1. “Negative Feedback as
Regulation and Second Language
Learning in the Zone of Proximal
Development”
James P. Lantolf and Ali
Aljaafreh.
RONALD GOBBI
KARINA HANSON
THEORIES IN SLA
DR. ALEJANDRO CUZA
NOVEMBER 11, 2010

2. I. Introduction
 Qualitative study investigates the effects of
corrective feedback within the Social Cultural
Theory (SCT) developed by L. S Vygotsky.
 Negotiation process between learners and their
tutor in an ESL context.
 Feedback: Both implicit and explicit feedback
impact linguistic development, but the relevance of
the type of feedback.

3. 1.1 Mediated processes: (socioculturally
constructed)
 Human mental activity is essentially a mediated
process in which language plays an essential role in
the mental life of the individual.
 “Linguistic activity, including speaking and
writing,voluntary memory, voluntary attention,
planning, monitoring, the formation of intentions,
rational thought, and learning.”

4. 1.2 Genetic Law of cultural development:
 Internalization: An evolution from external into
internal (mental) activity. (linguistically mediated)
 The transition from inter to intramental functioning
whether in ontogenesis or microgenesis, is a dynamic
process of reconstruction and qualitative change in which
novice and the expert collaborate in constructing mutual
activity frame. (ZPD)

5. 1.3 ZPD as main analysis framework:
 ZPD – From current developmental level to the
potential development
 The very goal of interaction in the ZPD is for novices
to appropriate the responsibility for their own
linguistic performance
 kinds of assistance

6.  Mechanisms of Effective Help in the ZPD:
 Intervention (assistance) should be graduated:
estimate the minimum level of guidance. No more
help provided than the necessary.

7.  Help should be contingent: help (assistant) offered only
when needed, and withdrawn when there are signs of self-
control.
 Collaborative frame: is the dialogue established between
the leaner and the tutor in which correction is to occur. It is
a source of implicit/explicit corrective feedback

8. II. Antecedents
 Experimental research on error correction:
 Late 60's – Pit Corder , Burt and Kiparsky,
George, and Richards – Study of learners errors
 As a reflection of hypothesis testing on the part of
second language learners - Analysis of errors in their
own right.
 As indications of hypothesis testing and
interlanguage development to the potential effects of
corrective procedures on language learning.

9. Antecedents
DeKeyser Although error correction results in some improvement
for some learners, it fails to achieve much in the way of
cross-the-board impact on learning.
Birdsong Influenced by individual and/or situational variation
Day Learner personality defines the amount/type of feedback
supplied.
Sharwood Smith Learner internal strategies and linguistic development
and Schachter may play an important role in determining the
effectiveness of negative feedback.
Spada and Whether different types of error correction strategies are
Lightbrown more effective at different times in learners' development
and teachers vary feedback strategies according to their
perception of learners' development.
Carroll and Swain Learners who received explicit feedback performed better
on grammatical experiments than those given implicit
feedback.

10. III. Objectives:
 To examine how the negotiation of corrective
feedback, or other-regulation, in the ZPD promotes
learning.
 To investigate the correction/learning interface
within ZPD to analyze the interaction between error
correction and the learning process.

11. III. Research Questions and Hypotheses
 Does error correction lead to learning or are
corrective moves by teachers or other caretakers
ineffective?

12. IV. Experimental design
 Participants:
 9 volunteered students in total, but only 3 ESL
learners were considered in this study (same ZPD
zone). 1 Japanese, 1 Spanish and 1 Portuguese.
 8 sessions once a week of 30 to 45 minutes long.
 4 grammatical problems were analyzed: articles,
tense marking, use of prepositions, and modal verbs.

13.  Methods
 Tutoring sessions were collected exclusively in audio format.
 Written texts: They would facilitate interaction between the
expert (researcher) and the learners.

 Procedures:
 Write one in-class essay per week (free topic)
 Prior to each tutorial, tutor read each essay in order to detect
problems.
 Learners read the essay, underline whatever errors they could
find and correct them if they could.
 Tutor offered assistance to encourage and guide the learner to
participate in the activity and to assume increased
responsibility for arriving at the appropriate performance.

14. Providing feedback
Regulatory Scale
(Levels of help)
From Implicit to
Explicit questions.
Intervention: Noticing:
Do you notice any problem? Is there anything
wrong in this sentence? Tutor identifies error. Learner Correcting:
Is there anything wrong in this line corrects it Tutor provides the correct
or segment? Tutor provides clues about the answer and brief explanation.
Pay attention to the tense of the verb. (nature
of the error)
correct answer

15. Developmental criteria:
 Criteria used to determine the microgenetic growth
of the learner’s interlanguage.
 1. Product-oriented criterion:
 Search for signs of improvement
 2. Does the learner show signs of movement away
from other-regulation to self-regulation?
 Determined by the frequency and quality

16. Levels of Transition (from intermental to
intramental functioning)
Level Learner Tutor Stages
external
1 is not able to notice the assumes full
error responsibility for
correcting the error
2 is able to notice the
error, but cannot assumes partial
correct it responsibility
regulation Other-regulation
3 is able to notice the
error, but only under
other-regulation
4 notices and corrects an
Partial self-
error with minimal
feedback
5 the correct target form not intervention form
Self-generated,
is automatized tutor
automatized
Internal

17. V. Results and Conclusions
 Effective feedback correction and language learning
depend crucially on mediation provided by other
individuals.
 The types of error correction that promote learning
cannot be determined independently of individual
learners interacting with other individuals. All types of
feedback are relevant for learning, but their relevance
depends on where in the learner’s ZPD a particular
property is situated.
 Tutorial is not the uniquely framework for constructing
the ZPD. Collaborative feedback between learners
engaged in problem-posing tasks, use of portfolios,
dialogue journals are different ways where the ZPD can
be co-constructed and learning can emerge.


18.  Analysis of the interactions showed changes in
grammatical competence that illustrated learners
were moving from the need for other-regulation
provided by the tutor to the partially or completely
self-generated capacity to notice and correct errors.
 The novice’s linguistic performance is mediated and
enhanced by the tutor. Each of the participants
demonstrated that they had internalized aspects of
assistance and gained a greater ability to function
autonomously.

19. VI. Critique
 Numbers of participants were not representative.
 Van Lier: too much guidance might inhibit or retard
the development of self-regulation.
 No video recording that would have captured the
meaning displayed by learner-tutor.