what is the relationship between teachers’ different corrective feedback types and students uptake and repair

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This initial chapter states the problem and the rationale of the study,
together with the aims, objectives, scope, methods and the significance of the
whole paper. Above all, it is in this chapter that the research questions are set
out to work as the guidelines for the whole research.
1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
The requirements of English teaching-learning to meet communicative
needs in real life have made traditional teaching methods, whose objectives
are the acquisition of grammar and vocabulary, gradually give way to
communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. In the light of CLT,
“learners need to develop the ability to use the language they are learning
appropriately in a given social encounter.” (Hymes, 1972) This approach, in
recent years, has been applied in Vietnam.
In the past, a perfect lesson would be a lesson without students’ mistakes.
“Instead of correcting the student, the teacher would say: “Sit down” in a
disciplinary way or walk away from the student who had made a mistake.”
(Nguyen, B., Bui, L.C., Truong, V.D., Ho, T.M.H., Nguyen, H., Bao, K. et al.,
2003). In contrast, in the communicative approach, making errors is a
necessary and natural process of language teaching. Also, correction is an
integral part of the lesson. Therefore, it is important for teachers to give
corrective feedback on students’ errors.
Researchers have shown that teachers’ corrective feedback enables
students to notice the gap between their interlanguage forms and the target
language forms. (Schmidt & Frota, 1986). Additionally, corrective feedback
from teachers also leads to the enhancement of learners’ metalinguistic
1
awareness (Swain, 1995). Besides, it helps increase motivation and builds a
supportive classroom climate.
For first-year students, majoring in English, at University of Language
and International Studies (ULIS), who were too familiar with the Grammar-
Translation teaching method at secondary schools, speaking skill is considered

to be the most challenging one. They encounter many difficulties in
communication process, such as mispronouncing, using words out of context,
or making syntax errors. Thus, teachers’ corrective feedback plays an
indispensable role in helping freshmen to improve their speaking skills.
However, the issue of corrective feedback provision still remains a
sophisticated one because on the one hand, most students want and expect the
teacher to give them corrective feedback on their performance (Harmer,
2001). On the other hand, students of high self-esteem are easily demotivated
by teachers’ straightforward error correction. Moreover, corrective feedback
may intervene in the flow of students’ ideas. Hence, it would be helpful for
teachers to find out students’ preferences and attitudes to corrective feedback
so that they can make the right decisions about when to correct, what to
correct, or which type of corrective feedback to be used in response to
particular types of error and so on.
Although the topic of teachers’ corrective feedback has been widely
researched by different scholars worldwide and starts to be paid attention to in
Vietnam, not many studies have been done concerning both the situation of
teachers’ corrective feedback provision and students’ attitudes. Also, first-year
students (who initially entered university with a big leap from the way they
are used to study in high schools and the more independent way of study they
are expected to follow at universities) seems to receive less consideration in
previous research.
2
All those reasons stimulate the researcher to conduct a study on teachers’
corrective feedback to first-year students in English speaking lessons at
English Department (ED), ULIS in the hope that it will make a contribution to
the field it is envisioned and fill the gaps in former research.
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
First of all, the study sets out to explore the current situation of teachers’
giving corrective feedback to first-year students at ED, ULIS in English

speaking lessons, including when to correct, what to correct, the frequency of
different corrective feedback types used and choice of corrective feedback
types in response to different types of error. Secondly, the relationship
between teachers’ corrective feedback types and students’ uptake and repair is
given a close look to examine which types lead to the most amount of
students’ uptake and repair. Additionally, students’ attitudes to the way the
teacher gives corrective feedback and preferences for the particular type of
corrective feedback in accordance with the particular type of error are taken
into consideration, paving the way for several pedagogical implications to
enhance the efficacy of teachers’ corrective feedback on students’ errors.
In particular, the research paper seeks the answers to the following
research question: What is the relationship between teachers’ different
corrective feedback types and students’ uptake and repair? This question is
broken down into three sub-questions:
1. In what ways do teachers give corrective feedback to first-year students
in English speaking lessons?
2. What are students’ attitudes towards and preferences of teachers’
giving corrective feedback?
3. Which types of corrective feedback lead to most uptake and repair?
1.3. Scope of the study
3
There are different kinds of teachers’ feedback, such as oral versus
written feedback, evaluative versus descriptive feedback, or corrective,
motivational, and reinforcing feedback. However, within the scope of a
research paper and due to the time limitation, this study just focuses on
teachers’ oral corrective feedback in speaking lessons for first-year
mainstream students.
Teachers of the First-year Division and first-year mainstream students at
ED, ULIS are the samples, whose participation would be of great contribution
to the accomplishment of the study.

1.4. Methods of the study (phần 1.4, 1.5 và 1.6 em viết thêm so với bản
Proposal)
1.4.1. Data collection methods
This study employed the triangulation method of questionnaires,
observation and retrospective interviews to attain the best exploitation of data.
Specifically, two sets of questionnaires are used for students and
teachers.
For teachers: Survey questionnaires are employed to investigate the
ways teachers give corrective feedback to their students in speaking lessons,
and why they correct errors in those ways. This data would shed the light on
the relationship between teachers’ view on error correction and the real types
of correction they use. This kind of information would help the researcher get
more ideas for the discussion.
For students: Survey questionnaires would be delivered to 5 classes of
first-year students to seek information about students’ perception of and
attitudes towards the ways teachers give corrective feedback in speaking
lessons.
4
In addition, classroom observation would be used to cross-check the
questionnaire data, since a combination of different sources of data would help
reduce bias. 5 classroom observations are conducted in 5 classes of first-year
students to seek information about the current situation of teachers’ corrective
feedback and students’ uptake and repair in speaking lessons.
Finally, 10 students among those who have been given teachers’ oral
corrective feedback in 5 observed lessons (2 students from each observed
lesson) would take part in the retrospective interview. This instrument is used
to find out students’ attitudes when they are given corrective feedback,
students’ assessment of the success of teachers’ corrective feedback (which
will be used for discussion). Retrospective interview also clarifies any unclear
or unobtainable details via classroom observations.

1.4.2. Data analysis methods
First, the collected data would be classified to answer the three research
questions. The first and the last questions are expected to be solved by
analyzing the data gathered from survey questionnaires and classroom
observations while the data gathered from students’ survey questionnaires and
retrospective interviews would seek the answer to the second question. The
synthesis of all the findings would help draw pedagogical recommendations.
After that, for each question, the data would be analyzed in categories,
tables in which statistics such as percentage and frequency counts are
calculated. The especially important data from interviews are cited when
necessary to illustrate the data analysis.
1.5. Significance of the study
The study is conducted to find out the relationship between teachers’
corrective feedback types and students’ uptake and repairs. Hopefully, it
would make a contribution to the field that it is envisioned. As for teachers of
5
English, the paper would provide them with useful pedagogical suggestions
related to error treatments, including who, when and what to correct. Also, it
would reveal to them which types of corrective feedback to use according to
students’ levels in order to lead to the greatest amount of uptake and repair.
Regarding researchers, who share the same interest in the topic, they could
rely on this paper to get useful information for their future studies.
1.6. An overview of the rest of the paper
The rest of the paper includes four following chapters:
Chapter 2 (Literature Review) provides the background of the study
including definitions of key concepts, objectives of teaching speaking skill for
first-year students in English Department, HULIS, VNU and discussions of
related studies.
Chapter 3 (Methodology) describes the selection of participants, data
collection instruments and the procedures employed to conduct the research.

Chapter 4 (Results and discussion) presents, analyzes and discusses the
findings the researcher found out according to three research questions.
Chapter 5 (Conclusion) summarizes the main issues discussed in the
paper, provides some pedagogical implications and points out the limitations
of the research as well as proposes several suggestions for further studies.
Following this chapter are the References and Appendices.
6
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Key concepts
2.1.1. An overview of speaking skill
2.1.1.1. Definition of speaking skill
There have been various ways of defining speaking skill. According to
Chaney (1998, p.13), speaking is “the process of building and sharing
meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of
contexts.” This definition shows that speaking covers both verbal and non-
verbal messages. In language teaching, Nunan (2003) (as cited in Brown &
Nation, 1997) puts it that “speaking is the productive oral skill. It consists of
producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning” (as cited in Brown
& Nation, 1997). Whereas Chaney considers speaking as a natural process of
human beings, Nunan approaches it as a skill which is the deliberate practice
through real-life experiences that users have. This study, which aims at
investigating the speaking practice of students in terms of language skills,
adopts Nunan’s definition.
2.1.1.2. Elements of speaking skill
According to Bygate (1987), speaking requires encoding communicative
intent often in the ‘here and now’. This is because of time-constraint and
conditions inherent in listener-speaker situations. There is also the need to
handle unpredictability of listener response. Hence, spoken language
proficiency involves being able to produce accurately and fluently,
autonomous utterances which are appropriate to the context of the speech

situation.
7
Accuracy refers to the use of correct forms where utterances do not
contain errors affecting the phonological, syntactic, semantic or discourse
features of a language (Bryne, 1988).
Fluency may be defined as the ability to get across communicative intent
without too much hesitation and too many pauses to cause barriers or a
breakdown in communication (Crystal, 1977; Bryne, 1988 & Nation, 1991).
In language teaching and learning, there is no dining that fact that both
accuracy and fluency are essential in language learning. Depended on the
classroom objectives and tasks, there may be more focus on accuracy than
fluency or vice versa.
2.1.2. Speaking errors
2.1.2.1. Definition of errors
The term “error” is used in a variety of ways in linguistics and language
teaching theory.
In the early 1970s, research into “error” has demonstrated that learner
errors indicate both the state of the learner’s knowledge and of the ways in
which the second language is being learned. “Error” in English language
teaching is a mark of a learner’s transitional competence as distinct from
“mistake” or performance error (Corder, 1967) (as cited in Burt, 1975). In this
way, errors arise because the correct form or use of a target item is not part of
a speaker’s competence, whereas mistakes arise (for reasons of fatigue, stress,
inattention) even though the correct form or use is part of the user’s
competence.
Another distinction between mistakes and errors, based on Snow (1977),
depends on whether learners know they do something wrong and can fix it or
not. From his viewpoint, errors occur when learners produce something wrong
8
without knowing it or even they might know about it, they can not make it

right.
In this study, an error is defined according to Snow (1977). Like
language errors, speaking errors occur when speakers do not know about them
or can not repair even being aware of errors. In short, as a kind of spoken
language, errors can be simply understood as “faults made by speakers during
the production of sounds, words and sentences.” (Richard and Platt, 1992)
2.1.2.2. Causes of errors
Many reasons why learners make errors have been pointed out by
linguistic scholars as well as language experts worldwide. Within this study,
four most typical causes of errors are mentioned.
 Inter-lingual interference
There always exist some similarities between the mother tongue and the
target language. For the similar part, the learner may transfer concepts from
the mother tongue into the target language (Wang, 2000). But there also exists
some diversities between them, so when the learners feel he could express in
the equivalent way, he falls into pitfalls.
For example: Our class has twenty boys and ten girls.
Such sentences appear frequently owing to the influence of Vietnamese
word order, which in English should be: There are twenty boys and ten girls in
our class.
 Intra-lingual interference
Intra-lingual interference comes from the target language itself (Wang,
2000). When a learner has already known some grammar rules about that
language, some knowledge learned earlier will have certain effects on his
further study.
For example: He buyed a picture.
9
Here, the speaker has already understood the past tense and verbal
inflection in English, but he follows the general way to add “ed” to the verb
“buy”.

 Undevelopmental readiness
According to Ellis (1994) (as cited in Burt, 1975), there are different
stages in the process a foreign language perceives the language. Thus, when
one is forced to produce an utterance that they are not yet developmentally
ready for, they are likely to make errors.
 Fossilization
The term “fossilization” is used when describing “the process by which
non-target forms become fixed in interlanguage.”(Ellis, 1994, as cited in Burt,
1975) More specifically, even after extended exposure to or instruction in the
target language, errors seem to be permanent in the learner’s second language.
(Elson, 2004) The fossilization may be due to the lack of corrective feedback
when there should have been some. The willingness of the teacher to let errors
go uncorrected may cause the persistence, an eventually, fossilization of such
errors.
2.1.2.3. Classification of errors
Errors can be classified in different ways based on the nature of such
classification and the purpose of the author.
With regard to the effects of errors, Burt (1975) divided errors into two
types: global and local errors. Global errors are errors that significantly hinder
communication are those that affect overall sentence organization. Local
errors are errors that affect single elements (constituents) in a sentence do not
usually hinder communication significantly, such as errors in noun and verb
inflections, articles, auxiliaries and the formation of quantifiers. In other
words, global errors - those that affect overall sentence organization - cause
10
the listener to misinterpret the speaker’s message, while local errors - those
that are limited to a single part of the sentence - rarely affect the
communication of a verbal message.
Concerning linguistics, Suzuki (2006) analyzed three types of errors:
grammatical errors, lexical errors, and phonological errors.

• Grammatical errors were non-target like use of determiners,
prepositions, pronouns, number agreement, tense, verb morphology, and
auxiliaries. Additionally, errors in pluralization, negation, question formation,
and word order were considered as grammatical errors.
• Lexical errors included inaccurate use of nouns, verbs, adverbs,
and adjectives, in the sense of open classes, or word groups whose
membership is in principle indefinite or unlimited (Crystal, 1991). For
example, an error such as “one people” was considered a grammatical error
where the noun “people” was a misuse of the noun person, because this error
resulted from number agreement between an adjective and a noun. The
number agreement error was in the grammatical category rather than in the
lexical category. However, an error such as “her mother gave birth to one
people” was counted as a lexical error, since the error is not about
grammatical number agreement of one to people but rather about
inappropriate lexical choice of people for baby/boy/girl.
• Phonological errors refer to the wrong ways of pronouncing a
single word, of using word stress, sentence intonation and other phonological
matters such as linking, elision, and assimilation that often led to difficulty of
comprehension of the target words. In case that mispronounced words were
comprehensible to the teacher, the words were still considered to have
phonological errors when the words were given corrective feedback.
11
For Edge (1989), based on the functions and significance in
communication, errors are categorized into “errors of meaning” and “error of
form”. In his view, the former is more important because it leads to a
misunderstanding and affects meaning and communication. Specifically, the
“errors of meaning” are ones that occur:
• When a speaker uses a correct piece of language (linguistic form)
that doesn’t mean what the speaker wanted to mean;
• When the speaker uses a correct linguistic form which is socially

unacceptable – the big problem here being one of politeness. (p.4)
Whereas the errors of meaning are likely to occur in fluency stage, the
errors of form often emerge in accuracy one.
In the context of language teaching and learning of this study, the
researcher adopts the two theories of classification of errors by both Edge
(1989) and Suzuki (2006) as the guideline for further development.
Figure 1: Classification of errors
2.1.3. Teachers’ corrective feedback
2.1.3.1. Definition
12
Classification of
errors
Errors of meaning Errors of form
Grammatical
errors
Lexical errors
Phonological
errors
The feedback as described by Schachter (1983) (as cited in Idjraoui,
2004) is a “nutritional need” for the language learners and is thus seen as an
important element in any second language as well as foreign language
acquisition class. Corrective feedback can be explained by the term “negative
evidence”, which Gass (2003) roughly defines as implicit or explicit
information afforded learners regarding their erroneous utterances. The
information provided, in other words, is either directly or indirectly stating
that something is wrong with the learner’s utterance.
This study adopts Chaudron’s (1977) (as cited in Zhao, 1994) definition:
“corrective feedback refers to any reaction of the teacher which clearly
transforms, disapprovingly refers to, or demands improvement of the learner
utterance.”

For most learners, the use of corrective feedback may constitute the most
potent source of improvement in target language development (Chaudron,
1988) (as cited in Zhao, 1994). For them, learning in the classroom with no
corrective feedback resembles talking to a mute listener in a natural
conversation, or receiving no prescription after describing her symptoms to a
doctor.
2.1.3.2. Types of corrective feedback
Following Lyster and Ranta (1997) instances of corrective feedback in
the data were categorized according to the following six types: explicit
correction, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic, elicit and repetition.
Their definition for each of these types is quoted first, together with an
example of each type.
2.1.3.2.1. Explicit correction
13
Explicit correction refers to the explicit provision of the correct form. As
the teacher provides the correct form, he or she clearly indicates that what the
student had said was incorrect (e.g. “Oh you mean…,” “You should say…”)
Student (S) [Error-lexical] “Procedure: We cut the straws into six different
thicknesses and attach the straws with tape.”
Teacher (T) [Feedback-explicit] “Uh, David, excuse me. I want you to use
the word ‘length.’ You cut the straws into different lengths. Not thicknesses.”
2.1.3.2.2. Recast
Recast involves the teacher’s reformulation of all or part of a student’s
utterance, minus the error. Recast is generally implicit in that they are not
introduced by phrases such as “You mean…,” “Use this word,” “You should
say…,” etc. However, some recasts are more salient than others in that they
may focus on one word only, whereas others incorporate the grammatical or
lexical modification into a sustained piece of discourse.
T Now um anything else?
S [Error - grammatical] Goosebump?

T [Feedback – recast] Goosebumps? Okay, get goosebumps. (Writes on
board). Good word! Goosebumps. What are goosebumps? Little…
S [Hair
T [bumps, and your hair stands up, yeah. Ergh!
2.1.3.2.3. Clarification request
This is a feedback type that can refer to problems in either
comprehensibility or accuracy, or both. They are coded feedback as
clarification request only when these moves follow a student error. A
clarification request includes phrases such as “Pardon me”. It may also include
a repetition of the error as in “What do you mean by X?”
14
T There is only one thing I have a phobia about…and I might tell you later,
you might think it’s very stupid, but I can actually get quite sick…do you want
me to tell you?
S Yeah. Yeah.
T Okay, guess! Come on fifty dollars! (laughter) Just guess what I’m
S [Error – lexical] Any key words?
T [Clarification request] Sorry?
S Give us key words?
T Give you a clue?
S [Clue
T Okay… it’s an insect…
2.1.3.2.4. Metalinguistic feedback
Metalinguistic feedback contains either comments, information, or
questions related to the well-formedness of the student’s utterance, without
explicitly providing the correct form. Metalinguistic comments generally
indicate that there is an error somewhere (for example: “Can you find your
error?,” “No, not X,” or even just “No.”). Metalinguistic information generally
provides either some grammatical metalanguage that refers to the nature of the
error (e.g., “It’s masculine”) or a word definition in the case of lexical errors.

Metalinguistic questions also point to the nature of the error but attempt to
elicit the information from the student (e.g., “Is it feminine?”).
T Could you tell me how long I must sit in the waiting room? I wonder
how long I’ll…
S1 [Error – lexical] Be able to wait for you
T [Feedback – metalinguistic] No no not be able to. Be able means
S2 [Can
15
T [Feedback – metalinguistic] To have the ability to but we’re not asking
that. We’re asking…
S1 Just how long
S2 Just how long we’re waiting
2.1.3.2.5. Elicitation
Elicitation refers to at least three techniques that teachers use to directly
elicit the correct form from the student. First, teachers elicit completion of
their own utterance by strategically pausing to allow students to “fill in the
blank” as it were (e.g., “There’s ”). Such “elicit completion” moves may be
preceded by some metalinguistic comment such as “No, not that. It’s a ” or
by a repetition of the error as in the following example:
S [Error - lexical] Well, there’s a stream of perfume that doesn’t smell
very nice
T [Elicitation] So a stream of perfume, we’ll call that a ?
Second, teachers use questions to elicit correct forms (e.g., How do we
say X in English?”). Such questions exclude the use of yes/no questions: A
question such as “Do we say that in English?” is metalinguistic feedback, not
elicitation. Third, teachers occasionally ask students to reformulate their
utterance.
2.1.3.2.6. Repetition
Repetition refers to the teacher’s repetition, in isolation, of the student’s
erroneous utterance. In most cases, teachers adjust their intonation so as to

highlight the error.
T (to individual pair of Ss) Okay, how does that picture make you feel?
S1 Small spider on your hand
T Uh huh, on your hand… how does it make you feel?
S1 Scared
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S2 [Error – lexical] Terrible
T [Feedback – repetition with rising intonation] Terrible?
2.1.3.3. Principles of giving corrective feedback in speaking lessons
Research by Bartram and Walton (1991) showed that it is an
oversimplification to say that there is any consensus in the TEFL/TESL field
about error correction. In behaviourist accounts of second language
acquisition (SLA), errors were considered undesirable. According to Ellis
(1985) mentioned in one of her book, errors, according to behaviorist theory,
were the result of non-learning rather than wrong learning. But in either case,
there was almost total agreement that errors should be avoided.
Later, however, as a result of inter-language theory, errors were no
longer seen as “unwanted form” (George, 1972) but as natural outcome of the
development of communication skills, a necessary part of the learning process.
In dealing with errors, there are a number of questions which have been
on the way of finding and discussing by researchers and teachers all around
the word through time:
1. When should learners’ errors be corrected?
2. Which errors should be corrected?
3. Who should do the correcting?
(Hendrickson, 1978)
2.1.3.3.1. When to correct
There is no absolute “rule” about when tot or not correct students’ errors.
Many students still prefer immediate correction by the teacher, following the
Audio-Lingual style. On the other hand, Harmer (2005) argued that “the best

time to correct is as late as possible.” Nevertheless, when deciding the time to
correct students’ oral errors, it is necessary to consider first of all, the nature of
the activity being undertaken. Accordingly there are two ways of delivering
17
corrective feedback: on the spot or immediate correction and delayed
correction.
 On the spot/immediate correction
The most typical way of correcting is by interrupting the student before
he has finished speaking. This could have a positive effect “when students are
involved in the practice stage, where accurate use of language is strongly
insisted from students.” (Kelly, 2006) For example, if students are being
drilled in order to practise pronunciation of a word or phrase, then they should
be stopped immediately when they make a mistake, otherwise they will
continue repeating defective language, which is pointless.
 Delayed correction
From the viewpoint of Ur (1991), in production stage, unlike practice
one, immediate correction would disturb and discourage mote than help. It is
because it may make anxious students loose the track, forget what they are
talking about and their anxiety levels increase. Therefore, with respect to
fluency activities, the usual advice is to delay feedback until the end of the
activity so as to avoid interrupting the student’s flow of speech (Moss, 2000).
For instance, teacher take notes on common errors that students commit.
During the follow-up correction session the teacher then presents common
mistakes made so that all can benefit from an analysis of which mistakes were
made and why.
2.1.3.3.2. What to correct
The theory on language acquisition and teaching methodology supported
by those teachers who emphasize communicative competence states that not
all errors should be corrected. “Which errors will be corrected is usually
decided by the objectives of the lesson, or the specific exercise that is being

done at that moment.” (Beare, 2000) In other words, if students are focusing
18
on simple past irregular forms, then only mistakes in those forms are corrected
(i.e., goed, thinked, etc.). Other mistakes, such as mistakes in a future form, or
mistakes of collocations (for example: I made my homework) are ignored.
Moreover, according to Moss (2000) teachers should treat those errors
which are regularly repeated by one or more students and also they should
attend to those they consider to be the most serious. For supporters of the
Communicative Approach who give emphasis to the importance of fluency
over accuracy, this tends to be those errors that hinder communication of the
speaker's message. Arguably, however, this has lead to an increase in the
number of students who though capable of communicating freely, continue to
make a significant number of grammatical errors, sometimes even at higher
levels. Interestingly, if students were asked about this situation, they would
probably claim that their aim was to learn to speak accurately and fluently at
the same time.
Another consideration when deciding what to correct is the nature of
errors and how ready or capable students are of dealing with particular ones.
In the case of slips of the tongue, for example, it would seem wisest to
overlook them, unless they are frequent, or result from carelessness. With
regard to errors resulting from faulty or insufficient knowledge of the
language, however, the situation is more complicated and if students have not
been exposed to a language form or are not ready to learn a particular
structure, then it could be argued that there is little point in intervening and
giving feedback. Having said this, supposedly more complex language can be
contextualised and given to the students in the form of chunks, for example
encouraging them to say “I've finished” and not “I am finished”, which is not
likely to be too demanding, even for beginners.
2.1.3.3.3. Who to correct
19

Concerning the question “who should correct students’ errors?”, Gower
(1995) pointed out three options: self correction, peer correction and teacher
correction.
 Self correction
Martinez (2007) stated that “A very useful, practical and effective way of
correction is the use of an inductive method in which the teacher asks the
student to correct himself (self-correction) and realize on what he did wrong.”
This way is easier to remember “because someone has put something right in
his or her own head.” (Edge, 1989)
Moreover, according to Kavaliauskienė (2003), state-of-the-art viewpoint
of learner-centeredness and developing learner autonomy suggests that in
some settings learner’s self-correction of errors (with the teacher’s help) might
be more beneficial for language learning than teacher’s correction. A self-
discovery approach reduces the likelihood of students becoming dependent on
external assistance (Moss, 2000). However, learner independence is not
something that can be achieved overnight and initially students will require
the support of someone with more knowledge than themselves, in order to
become aware of, and/or correct their errors. Gradually, teacher intervention
should be reduced and students should be encouraged to pick up on each
others' mistakes and provide feedback.
 Peer correction
In case the student fails to do self correction, the teacher can invite other
students to help out (Bartram & Walton, 1991). According to Edge (1989),
there are four advantages of peer correction:
20
 Firstly, when a learner makes a mistake and another learner corrects
it, both learners are involved in listening to and thinking about the
language.
 Secondly, when a teacher encourages learners to correct each
other’s mistakes, the teacher gets a lot of important information about

the students’ ability. Can they hear a particular error? Can they correct
it?
 Thirdly, the students become used to the idea that they can learn
from each other. So, peer correction helps learners cooperate and helps
make them less dependent on teachers.
 Fourthly, if students get used to the idea of peer correction without
hurting each other’s feelings, they will be able to help each other learn
when they work in pairs and groups, when the teacher can’t hear what
is said. (p.26)
 Teacher correction
If neither the student who made the error, nor any other students can
correct it, then the teacher has to give more help. Calve (1992) advocated that
more teachers’ direct and overt error correction would avoid misleading
learners into believing that linguistic errors are acceptable.
2.1.4. Students’ responses to teachers’ corrective feedback
2.1.4.1. Uptake
When learners are presented with corrective feedback, they have a wide
range of responses at their disposal, what has been called uptake. This term
has been used in SLA literature with two different meaning. One first meaning
is the one used by Allwright (1984) in which uptake refers to what learners are
able to report learning during or at the end of the lesson. Some studies of
uptake carried out under this first sense are, for example, Slimani’s (1992) and
Alcon’s (1994). A second meaning of uptake is offered by Lyster and Ranter
(1997):
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Uptake […] refers to a student’s utterance that immediately follows
the teacher’s feedback and that constitutes a reaction in some way to the
teacher’s intention to draw attention to some aspect of the student’s initial
utterance (this over all intention is clear to the student although the teacher’s
specific linguistic focus may not be).

In the present study, this second meaning of uptake is the one the
researcher adopts, since she pays attention to the students’ reaction when
feedback is provided by the teacher in the foreign language classroom.
2.1.4.2. Types of student uptake
According to Lyster and Ranta (1997), there are two types of student
uptake: repair and needs-repair.
2.1.4.2.1. Repair
Lyster and Ranta (1997) defined repair as “the correct reformulation of
an error as uttered in a single student turn and not to the sequence of turns
resulting in the correct reformulation; nor does it refer to self-initiated repair.”
They did not analyze un-prompted self-corrections. Instead, they analyzed
repairs occurring only after prompting - what Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks
(1977) (as cited in Lyster and Ranta, 1997) have called “other-initiated
repair.”
There are four types of other-initiated repair based on Lyster and
Ranter’s (1997) study:
(i). Repetition refers to a student’s repetition of the teacher’s feedback when
the latter includes the correct form.
S: “Now, I wanna, now I’m gonna do it on foot.” [Error-lexical]
T: “ with my foot.” [FB-recast]
S: ““ with my foot.” [Repair-repetition]
(ii). Incorporation refers to a student’s repetition of the correct form
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provided by the teacher, which is then incorporated into a longer utterance
produced by the student.
S: “But, but she called us in the morning, an’, uh, Sunday, Diana and her
brother came over to my place.” [Error-grammatical]
T: “Came over.” [FB-recast]
S: “Came over to my place to play.” [Repair-incorporation]
(iv). Self-repair refers to a self-correction, produced by the student who

made the initial error, in response to the teacher’s feedback when the latter
does not already provide the correct form.
S: “The groundhog isn’t the one on top?” [Error-gender]
T: “Pardon?” [FB-clarification]
S: “The groundhog isn’t the one on top?” [Repair-self]
(v). Peer-repair refers to peer-correction provided by a student, other than
the one who made the initial error, in response to the teacher’s feedback.
S: “I brought some pita bread. Pita’s the same thing.” [Error-multiple]
T: “Okay, but pita bread, how do you think you could say that?” [FB-
elicitation]
Sdif: “Pita bread.” [Repair-peer]
2.1.4.2.2. Needs-repair
The category of “needs-repair” includes the following six types of
utterances.
(i) Acknowledgment generally refers to a simple “yes” on the part of the
student in response to the teacher’s feedback, as if to say, “Yes, that is indeed
what I meant to say (but you’ve just said it much better!”)
(ii) Acknowledgment may also include a “yes” or “no” on the part of the
student in response to the teacher’s metalinguistic feedback.
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(iii) Same error refers to uptake that includes a repetition of the student’s
initial error.
(iv) Different error refers to a student’s uptake that is in response to the
teacher’s feedback but that neither corrects nor repeats the initial error;
instead, a different error is made.
(v) Off target refers to uptake that is clearly in response to the teacher’s
feedback turn but that circumvents the teacher’s linguistic focus altogether,
without including any further errors.
2.1.4.3. Relationship between teachers’ corrective feedback and students’
uptake

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(Lyster and Ranta, 1997)
Figure 2: Error treatment sequence
The error treatment sequence emerges as the model presented in Figure 2
and it also reveals the relationship between teachers’ corrective feedback and
students’ uptake.
According to Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) analysis, the sequence begins
with a learner’s utterance containing at least one error. The erroneous
utterance is followed either by the teacher’s corrective feedback or not; if not,
then there is topic continuation. If corrective feedback is provided by the
teacher, then it is either followed by uptake on the part of the student or not
(no uptake entails topic continuation). If there is uptake, then the student’s
initially erroneous utterance is either repaired or continues to need repair in
some way. If the utterance needs repair, then corrective feedback may again
be provided by the teacher; if no further feedback is provided, then there is
topic continuation. If and when there is repair, then it is followed either by
topic continuation or by some repair-related reinforcement provided by the
teacher. Following the reinforcement, there is topic continuation.
2.2. Related studies
The following is a review of relevant studies in the world as well as in
Vietnam that have investigated the occurrence of corrective feedback and
uptake in speech production.
2.2.1. An overview of related studies worldwide
For decades, corrective feedback and learner uptake have been the center
of interest for researchers working in the field of language acquisition with
different classroom settings.
First of all, Chaudron (1977) designed a study of corrective discourse,
based on the data from immersion classrooms. Chaudron’s model was a
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