Abstract

Classroom interaction arouses great interest of the teachers and researchers in classroom discourse analysis since 1980s. However, there is little empirical research on the influence of the form of students’ uptake on corrective feedback and its influence on second language acquisition in China.

Based on the analysis model of Lyster (1998), this paper analyzes the relationship between different types of teachers’ corrective feedback and their relationship with students’ errors of foreign language courses in English. The observation experiment was carried out in Cangqian Middle School. Through the classroom observation, questionnaires and interviews, the data and some other information are collected, based on which the major findings are presented as follows: (1) A great number of the students hold a very positive attitude toward corrective feedback of their teachers. (2) Students are most likely to make grammatical errors in learning English. Compared to the other three corrective feedback types, teachers prefer recast, and explicit correction, which is the last preferred corrective feedback move proved to be the most effective way to make immediate corrections. (3) The types of explicit correction and clarification request corrective feedbacks all lead to learner uptake. Pedagogically, among implications drawn on the findings are: teachers should give students more opportunities to use language in class, to find their mistakes under the guidance of teachers and improve their ability of self-correction; teachers should not only use technology to recast too frequently; diversity of corrective feedback should be noticed by teachers; students should have enough time to correct their mistakes.

Keywords: corrective feedback; uptake; interaction

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Research Questions and Purposes-1

1.3 Structure of the Thesis-2

2. Literature Review-3

2.1 Concepts of major terms-3

2.1.1 Error-3

2.1.2 Corrective feedback-3

2.1.3 Uptake-3

2.2 The Classification of Corrective Feedback Types-3

2.2.1 Explicit Feedback-4

2.2.2 Recast-4

2.2.3 Clarification Requests-4

2.2.4 Metalinguistic Feedback-4

2.2.5 Elicitation-4

2.2.6 Repetition-4

2.3 Theoretical Basis-4

2.3.1 Interaction Hypothesis-4

2.3.2 The Output Hypothesis-5

2.4 Previous Studies Abroad and Home-5

3. Research Design-7

3.1 Research Questions-7

3.2 Participants-7

3.3 Research Methods and Procedure-7

3.3.1 Classroom Observation-8

3.3.2 Questionnaire-8

3.3.3 Interview-8

3.4 Data Collection-9

4. Results and Data Analysis-10

4.1 Analysis of the types of error-10

4.2 Analysis of Learners’ Attitudes to Corrective Feedback-11

5. Conclusion-13

5.1 Major Findings-13

5.2 Pedagogical Implications-13

5.3 Limitations and Suggestions-13

References-15