An exploratory research on teachers’ oral corrective feedback and students’ uptake in english speaking classes at binh minh high school in ninh binh

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG

AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH ON TEACHERS’ ORAL
CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND STUDENTS’ UPTAKE IN
ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES AT BINH MINH HIGH SCHOOL
IN NINH BINH
(NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ VIỆC CHỮA LỖI NÓI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN
VÀ SỰ TIẾP NHẬN CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG THPT BÌNH MINH, TỈNH NINH BÌNH)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2016


VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG

AN EXPLORATORY RESEARCH ON TEACHERS’ ORAL

CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND STUDENTS’ UPTAKE IN
ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES AT BINH MINH HIGH SCHOOL
IN NINH BINH
(NGHIÊN CỨU THĂM DÒ VỀ VIỆC CHỮA LỖI NÓI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN
VÀ SỰ TIẾP NHẬN CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH TẠI
TRƯỜNG THPT BÌNH MINH, TỈNH NINH BÌNH)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lê Văn Canh

Hanoi - 2016


DECLARATION
I, Pham Thi Hong, the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TEFL)
certify that this graduation thesis is entirely my own work. I accept all the
requirements of University relating to the retention and use of Master‟s Graduation
paper deposited in the library. I have provided fully documented references to the
work of others. The material in this paper has not been submitted for assessment in
any other formal courses of study.
Hanoi, 2016

Phạm Thị Hồng

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the completion of this paper, I owe a great deal of guidance, assistance
and encouragement to a number of people.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks and gratitude to my
supervisor Le Van Canh, PhD for his valuable instructions, tireless assistance and
critical comments, without which this thesis could never have been completed.
Ocean thanks go to my colleagues, who are teachers of English at Binh Minh
high school as well as 11th grade students at the same school for their cooperation
in helping me to get precious data.
Last but not least, I owe special thanks to my family and my friends for their
encouragement and continual support during the implementation of the study. They
are so supportive to my work, without which this paper could not have been
fulfilled.

ii


ABSTRACT
In consideration of the importance of oral corrective feedback in teaching
language, this paper aims at finding out the patterns of giving corrective feedback
among teachers in speaking classes and the uptake of students. To obtain the
objective, I have observed and recorded a number of speaking classes of the 11th
grade at a high school in Ninh Binh. The findings of this study indicate that there
are differences in the frequency of using of various types of oral feedback. They
also indicate that all teachers use multiple feedback quite frequently to help their
students to take repair or successful uptake. Last but not least, the uptake pattern is
also various. Recast seem to be most frequently used but with least uptake whereas
elicitation, explicitation and multiple feedback seem to be the most successful in
resulting in uptake.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION………………………………………………………… i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………….

ii

ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………..

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………….

iv

PART A. INTRODUCTION
I. Rationale ……………………..……………………..……………………... 1
II. Aims of the study………………………………………………………….. 2
III. Research questions………………………………………………………… 3
IV. Methods of the study .……………………………………………………..

3

V. Scope of the study...……………………………………………………….

3

VI. Significances of the study…………………………………………………. 4
VII.

Structure of the study…………………………………………………...

4

PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Error defined…………………………………….......……………………

6

1.2. Teachers‟ feedback…………………………………………...............…..

6

1.2.1. Definition of teachers‟ feedback……………………………..................

6

1.2.2. Types of teachers‟ feedback....................................................................

7

1.3. Oral corrective feedback and uptake .........................................................

8

1.3.1. Definition of oral corrective feedback.....................................................

8

1.3.2. Techniques used in oral corrective feedback ..........................................

9

1.3.3 Learners‟ uptake………………………………………………………...

10

1.3.4. .Studies on teacher‟s corrective Feedback and learner‟s uptake in
Second Language Acquisition...........................................................................

11

1.4. Summary……………...…………………………………………………...

15

CHAPTER 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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2.1. The context of the study…………………………………………………... 16
2.1.1 The research site…………………………………………………………. 16
2.1.2. The textbook…..…………..…………………………………………….. 17
2.1.3 The participants .....................……………….……………………….....

17

2.2. Data collection instruments……………………………………………….. 18
2.3. Procedures…………………………………………………………………

20

2.3.1. Procedures of data collection……………………………………………

20

2.3.2 Procedures of data analysis………………………………………………

20

Summary……………………………………………………………………….

21

CHAPTER 3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Findings…………………………………………………………………… 23
3.1.1. Patterns of teachers‟ oral corrective feedback ………………………….

23

3.1.2.Students‟uptake…………………………………………..........…………

27

3.2. Discussion…………………………………………..……………………..

29

PART C. CONCLUSION
1 . Summary of the main findings……………………………………………... 33
2. Pedagogical implications…………………………………………………...

34

3. Limitations of the study…………………………………………………….

35

4. Suggestions for further studies……………………………………………..

35

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………….. 36
APPENDIXS
Appendix 1…………………………………………………………………….. I
Appendix 2…………………………………………………………………….. II
Appendix 3…………………………………....……………………………….. III
Appendix 4…………………………………………………………………….. IV

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
I. Rationales
Nowadays, English plays an important role in socio-economic life. Learning

English is necessary for many people. The central goal of teaching and learning is
students‟ development of four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Of
these four skills, speaking is probably the most difficult for learners to develop
because it requires them to produce the language most of the time spontaneously or
without enough time to construct appropriate and correct utterances.
Over a long period, considerable attention has been paid to errors and error
correction in speaking classes (Ellis, 1994). Different authors have different views.
Some consider an error as something natural. They claim that people cannot avoid
making errors and even can learn from them. Making errors is a part of learning, and
error correction should be done selectively in order to have better results in the
classroom. Others, however, regard an error as something negative which must be
avoided. As a consequence, language teachers have always adopted a repressive
attitude towards it. They usually hold most authority to correct learners‟ errors
automatically, regarding the fact that learners value and expect teachers‟ correction.
To most language teachers, correcting learners‟ oral errors is one of the most
frustrating tasks because it has more potential for subjectivity due to individual
variables (Cohen, 1998). In considering the individual variables as influential parts
in speaking, error correction is highly challenging and possibly perplexing.
Therefore, error correction should be done appropriately; lest, it will discourage
learners from learning and practicing the language.
It should be noted that although error correction has been the focus of research for a
long time, a large number of authors have concentrated mostly on the causes of
errors, whether to correct oral error or not and the techniques to correct errors.
However, there is little research dealing with appropriate error-correction strategies
in general and in speaking classes in particular.

1


The above situation of error correction in speaking classes and the gap of

knowledge in the research area have aroused my interest and encouraged me to
carry out the study entitled: “An exploratory research on teachers‟ oral corrective
feedback and students‟ uptake in English speaking classes at Binh Minh high school
in Ninh Binh”
Current learning and teaching at Binh Minh high school in Ninh Binh.
Binh Minh high school is situated in a rural area by the sea. It has 30 classes with a
total 1,140 students. Most of the students are from working class families. Despite
the fact that English is a compulsory subject and one of the required examinations
the students have to pass in order to be qualified for the General Education
Diploma, and the fact that English is going to be the language of instruction used at
natural science classes according to “The Project of Foreign Language Education in
the National Education System for the period 2008-2020”, the majority of students
at Binh Minh high school still pay little attention to this subject. As a result, the
quality of teaching and learning English in this school is still not very high.
Normally, at Binh Minh high school, students in each class have three periods
learning English with the English textbook and one optional period for extra
consoliation every week. Teachers are the only ones who takes the responsibility of
teaching the subject at school. There is no foreign teacher here.
II. Aims of the Study
The major aim of the research is to find out error-correction strategies teachers used
in speaking lessons and the influence of those strategies on students‟ uptake . To be
specific, the objectives of this thesis are:
+ to explore teachers‟ oral error correction.
+ to find out the oral corrective techniques that teachers frequently used in
the context of a high svhool.
+ to gain understanding of the reasons behind teachers use of oral corrective
feedback techniques...

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+ To find out whether all types of ocrrective feedback are equally effective
in leading to students‟ uptake.
+ to offer some recommendations on giving oral corrective feedback in
speaking lessons.
III. Research Questions
To achieve the aims of the study, the following three research questions are
addressed:
1. What are the common oral corrective feedback techniques teachers use in English
speaking lessons for the 11th grade students?
2. What reasons do teachers give for their use of oral corrective feedback
technique(s)?
3. Which of the oral corrective feedback techniques the teachers use lead to
students‟ most uptake?
IV. Methods of the Study
As an exploratory study, this study used the quantitative method as the main means
of studying. Besides, with a view to analysing the information from the post
observation personal interviews, the qualitative method is also employed. Firstly,
the researcher reviews the related documents, which is a method to lay the
theoretical background for the study. Then during the study, the data are collected
by means of classroom observation and further information is obtained from faceto-face interviews. Data were then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively with the
aim of identifying the patterns of oral corrective feedback used by the observed
teachers and the reasons why teachers used the corrective feedback as observed.
V. Scope of the Study
Language generated by learners in either speech or writing is considered productive.
Errors occur in either speaking or writing lessons. Due to the limits of time, ability
and availability of the data, the study limits itself to the exploration of the types of
oral corrective feedback that are commonly used by the teachers in speaking lessons
and the uptake of students toward each type of oral corrective feedback.

3


As the intended scope of the study, data for this research were collected from the
observation of English speaking lessons taught to the 11th grade students at Binh
Minh high school in Ninh Binh, and the personal interviews after the observation
VI. Significance of the Study
Learners‟ errors are significant to both EFL teaching and learning, for errors are
evidence of their learning development. This thesis, therefore, will contribute a new
implication to second language acquisition (SLA), particularly, to the area of error
correction in speaking classes. Pedagogically, information obtained from this study
might help teachers of English get insights into oral errors and oral error correction.
From this they adjust their teaching and apply appropriate error-correction strategies
to make error-correction more effective. Personally, the researcher as a language
teacher, will have a good command of the process of teaching and learning EFL in
general and errors and error correction in speaking lessons in particular. These will
help to enhance the teaching efficiency.
VII. Structure of the Study
The study consists of three main parts:
Part A: Introduction
This part consists of the rationale, aims, scope, research questions, research
methods, significance and structure of the study.
Part B: Development,
This part is organized into three chapters:
Chapter 1: Literature Review
This chapter deals with various concepts relevant to the research topic such as an
errors which reviews the definitions of errors as well as types of errors, teacher‟
feedback, oral corrective feedback and uptake. This chapter also presents the
findings of some significant researches on oral corrective feedback and immediate
uptake.

4


Chapter 2: Research Methodology
This chapter presents the situation of teaching and learning English, the facts of
error correction in the 11th form speaking lessons at Binh Minh High School and
general information about the study subjects. It also focuses on the data collection
instruments, data procedures and data analysis.
Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion :
This chapter presents the main findings of the research and the discussion made
from the obtained results.
Part C: Conclusion
This part consists of the summary of the research, recommendations, limitations and
suggestions for further study.

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PART B. DEVEOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Error definition
In this study, the researcher adapted the term “error” defined by Hendrickson
(1978:387) that is “an utterance, form or structure a particular language teacher
seems unacceptable because of its inappropriate use or its absence in reading
discourse”. This definition is adopted because it fits the purpose of the study, which
looks into teachers‟ oral corrective feedback. When the teacher find the student‟s
language unacceptable, she will consider it as an error and will correct it.
1.2. Teacher’s feedback
1.2. 1. Definition of teacher’s feedback

In the context of teaching and learning languages, various definitions of the term
feedback have been proposed. Most of these definitions indicate that feedback
refers to informing learners about their work in progress. More specifically, this
form of interaction shows learners their errors and guides them to correct their work
(Ur, 1996; Lewis, 2002). An important point that needs consideration concerns the
purpose of providing feedbacks, according to Lewis (2002), “A good feedback is
given without personal judgment or opinion, given based on the facts, always
neutral and objective, constructive and focus on the future” (p.7). However, I am
not in agreement with Lewis‟s definition because teachers can hardly provide
feedback without their personal judgment. Also, it is almost impossible to judge the
neutrality of teacher feedback.
In another sense, feedback is defined as “a method used openly, and with
responsibility, to express one‟s view with the aim of facilitating or promoting more
appropriate actions in the future, in relation to a goal and a vision” (Nivre &
Nilsson, 2004). Littlewood (1981), sharing the same idea. According to him,
feedback is telling learners about their peformance and showing them errors in
order to guide them to areas for improvement. From those above definitions, it can

6


be concluded that feedback is beneficial to be provided for students to improve their
performance from what they have learnt.
1.2.2 Types of teacher’s feedback
Ellis, (1999:702) divides feedback into positive feedback and negative feedback.
In this point of view, the author defines positive feedback as what the teacher use to
praise students for doing a good job, helping them develop good self-confidence
when learning a second language. In the same light, the author defines negative
feedback as the information given to the learners which they can use to revise their
interlanguage. Negative feedback, or corrective feedback in school is most often

used when a teacher gives a student some kind of information about something
being incorrect in an utterance and sometimes also instruction about how to correct
the mistake
Judging feedback in the other light, Rodgers (2001) and Richards (1992) agree
that there are immediate feedback and delayed feedback. Immediate feedback is the
one which refers to teachers‟ comments delivered on the spot when a mistakes or a
good point is made by students. Rodgers (2001) proposes that this type of feedback
is mostly employed by teachers when the aim of the stage of the lesson is to
promote accuracy, particularly during the drilling of the target language and during
guided practice. Richards(1992) also points out that spontaneous correction can help
learners aware of the mistake straight away. The advantages of using immediate
feedback are that it enables teachers to give support or encouragement when
students are confused about their making mistakes, when students need to be
motivated and also the opportunity for immediate feedback to make sure the
message was understood. However, immediate feedback has also a weakness that is
miscommunication. Sometimes what the students hear is not what is meant. The
simplest words, for example, have a different connotation for the students. Richards
et al. (1992) puts emphasis on the fact that sometimes this kind of feedback
discourages learning form speaking as they may feel that every word in their speech
is being judged. Another type of feedback is delayed feedback which is not in the

7


fluency stage of a speaking lesson. In this case, delayed feedback should take place.
Seeing that spontaneous feedback can backfire sometimes, it is suggested that
techniques of delivering should be employed. Penny Ur (2006). (cited in Nguyen,
2009) recommended that spontaneous feedback should be “unobtrusive” to avoid
the interruption students‟ “flow”. Anther point as stated by Richards & Rodgers
(2001) who may distinguish on–the-spot from delayed feedback is that whereas the

former one tends to be used for individuals‟ performance, the later is for group
work. Although delayed feedback has the advantage that it is not backfire the
students, this one also has the weakness. Teachers give delayed feedback after the
students‟ performance; it means that the feedback is too late to be received by the
students. And in the speaking activity sometimes students forget the mistakes that
they have made.
From all the above theoritical knowledge about feedback, this exploratory study
limits itselt to the teacher‟s immediate oral corrective feedback occuring in teaching
speaking skill. The other types, forms and sources of feedback are beyond the
research.
1.3. Oral corrective feedback and uptake
1.3.1. Definition of oral corrective feedback.
Although the provision of oral corrective feedback in the foreign language
classroom seems natural in the process of learning a language, the role that it plays
in the classroom and the attitudes language teachers have towards it have been not
the same through the years, or even from one teacher to another. On the other hand,
in the theoretical ground, oral corrective feedback has also been an area of research
and discussion in language acquisition and learning over the last decades.
For the sake of clarity, one of the first definitions of oral corrective feedback is
that of Chadron (1977) who considers it as “any reaction of the teacher which
clearly transforms, disapprovingly refers to, or demands improvement of the learner
utterance”. (P:31). Other synonyms of corrective feedback more commonly used are
“error correction”, “negative evidence”, negative feedback”. However, Han (2008)

8


suggests that error correction implies an evident and direct correction, whereas
corrective feedback is a more general way of providing some clues, or eliciting
some correction, besides the direct correction made by the teacher. Ellis. Lowe and

Erlan (2006) describe corrective feedback as follows:
Corrective feedback takes the form of responses to learner utterances that
contain error. The responses can consist of (a) an indication that an error has
been committed, (b) provision of the correct target language form, or (c) met
linguistic information about the nature of the error, or any combination of these.
(p:340)
This definition is adopted in this study because the study focuses on teachers‟ oral
corrective feedback, which may be signaling the error, directly correcting the error,
or telling the relevant rules to the learner who made the error.
1.3.2. Techniques used in oral corrective feedback
Among many suggested techniques, this research adapted the classification of
Lyster and Randa (1997) which suggests six techniques in oral corrective feedback,
ordered according to the degree of explicitness, namely recast, clarification request,
repetition, elicitation, metalinguistic feedback and explicit correction.
Recast
Lyster and Ranta (1997) define recast as “the teacher‟s reformulation of all or part
of a student‟s utterance, minus the error” (p.46). Spanda and Frohlich (1995; cited
in Lyster and Randa 1997) also refer to such reformulation as „paraphrase‟. Recasts
are generally implicit in that they are not introduced by phrases such as “You
mean”, “Use this word”, and “You should say”. Recasts also include translations in
response to a student‟s use of the L1. (Lyster and Randa, 1997).
Clarification request
According to Spanda and Frohlich (1995 cited in Lyster and Randa, 1997),
clarification is the way the teacher indicates to students either that their utterance
has been misunderstood by the teacher or that the utterance is ill-formed in some
way and that a repetition or a reformulation is required. This is a feedback type that

9

can refer to problems in either comprehensibility or accuracy, or both. A
clarification request included phrases such as “Pardon me”, or “What do you mean
by...?” (Lyster and Randa, 1997).
Repetition
The teacher repeats the student‟s error and changes intonation to draw student‟s
attention to it. For example: Student: “My father enjoys watch football matches on
T.V.”. Teacher: “Watch?” (together with raising the intonation).
Elicitation
The teacher directly elicits the correct form from the student by asking questions
(e.g. “How do you say that in English?”), by pausing to allow the student to
complete the teacher‟s utterance, or by asking the student to reformulate his or her
utterance (e.g. “Please say that again”).
Metalinguistic feedback
This technique contains either comments, information, or questions related to wellformedness of the student‟s utterance, without explicitly providing the correct form.
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 if 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?”). (Lyster and Randa, 1997)
Explicit correction:
By explicit correction, the teacher clearly indicate that the student‟s form or the
utterance is incorrect and then he/she provides the correctecd one. (Lyster and
Randa, 1997)
1.3. 3. Learners’ uptake
Uptake is a construct that is closely related to provision of corrective feedback.
Slimani (1992) defines uptake as “what learners claim to have learned from a
particular lesson”.

10


While drawing on learners‟ reaction , in studies of corrective feedback, uptake is
defined as “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 aspects of the students‟ initial utterance”, (Lyster & Ranta, 1997;
p. 49). Uptake, in this sense, is used as a way of evaluating the effectiveness of
feedback types which can be divided into two categories namely „repair‟ and „needs
repair‟ (Lyster & Ranta, 1997; p. 49). These two authors went further in their
classification of repair and classified it further into two categories: self –initiated
repair and other-initiated repair. Other – initiate repair is usually prompted by
provision of some sort of feedback to the learner. The feedback can be provided by
either a teacher or other students (peer – feedback) in response to an error.
In a nutshell, uptake, in general, is a very important part of the language acquisition
process and Loewen (2004) noted many researchers are interested in examing
uptake and linking it to the language learning process.
1.3.4. Previous studies on teacher’s oral corrective feedback and learner’s
uptake in Second Language Acquisition

There have been many researches conducted regarding the provision of language
corrective feedback including uptake. In order to better understand the researches
that have been done in the last decades, this part of the literature review presents the
findings of some significant researches on language corrective feedback and
immediate uptake.
Allwright and Bailey‟s (1991) investigated the effectiveness of types corrective
feedback ranging from implicit to explicit ones and came to the argument on the
uselessness of implicit techniques when learners cannot perceive their utterances as
erroneous and they are in need of more indicators and information about their error.
Carrol and Swain (1993) examined effects of different types of negative feedback
on the acquisition of English dative alternation by 100 adult Spanish-speaking ELL
learners. They found that groups receiving negative feedback performed
significantly better than the control group, which received no feedback. They also

11


found that groups that received explicit rule explanation performed significantly
better compared to other groups. One possible explanation that the authors provided
was that adult language learners require more explicit explanation because of their
previous learning preferences. Their study suggests that feedback is an important
part of the language learning process. However, it appears that there is still not
definite agreement on whether the age of learners or type of input impacts the
retention of language structures.
Lyster and Ranta (1997) presented a study of classroom interaction and classified
various types of corrective feedback used by teachers in response to learner errors.
The percentage distribution of the six feedback types was : recasts 55 %; elicitation
14 %; clarification requests 11 %; metalinguistic clues 8 %; explicit correction 7 %;
repetition of error 5 %. (cited from Lyster 1998a: 189). Obviously, most teachers
like to use recast (55 %). In term of leading to learner uptake, these two authors

found that recast, although used extensively in the studied classrooms, was least
likely to lead to successful student uptake. They claimed that other types of
corrective feedback resulted in more negotiation of form between a teacher and the
learner and therefore resulted in more cases of student initiated successful uptake
turns.
In a follow up study, Lyster (1998b) focused more on recast because this corrective
strategy was used almost extensively by the language immersion programs. Lyster
used the same database of classroom observations that he used for his previous
study. The findings of the previous study made him believe that teachers need to
implement other feedback techniques such as meta-linguistic, elicitation and
clarification request, to provide students with corrective feedback regarding their
output. The author compared teacher use of recast with various types of noncorrective repetition and positive feedback as approval moves. Lyster suggested that
the effectiveness of recast can be further reduced by the signs of approval, such as
good job, great, well done, etc that teachers might use along with this corrective
technique. He also proposed that the possible reason for recasst to be used

12


extensively by teachers in immersion programs is this type of feedback allows them
to provide learners with feedback on their performance without interrupting the
course of the classroom interaction. However, he admitted that recasts do not give
much negotiation of form between the teacher and the learner and therefore, it does
not permit the learners a chance to process information at a deeper level and
incorporate the correct utterance in their language performance. Schachter, (1974)
and Carroll (1993), shared the same results of the same objectives that recasts can
be ambiguous so it can be hard for learners to notice their corrective intent,
especially in a classroom environment and especially to the learners of lower levels
of proficiency. (Mackey et al., 2000, 2007) provided another reason that the focus
on meaning of the activities might be constraining learners‟ attention to form, and

so, they do not capture the corrective nature of reformulation Recently, several
meta-analyses have been published, which all indicate a positive role for corrective
feedback for the acquisition of second language grammar (Russell & Spada , 2006;
Mackey & Goo, 2007; Li, 2010, Lyster & Saito, 2010;). These authors have tried to
observe how corrective feedback really works in classrooms and how learners
respond to it. Unlike the aforementioned studies, Ellis et al. (2001) examined the
issue of feedback provision in relationship to learner uptake in English as the
second language classrooms and reported much higher uptake in response to teacher
corrective feedback. The data were analyzed based on classroom observations,
including focus on form episodes , treatments, and learner uptake. The findings
indicated that the general level of uptake was much higher in this study, compared
to studies by Lyster and Ranta (1997) and Lyster (1998). The study also showed
that when students identified language problems by themselves, the uptake was
higher and more successful. The researchers, unlike others, suggested that teachers
should not avoid recast as a corrective feedback technique. Lyster (2002) also came
to the conclusion that student-generated repair following teachers‟ provision of
elicitation involves a different level of processing than teachers‟ recast.

13


In another vein to explore the effectiveness of recasts in foreign language teaching,
Sheen‟s (2004) study, found that recasts are not effective to the extent that students
might mistake them for non-corrective repetitions.
Ammar and Spada (2006), and Lyster & Mori (2006) investigated the effects of
recasts and prompts on learners‟ oral ability across different proficiency levels and
found that prompts were more effective than recasts and that the effectiveness of
recasts was sensitive to learnes‟ proficiency level. In particular, high-proficiency
learners benefited equally from prompts and recasts, whereas low-proficiency
learners benefited significantly more from prompts than recasts. In a more recent

study, Lyster & Izquierdo (2009) probed the impact of recast and prompts on the
acquisition of grammatical gender among French learners and claimed that both
types of feedback are effective. Learners of recasts benefited from repeated
exposure to positive exemplars as well as from opportunities to infer negative
evidence, whereas, learners receiving prompts or clarification requests benefited
from repeated exposure to negative evidence as well as from opportunities to
produce modified output.
Both immediate and delayed effects of two other types of interaction feedback, i.e.
recasts vs. elicitations were also examined by Nassaji (2009) which signified that in
both corrective feedback types, the more explicit form was more effective than its
implicit form. Therefore, the degree of explicit was reported to be very crucial in
the effectiveness of these two types of corrective feedback.
Galina Kavaliauskiene (2012), discovered in his case study that students prefer
immediate correction of errors in spite of its impracticality and claim that individual
correction of mistakes by teacher is useful. Differences between the responses of
students who study two disciplines were slight and attitude to feedback do not differ
significantly – specialization is not very relevant. He also believed that by making
the students aware of the mistakes they make, and by getting them to act on those
mistakes in some way, the students will assimilate the corrections and eventually
not make those same mistakes in the future.

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In short, teacher‟s corrective feedback and student‟s uptake was initially a fertile
area of research in language teaching studies. A large number of studies have been
done in an attempt to examine the relationship between teacher‟s corrective
feedback and learner‟s uptake in language teaching and learning , and to determine
the effectiveness of different types of corrective feedback on different levels of
proficiency and different purposes of learning language.

1.4. SUMMARY
This chapter presents a brief understanding of language errors, feedback, teacher‟s
corrective feedback and learner‟s uptake. It also presents the discussion of teacher‟s
corrective feedback and student‟s uptake in previous studies. As being mentioned
before, corrective is a very important part of learning and instructional process, it
provides the learner with essential information on his/her performance. There has
been much research conducted in the area of foreign language acquisition, however,
researchers still debate the question of which type of feedback is the most effective.
This question is especially important in the area of foreign language acquisition,
where errors are part of daily classroom. Therefore, it is important for teacher to
have much information on the issue of corrective feedback provision and its
effectiveness in terms of student learning.
From the light of the aforementioned knowledge, this study aims at examining the
pattern of teacher‟s oral corrective feedback and learner‟s uptake in an uppersecondary school with a view to finding whether the findings of those precedent
authors are coincided with the case studied, and what possibly accounts for the
similarities or the differences.

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CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the setting of the study, participants, data collection
instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis.
2.1. The context of the study
2.1.1. The research context
Binh Minh High School, founded in 1994, is located in Binh Minh town, a small
town by the sea of Kim Son district, Ninh Binh province. This public school has 30
classes with over 80 teachers of different subjects. Currently there are
approximately 1.150 students of three grades: 10, 11, and 12. Each grade has 10
classes. On the average, there are about 35 to 40 students in a class. Most of the

students come from the nearby villages.
The number of students in the 11th grade are 370. The majority of them are now 16
years old. The students learned English as a foreign language for four years at
Junior High School and are all learning English with three official English classes
and an extra optional class every week.
There are nine teachers of English at the school. One of them got a MA. Degree.
They are at different ages, however, they all are enthusiastic, responsible and hardworking teachers.
Students of Binh Minh high school mostly come from working class families, who
are not very well aware of the importance of English to their future. Although they
all have learnt English for a quite long time, their English level especially in
listening and speaking is still not very high.
In English lessons, the main teaching aids used are simply a blackboard, textbooks
and in recent three years teachers have been using cassettes in listening lessons. The
classrooms are physically overcrowded, with limited space for activity organization.
Besides, there are no competitions and outdoor activities for students to take part in.
Moreover, most of the students do not see the importance of English. They just
focus on learning the subjects for their university entrance exam, namely maths,
chemistry and physics. English tests are administered to measure students‟ language
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ability. However, students‟ speaking exam is not implemented. Generally, the
students‟ knowledge of English is poor. Also their exposure to English in and
outside the classroom is limited, so they are not good at communicative skills.
Therefore, the teaching of English in general, and the teaching speaking English in
particular has encountered a lot of difficulties.
2.1.2. The textbook
The 11th form students are now using Tieng Anh 11, the standard syllabus, written
by Hoang Van Van et al. It follows two popular approaches, namely learner-centred
approach and communicative approach. There are 16 units in the textbook. Each

unit contains 5 lessons: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus.
Obviously, these textbooks focus on linguistic knowledge as well as skill formation
and development. Speaking skill is taught in one lesson of a unit. Its primary goal is
to improve communicative competence, that is, the ability to communicate in
English.
2.1.3. The partipants
The participants in the research were 4 teachers of English teaching the 11th grade
students. Besides, 10 classes of grade 11th with 370 students at Binh Minh High
School, where the researcher teaches English, were selected. The teachers and
students helped to carry out their classes as usual for the researcher to observe and
collect the data.
The Teachers
The 4 teachers of English who are currently teaching the 11th grade were observed
and interviewed in this study. They all have a formal college degree in English
teaching profession. Among them, there are 3 females and one male. Their ages
range from 25 to 43. They have been teaching English at Binh Minh High School
from three to eighteen years.
The Students
370 students in the 11th grade selected at Binh Minh High School are from ten
classes. In terms of their geographical origin, 100% of them come from the

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countryside. They are not the same at English proficiency level in general and
speaking competence in particular. Only a minority of them are good and active in
speaking classes while the majority remain passive and quiet.
The researcher‟s choice of doing the research on the 11th grade students is due to the
fact that they are in the second year at their high school, so they are quite familiar
with the teaching methodology of the teachers in this level. At the same time, they

do still not feel the pressure of the National Secondary School Examination as most
of the 12th grade students do
2.2. Data Collection Instruments
The purpose of this study fits well with Brown‟s (2001) definition of survey
research, which “gather[s] data on the characteristics and views of informants about
the nature of language and language learning through the use of oral interviews or
written questionnaires” (p. 2). Brown goes on to elaborate that “survey research
....relies more on common sense and less on complex statistics. Often the results
reported as percentages and averages are sufficient to explain the results of a survey
research project” (p. 15).
In an attempt to identify the common pattern of oral corrective feedback the
teachers in the researched school frequently used, a quantitative method with a
qualitative element was employed in this study. Classroom observation was the
main instrument used to collect data about the patterns of teachers' corrective
feedback and learners' uptake in speaking lessons for the study. In addition,
informal interviews were conducted with the observed teachers to find out how they
reasoned their use of oral corrective feedback techniques. The research focuses on
teachers' corrective feedback and its impact on students' uptake, a kind of teacherstudent interaction; classroom observation proves to be the most helpful method of
data collection because according to Nunan (1989) there is no substitute for direct
observation as a way of finding out about language classroom. Moreover, objectives
for this study are particularly suitable for this type of study because observational
research is a systematic process used for examining the effectiveness of various

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