Impact of Corrective Feedback on Spoken Discourse.

Abstract

It is often argued whether corrective feedback in spoken discourse leads to better performance of English as Second Language (ESL) learners. The objective of this study is to explore the impact of corrective feedback on spoken discourse and to explore how far ESL teachers use the method of corrective feedback. An experimental group and a control group, with twenty students each, from two English courses at the Technical College, Beliatta, were administered a questionnaire in acquiring primary data. Moreover, a questionnaire survey was administered to fifteen ESL teachers from the same college. Telephone conversations and social media opinion polls were other means of data collection along with other secondary data collection methods. It was observed that almost all the students in the control and experiment groups get feedback in their speaking skills lessons. In addition, the experimental group gets feedback based on content, progress/achievement, language and structure. But the control group gets feedback only on content and achievement. All the ESL professionals completely agreed with the impact of corrective feedback on spoken discourse and they too highlighted that they provide feedback in their speaking lessons, where 80% of the feedback focuses on the progress/achievement of the learners. Moreover, elicitation was used by almost every teacher involved in the questionnaire survey in giving corrective feedback. The average performance of the experimental group was satisfactory whereas 70% of students in the control group performed less satisfactorily, when all the participants were given the same speaking test at the end of three months of teaching and observation. Therefore, it was ascertained that corrective feedback given carefully in the ESL teaching/learning process can pave the way for better performance in the spoken discourse of learners.