Tasks with and without corrective feedback'

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Tasks with and without corrective feedback.

• Rosemary Erlam
• The University of Auckland
• r.erlam_at_auckland.ac.nz
• Shawn Loewen
• Michigan State University

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acknowledging my co-researcher

• Shawn Loewen
• Michigan State University

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The night/date of your dreams

• Who did you go out with?
• Where did you go?
• What did you do?
• What time did you come home?
• Etc etc

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feedback

• S then we fall in love
• T we fell in love?
• S we fell in love
• implicit feedback

• S I go out with Clive Owen
• T I go out? I went out
• S I went out with Clive Owen
• explicit feedback

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vs no feedback

• What do you predict?

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What does the research literature say?

• Three recent meta-analyses
• 1. Russell Spada (2006)
• 15 studies investigating the effectiveness of
  oral and written feedback
• effect sizes large, although smaller for oral
  than written feedback
• 2/ Li (in press)
• 33 studies examining the effectiveness of
  corrective feedback (following errors in oral
  production) in second language learning
• medium effect for corrective feedback maintained
  over time
• lab-based studies show a greater effect than
  classroom-based ones
• shorter treatments generated a greater effect
  than longer

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3. Mackey Goo (2007)

• meta analysis of research on interaction
• 16 examined effectiveness of corrective feedback
  given to learners during oral interaction
• large effect sizes on all post tests
• need studies with delayed post tests
• interaction with feedback may not be more
  effective than interaction alone

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More research needed . . .

• effectiveness of feedback needs to be
  investigated in relation to different target
  structures (Ellis, 2007)
• range of measures of learning need to be used
  measures of implicit as well as explicit
  knowledge (Ellis, 2007)
• studies that include delayed post tests (Mackey
  Goo, 2007)

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Research questions

• Do learners completing tasks make gains in
  implicit language knowledge when they are given
  feedback targeting specific language errors?
• Do they make greater gains than students who
  complete the same tasks but get no feedback?

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Research questions

• Do learners completing tasks make gains in
  explicit language knowledge when they are given
  feedback targeting specific language errors?
• Do they make greater gains than students who
  complete the same tasks but get no feedback?

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Participants

• 50 students of L2 French from an American
  university
• 32 in Year 2, 18 in Year 3
• average age 20
• 40 female, 10 male!!
• all but one had English as L1
• 60 of Year 2 80 of Year 3 had spent time in a
  French speaking country average 5 months

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Research design

• Pre-test
• Participants completed 8 tasks designed to elicit
  the target structures
• 2 sessions half an hour targeting each target
  structure 2 hours in total
• 40 students in feedback group, 10 in no feedback
• Posttest 1 1 day later
• Posttest 2 3 weeks later

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noun adjective agreement

• Un arbre (masculine)
• Un arbre vert
• Une voiture (feminine)
• Une voiture verte
• low perceptual salience low communicative value
• unacquired by classroom learners despite
  frequency in the input (Harley, 1989)

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Use of être with intransitive verbs in the passé
composé

• passé composé auxiliary verb
• for most verbs auxiliary is avoir
• for reflexive verbs small no of intransitive
  verbs auxiliary is être
• Jai fait du cheval
• Je suis monté sur léchelle
• differs in non obvious ways from L1
• does not carry a heavy communicative load

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Research design cont.

• Year 2 students (n 22)
• Worked at tasks eliciting noun/adj agreement and
  use of être in passé composé (2 hours)
• Year 3 students ( n 18)
• Worked at tasks eliciting noun/adj agreement (1
  hour)
• Both received feedback

• No feedback Yr 2 students (n 10)
• Worked at tasks designed to elicit noun/adjective
  agreement and use of être in passé composé (2
  hours)
• Received no feedback

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Tasks . . .

• Les personnages de tele
• Comment est-elle/il?
• âge
• taille
• physique
• caractère
• La soirée de vos rêves?
• sortis avec qui?
• ou allé?
• fait quoi?
• rentré à quelle heure etc?

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Feedback

• Implicit
• S je pense elle nest pas intelligent parce
  quelle
• R elle nest pas intelligente?
• S elle nest pas intelligente
• S je ne sais à quelle heure nous avons rentrés
• R nous sommes rentrés?
• S nous sommes rentrés parce que Espagne est un
  autre continent

• Explicit
• S elle est heureux
• R elle est heureux? Elle est heureuse
• S heureuse
• S ils ont allé
• R ils ont allé? Ils sont allés
• S ils sont allés, oui, ils sont allés au café

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Feedback . . .

• directed at individual students but tasks
  designed to optimize likelihood that all students
  attend to corrective episodes
• Groups received average of
• 19 instances of feedback for noun/adj agreement
  (range 8 32)
• 10 instances of feedback for être in passé
  composé (range 3 16)

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instruments

• Implicit language knowledge
• Elicited imitation test
• (Erlam, 2006 Ellis, 2005)
• Les petites filles rêvent de se marier en robe
  blanche.
• Spontaneous production test
• Décrivez la Princesse Diana et la Mère Thérèse.
  Vous avez la possibilité de passer une soirée
  avec lune delles. Laquelle choisissez-vous?
  Pourquoi?

• Explicit language knowledge
• Untimed grammaticality judgment test
• Ungrammatical sentences only (Ellis, 2004 2005)
• Cest une idée faux.

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Research questions

• Do learners completing tasks make gains in
  implicit language knowledge when they are given
  feedback targeting specific language errors?
• Do they make greater gains than students who
  complete the same tasks but get no feedback?

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Elicited imitation test
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Elicited imitation test
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Spontaneous production test
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Spontaneous production test
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Research questions

• Do learners completing tasks make gains in
  explicit language knowledge when they are given
  feedback targeting specific language errors?
• Do they make greater gains than students who
  complete the same tasks but get no feedback?

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Grammaticality judgment test
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Grammaticality judgment test
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Research questions

• Do learners completing tasks make gains in
  implicit language knowledge when they are given
  feedback targeting specific language errors?
  Yes/No
• Do they make greater gains than students who
  complete the same tasks but get no feedback? No

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Research questions cont

• Do learners completing tasks make gains in
  explicit language knowledge when they are given
  feedback targeting specific language errors? Yes
• Do they make greater gains than students who
  complete the same tasks but get no feedback? Yes
  for noun/adjective agreement, No for être

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Conclusions . . .explanations

• feedback facilitated learning
• But tasks (designed to elicit target structures)
  also resulted in learning
• Why?
• may have focused learners attention briefly on
  form whilst engaged in communication of meaning
• may have noticed gaps between their own
  interlanguage resources language they needed

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Vocabulary prompt

• sortir
• aller
• rentrer
• Etc
• use of verb être in the passé composé is a rule
  that is easy to apply
• allows for item learning rather than system
  learning

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Reasons cont.

• No Feedback group reported high awareness of
  target structures
• opportunity to engage in a different type of
  instruction may have motivated them more to
  attend to the content of the activities (Lyster
  Mori, 2006 Yang Lyster, forthcoming)

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Awareness of target structure . . .
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What is missing?

• A control group that completed the tests only
• no tasks

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Control group EI test
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Control group GJT test
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references

• Erlam, R. (2006). Elicited imitation as a measure
  of L2 implicit knowledge An
• empirical validation study. Applied Linguistics,
  27(3), 464-491.
• Ellis, R. (2007). The differential effects of
  corrective feedback on two grammatical
• structures. In A. Mackey (Ed.), Conversational
  interaction in second
• language acquisition (pp. 339-361). Oxford
  Oxford University Press.
• Harley, B. (1989). Functional grammar in French
  immersion A classroom experiment. Applied
  Linguistics, 10, 331-359.
• Li, S. (in press). The effectiveness of
  corrective feedback in SLA A meta-analysis.
  Language Learning.
• Lyster, R., Mori, H. (2006). Interactional
  feedback and instructional
• counterbalance. Studies in Second Language
  Acquisition, 28, 269-300.
• Mackey, A., Goo, J. (2007). Interaction
  research in SLA A meta-analysis and
• research synthesis. In A. Mackey (Ed.),
  Conversational interaction in second
• language acquisition (pp. 407-453). Oxford
  Oxford University Press.
• Russell, J., Spada, N. (2006). The
  effectiveness of corrective feedback for the
• acquisition of L2 grammar. In J. M. Norris L.
  Ortega (Eds.), Synthesizing
• research on language learning and teaching (pp.
  133-164 ). Amsterdam John Benjamins.