The role of feedback in adult second language acquisition: Error correction and morphological generalizations

Abstract

This study looked at the effects of feedback (explicit correction) on the learning of morphological generalizations in an experimental setting. Subjects were 79 adult native speakers of English with intermediate (39) and advanced (40) levels of proficiency in French. All subjects were individually trained on two rules of French suffixation. Experimental subjects received correction if they gave erroneous responses to stimuli in a "feedback" session. Afterward, all subjects "guessed" responses to novel stimuli and were retested (twice) on the feedback items. Comparison subjects dealt with the same stimuli but were never corrected. Analyses of feedback responses indicated differences in favor of the experimental groups, but comparisons of guessing responses between experimental and comparison groups showed no evidence of learned generalizations. The learning of absolute exceptions was more likely among advanced learners.The subject of feedback and its role in language acquisition has recently undergone a revival in interest. In the heyday of behaviorism, there were numerous studies of correction as a form of behavioral conditioning. With the advent of information-processing theories of mind, correction was discussed in terms of "feedback," and the latter term stuck. The focus of much of this information-processing research covers nonlinguistic learning, however. There is, for example, an extensive literature on feedback and its effects on memory for content (see the reviews in Kulhavy, 1977, andLysakowski &Walberg, 1982). By "content" we mean the information expressed by language or the propositional content of sentences. (Therefore,

Implicit and Explicit Corrective Feedback and the Acquisition of L2 Grammar

“…provided reviews of the research on recasts+ In general, the recast studies demonstrated that implicit feedback of this kind can have a beneficial effect on acquisition, especially when the recasts are more explicit in nature~as in Doughty & Varela, 1998!+ Other studies demonstrated that explicit feedback is of value+ Carroll, Roberge, and Swain~1992!, for example, found that a group that received explicit corrective feedback directed at two complex French noun suffixes~-age and -ment! outperformed a group that received no feedback, although no generalization of learning to nouns not presented during the treatment occurred+ Thus, the recast and explicit feedback studies demonstrated that both types of feedback can be effective+ Table 1 summarizes 11 studies that have compared implicit and explicit corrective feedback+ It is not easy to come to clear conclusions about what these studies reveal due to a number of factors+ First, whereas some of the studies are experimental in nature~e+g+, Carroll, 2001;Carroll & Swain, 1993;Lyster, 2004;Rosa & Leow, 2004!, others are not~e+g+, DeKeyser, 1993Havranek & Cesnik, 2003!, as this second group of researchers investigated corrective feedback through post hoc analyses of normal classroom lessons+ Second, the studies vary in terms of whether they involved laboratory, classroom, or computer-based interaction+ Third, the nature of the treatment activities performed by the learners in these studies differed considerably+ In some cases, the activities involved fairly mechanical exercises~e+g+, Nagata, 1993!, in others they involved communicative tasks~e+g+, Leeman, 2003Muranoi, 2000;Rosa & Leow!, and in others they involved a mixture of the two~DeKeyser!+ Fourth, the treatment also differed in terms of whether it …”

“…or input processing~Rosa & Leow; Sanz, 2003!+ Fifth, the studies vary considerably in how they operationalized implicit and explicit feedback+ Given the importance of this variable, it is discussed in greater detail later in this section+ Sixth, variation is evident in how learning was measured: Some studies utilized metalinguistic judgments~e+g+, Muranoi!, selected response, or constrained constructed response formats~e+g+, Havranek & Cesnik; Rosa & Leow!, all of which might be considered to favor the application of explicit knowledge, whereas others opted for a free constructed response format~e+g+, Leeman!, which is more likely to tap implicit knowledge+ Finally, the studies differ in another important respect: Some included an explicit explanation of the grammatical target prior to the practice activity~e+g+, Lyster; Muranoi!, whereas others did not e+g+, Leeman; Sanz!+ These differences in design reflect the different purposes of the studies, not all of which were expressly intended to compare implicit and explicit corrective feedback+ Implicit feedback in these studies has typically taken the form of recasts Carroll, 2001;Carroll & Swain, 1993;Kim & Mathes, 2001;Leeman, 2003;Lyster, 2004!+ However, Muranoi~2000! employed both recasts and requests for repetition+ Sanz~2003!…”

Analysis and classification of errors when shifting from general English to ESP teaching at University (the case of legal translation)

“…Researchers look into such matters as different types of correction, general issues related to correction (Chandler, 2003;Chaudron, 1986;James, 1998;Truscott & Hsu, 2008;Zybert, 1999), substantiation of positive approach to language mistakes, (Bartram & Walton, 1991), implicit and explicit corrective feedback (Ellis, Loewen & Erlam, 2006), oral and written corrective feedback (Bitchener & Knoch, 2010;Ellis, 2010), prompts and recasts (Ammar, 2008), errors as indicators of the development of interlanguage (Arabski, 1979), feedback in adult second language acquisition (Carrol, Swain & Roberge, 1992), individual differences in second language learning and difficulties caused by them (Ellis, 2004), modelling learning difficulties (Ellis, 2006), analysing learner language (Ellis & Barkhuizen, 2005), the short-and long-term effects of written error correction (Ferris, 2006), effects of proficiency differences and patterns of pair interaction on second language learning (Watanabe & Swain, 2007).…”

Corrective Feedback Interventions and EFL Learners’ Pronunciation: A Case of –s or –es Ending Words

“…The issues discussed include when, which, and how errors should be corrected, as well as whether learners' errors should be corrected at all. Among the examined issues, the question of whether learners should be corrected has been investigated in studies such as Carroll, Roberge, and Swain (1992) and Carroll and Swain (1993), both of which dealt with the provision of corrective feedback on certain linguistic forms, in a controlled experimental setting. The study of Carroll et al (1992) examined adult French learners who were trained in use of French suffixation rules and given feedback on their misuse.…”

“…Among the examined issues, the question of whether learners should be corrected has been investigated in studies such as Carroll, Roberge, and Swain (1992) and Carroll and Swain (1993), both of which dealt with the provision of corrective feedback on certain linguistic forms, in a controlled experimental setting. The study of Carroll et al (1992) examined adult French learners who were trained in use of French suffixation rules and given feedback on their misuse. Carroll and Swain (1993), on the other hand, investigated adult English learners who were given different kinds of feedback while learning the English dative alternation rule.…”