student beliefs analysis showed that students found recast and elicitation more helpful to them with their grammar errors. However, elicitation and explicit correction were the types of OCF with the highest uptake rate and this result shows partial match between student beliefs and uptake rate.

Key words : Error, Grammar Errors, Oral Corrective Feedback, Beliefs, Teacher Practices, Uptake.