1. AS ERRORS GO BY- Corrective
Feedback in Advanced
Classrooms (2004)
• Lúcia Santos
• Isabela Villas
Boas

2. INTRODUCTION
• Importance of the research
• Linguistic Approach ⇒ Communicative
Approach
• Global x local errors ⇒ ESL x EFL
settings
• Communicative approach : develop
communicative competence

3. Components of language
competence (Bachman, 1990)
• ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCE
– Grammatical competence
• Vocabulary,
• Morphology
• Syntax
• Phonology/graphology
– Textual competence
• PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE
– Illocutionary competence
– Sociolinguistic competence

4. Important studies of corrective feedback
• Error treatment in the classroom is imprecise,
inconsistent, and ambiguous. (Allwright,
1975)
• Feedback is confusing to learners in that they
often receive contradictory signals
simultaneously with respect to the content
and the form of their utterances. (Fanselow,
1977).

5. Important studies of corrective feedback
• Learners noticed forms that they were
pushed to self-repair more than forms that
were implicitly provided by teachers.
(Slimani, 1992)
• Recasts, similar to noncorrective repetitions,
can be perceived by learners as positive
evidence (information about what is
acceptable in the target language) rather than
negative evidence. (Long, 1996)

6. Important studies of corrective feedback
• Whereas recasting of learner utterances was
the most widely used type of feedback, it was
the least successful way of corrective
feedback in terms of uptake. The most
successful ones were elicitation and
metalinguistic feedback. (Lyster and Ranta,
1997)
• Corrective feedback that promotes
negotiation of form by allowing students the
opportunity to self-correct or to correct their
peers resulted in the highest rate of uptake.
(Panova and Lyster, 2002)

7. Steps followed
• observed 11 advanced classes and took notes of
errors and corrections made during whole class
interactions
no correction
explicit
6
20 correction
4
0 metalinguistic
feedback
recast
11 repetition
41
clarification
request
elicitation

8. Steps followed after
observation
• Questionnaires to teachers and students
– 30 groups
– all the groups observed were involved
– data analyzed is based on 27 groups and 24
teachers
• Analysis of data

9. Is it important to have your
spoken errors corrected by the
teacher?
10
6
0
yes (95,8%)
no (0%)
not sure (2.6%)
blank (1.5%)
367

10. Students’ responses
• We want to be able to speak better English.
• I have to know what my mistakes are and
why I am making them.
• Because I can know what my mistakes are
and try to improve.
• To learn more.
• So we can learn from our own mistakes.

11. Frequency of error correction
according to students
200 190 very frequently
(7.8%)
frequently (30%)
150
116
somewhat frequently
100 (49.6%)
rarely (10.7)
50 41
30 nonexixtent (0.02%)
1 4
blank (0.1%)
0

12. Frequency of error correction
according to teachers
12 12
10
very frequently (16%)
8
8
frequently (50%)
6
4 somewhat frequently
4 (33%)
rarely
2
0

13. What form of error correction
is more effective for you?
explicit correction
180 173
160 metalinguistic
140 134 feedback
120 113 recast
100 92
repetition
80
60 56
clarification request
40
24
20 elicitation
1
0
Types of corrective feedback ineffective
Colunas 3D 8

14. Teachers’ preferred form of
correction
20 19
explicit correction
18 17
16 15 metalinguistic
14
14 13 feedback
12 11 recast
10
8 repetition
6
4 clarification request
2
elicitation
0
Types of feedback

15. What form of error correction
is most frequently used by your
teacher?
160 explicit correction
143
140
metalinguistic
120
feedback
100 recast
80 84
80
52 repetition
60
38
40 clafification request
17
20
elicitation
0

16. Would you like to have more or
less corrective feedback?
23
97 More (68%)
Less (0,05%)
It's enough (25%)
2 Blank (6%)
261

17. Questions for discussion:
1) What can you conclude from all the data
presented?
2) Can the information presented be
generalized to your teaching context?
Explain.
3) How can the information presented
influence your teaching?

18. CONCLUSIONS
• Students definitely want and need more corrective
feedback
• Teachers tend to use more indirect ways of correction
• Students tend to prefer more student-generated
correction
• Many times students don’t notice:
– if the teacher is correcting them
– how the teacher is correcting them
• There is a lot of variability in students’ preferences of
correction. To solve this problem, the teacher should
investigate students’ preferences.