论文总字数：32895字

摘 要

本研究的目的是遵循中学英语教学实践新课程标准的基本要求，以Long为代表的以隐性纠正性反馈为重点，以Ellis为代表的相关理论强调隐性和显性相结合的纠正性反馈。本文主要研究了纠正性反馈在初中英语口语教学中的应用及其对学生第二语言学习的影响。旨在提高学生的英语口语学习能力，增强学生们口语表达的兴趣和动力，提高教师的教学效率，促进师生共同进步。希望本文的研究成果能为初中英语教师的英语口语教学提供有效的帮助，最终促进初中英语教育的改革，提高我国初中学生的英语会话表达能力。

关键词：初中英语；纠正性反馈；口语教学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 The purpose and significance of the study 2

1.3 Structure of the thesis 3

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 The definition of major terms 3

2.2 The theoretical basis of corrective feedback 4

2.3 Research on corrective feedback in China and abroad 6

3. Research Method 7

3.1 The subjects 7

3.2 The instruments 8

3.3 Date collection and analysis 8

4. Discussion and Result 10

4.1 The problem of students 10

4.2 The problem of teachers 10

4.3 Main findings 11

5. Conclusion 12

5.1 Implication for future teaching 12

5.2 Study limitation 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

As the theory of second language teaching gradually shifts from the traditional teacher-centered to the learner-centered, classroom interaction has always been a hot topic in foreign linguistics. At the same time, corrective feedback is a direct reflection of classroom interaction. Therefore, more and more experts and scholars believe that it is of great significance to study corrective feedback in language acquisition.

Errors have great importance to language learning, so most researchers believe that errors have a great value in language learning. Since the 1960s, error correction has aroused the domestic and foreign scholars’ widespread attention. First of all, errors can help teachers know a lot about what learners lack in learning. Second, error itself is a good guide for learners to acquire or learn a language, which helps learners to solve some problems in learning and explain some phenomena when a second language is being learned. In addition, the domestic and foreign scholars have also made a thorough discussion on whether the error needs to be corrected. Some people think that errors are inevitable for learners, so more and more researchers and teachers have reconsidered the role of errors in language learning. They argue that it is necessary to correct errors in order to avoid introducing mother tongue habits into the learning of the target language.

Background of the study

Now, under the guidance of some new teaching methods, such as communicative and Task-based Language Teaching methods, teachers are advised to tolerate learners’ errors rather than correct every one of them. However, based on most classroom observations and studies, it is clear that students’ language errors are still a major problem for teachers in language teaching classes, and even many teachers do not know when and how to correct errors at all. More importantly, there are many differences between teachers’ mishandling and students’ expectations, even between teachers’ conceptions of errors and their practice in real classes. Taking into account the current teaching situation in China, some research related to errors is needed to be carried out to solve these practical problems.

“Dumb English” has been exposed to the society for a long time. Although this situation has been improving, many students still dare not express their English with their mouths. This has a lot to do with the English teaching model in our country, because in the context of examination-oriented education, the effectiveness of English teaching has not really reflected. In junior school English teaching, teachers pay too much attention to textbook knowledge, the collocation of phrases, the correctness of word order but ignore the cultivation of students’ oral ability. Teachers explain the vast majority in the modern classroom, and students speak and communicate for less than 10% of the time.

Especially when the author worked as an intern in a middle school in Huai"an, she found that when teachers asked questions in class and needed students to answer them, only individual students were willing to take the initiative to raise their hands to answer questions. Some students were afraid of making errors so that they did not dare to answer. Some students were shy to express themselves. Some students were even unwilling to answer because they did not like answering any questions. Therefore, the author decided to do some research on this.

The purpose and significance of the study

Making full use of the teaching method of corrective feedback can make students pay more attention to the use of grammar in the process of oral expression, and then improve the accuracy of language expression. From here we can see that practice shows that corrective feedback is the key link in communicative language teaching, but there are few studies on corrective feedback in English teaching in China. How to effectively combine corrective feedback with oral English teaching remains to be supplemented. Based on the author"s practical experience, this paper analyses and explores the application of corrective feedback in junior high school English teaching in order to provide feasible suggestions for teachers’ teaching and help students improve the accuracy of language expression. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out this research.

Structure of the thesis

This thesis is composed of five chapters. It begins with the background of study, the purpose and significance, general structure of the thesis. The second part describes the literature review of corrective feedback, including the definition of error and corrective feedback as well as the general research on corrective feedback in China and abroad. The third part is about the research method, such as the subjects, the instruments and the date collection and analysis. In Chapter 4, a description of the discussion and result, mainly contains the problem of students and the teachers as well as main findings. In Chapter 5, the implication and limitation of the study are included.

Literature Review

2.1 The definition of major terms

This thesis is related to error and corrective feedback, so it is very necessary to introduce their definitions clearly to the readers. And then there are their definitions.

2.1.1 Error

Many scholars have defined error. They have different understandings of errors. For example, Chomsky argued that errors are caused by learners’ lack of knowledge of the target language. However, in Dulary’s opinion, errors are the defects of learners’ speech or writing. These are some views of some foreign scholars about error. Some Chinese scholars believe that errors are deviations in language use, because learners lack knowledge of the target language, so it is difficult for them to deal with some errors. (Dai amp; Shu 1-78)

2.1.2 Corrective feedback

Spada and Lightbown gave the definition of corrective feedback and pointed out that corrective feedback refers to learners’ incorrect use of the target language (Lightbown amp; Spada 172-173). This includes various responses received by language learners. As for Chaudron, corrective feedback simply refers to “any teacher’s behavior caused by errors, trying to inform students of the wrong facts” (Chaudron 150). According to Day et al. (1984), corrective feedback refers to appropriate items provided by a native speaker in response to an error by a non-native speaker. Ellis defined correction feedback in more, like an understandable way “Corrective feedback is a response to a learner’s discourse that contains errors (Ellis 28). From the above definitions, corrective feedback in this study can be seen as the information about the wrong discourse which teachers provide students with. It informs the learner of the wrong use of the target language and encourages them to fix the error.

Corrective feedback can be divided into oral corrective feedback and written corrective feedback. This thesis mainly talks about oral corrective feedback. Oral corrective feedback includes instant and non-instant feedback. Instant feedback refers to the teacher pointing out immediately when the learner makes an error in the oral expression, while non-instant feedback refers to the teacher pointing out only after the learner has made an error in the oral expression. Oral corrective feedback can be either input-based (i.e., providing learners with correct expressions) or output-based (i.e., guiding learners to give correct answers); oral corrective feedback can be implicit (e.g., teachers explain learners’ wrong expressions only) or explicit (e.g., teachers directly correct learners’ errors). Corrective feedback can be further divided into six types: explicit error correction, recast, clarification, guidance, repetition and metalinguistic feedback (Lyster amp; Ranta 1997:45).

2.2 The theoretical basis of corrective feedback

2.2.1 Comprehensible input hypothesis

The term “input” refers to the language learners to hear or read, namely what the language learners are exposed to. Krashen believes that “Comprehensible Input” refers to a target language material that is slightly higher than the current language level of a second language learner. Humans can only input information by understanding or accepting sufficient comprehensibility and then learn language. If the learner’s current second-language level is “i”, the comprehensible input should include a target that the learner understands slightly higher than the current second-language level “i” (ie “i 1”). As long as the learner uses contextual cues to absorb these comprehensible inputs, his second language ability will naturally occur to reach a higher level.

2.2.2 Comprehensible output hypothesis

According to Krashen’s concept of comprehensible input, Swain put forward his own understanding of comprehensible output. He believes that comprehensible output is indispensable in the process of language acquisition. Although language input is very necessary for language acquisition, it is not the only one. In order for learners to master the language successfully, language input and output exercises are very necessary. Therefore, comprehensible output has a great importance in improving learners’ language competence. Swain said that language acquisition, whether spoken or written, can be carried out through output language, and learners must think about and correct their output to make their output more accurate, appropriate and easy to be understood. Therefore, he proposed that only output can increase the language proficiency of learners. Swain (2005) further summarized the three functions of comprehensible output in second language acquisition: the noticing/triggering function, the hypothesis testing function, and the metalinguistic reflective function, and he believed that these functions can improve the accuracy of language expression.

2.2.3 Interaction hypothesis

Interaction Hypothesis is proposed by Michael H. Long (1981), which combines Krashen’s comprehensible input, Swain’s corrective output, and session interaction. Long’s interaction hypothesis recognizes that intelligibility input and output are necessary conditions for language acquisition, and he also emphasized the promotion of language acquisition by meaning negotiation for meaning. He studied various theories about negotiation interaction and second language acquisition, and then revised and updated the interaction hypothesis in 1996. The updated interaction hypothesis suggests that the types of interactions that contribute to second language acquisition are: opportunities for comprehensible input, feedback for providing second-language forms, and opportunities for post-correction output. Feedback from learners during conversational interactions can facilitate the development of inter-language, because interaction can organically combine input, learner’s intrinsic ability, selective attention, and output. After the revision of interaction theory, it has played a greater role in enriching the viewpoints of second language learning.

2.2.4 Noticing hypothesis

Schmidt (1990) emphasized in his “notice hypothesis” that unconscious learning was impossible. “Notice” is a sufficient condition for learners, and it is also necessary for learners’ language input to become the necessary condition for language absorption. The process of language learning is a process that must go through the input of the external world, the gap between the attention of learners and the language system, and finally through the output of language. Schmidt (2001) argues that learners must notice input information at first, consciously internalizing language knowledge and realizing language input, and then acquire a new language project.

2.3 Research on corrective feedback in China and aboard

According to the Interaction Hypothesis of Long(1996), interaction is beneficial to second language learning, and error correction feedback, as an important form of interaction between teachers and students in class, is considered as the key to play this role. Therefore, since Chaudron (1977) first proposed the concept of corrective feedback, scholars’ enthusiasm for corrective feedback is growing. From 2006 to 2010, there were four meta-analytic articles devoted to corrective feedback research (eg Mackey amp; Goo 2007; Li 2010). In addition, according to Xu Jinfen and Kou Jinnan (2014) based on word frequency analysis of foreign interactive research hotspots, corrective feedback has always been a hot topic in foreign interactive research, and relevant theoretical research and empirical research results are very rich. Scholars generally believe that teachers can re-analyze and reflect on their own inter-language system through corrective feedback, applying target language knowledge in the context of meaning-centeredness, and acquiring the target language form in the process of communication. Sheen once said that the inter-language should be reconstructed to bring it closer to the target language. However, there is no agreement on the effect of corrective feedback on second language acquisition researchers and foreign language teachers. Where there is recognition, there is opposition. Some scholars believe that corrective feedback has not played any positive role in improving use of second language learning, and even think that should be abandoned (Truscott,1996). Guennette (2007) raises the question of whether foreign language teachers can abandon any kind of corrective feedback in the process of teaching, even if corrective feedback does not help second language learners at all.

Chinese researchers have studied this from many aspects. For example, Dai Weidong and Wang Yongxiang discussed the problem from the view of the error. Xiang Chaohong thought that it is very necessary to correct students’ errors in class.The research on corrective feedback in China lags far behind that in foreign countries, especially the lack of high-quality empirical research. However, in our foreign language teaching environment, how teachers effectively giving feedback in the process of classroom activities is an urgent problem to be solved for students to improve the accuracy of language while paying attention to meaning exchange. Therefore, according to the theoretical basis of corrective feedback, this paper discusses the application of corrective feedback in oral English teaching in China, and it is hoped to improve oral English teaching in China.

3. Research Method

3.1 The subjects

This study is a case study. The data collected in this study is from No. 1 Middle School in Changshu, where the mother language is Chinese rather than English. The quality of this school ranks the third among all the junior high schools in Changshu, The class is composed of an English teacher and 53 students. This English teacher is a non-native English speaker, but she has taught English for thirteen years and she has rich teaching experience. These students are all from Grade 7. They are Chinese students aged between 12 and 14. Of these, 28 were males and 25 were females.

3.2 The instruments

The author collected enough research materials by observing the students’ performance and interviewing the teacher about her view of corrective feedback after class. Details of these two steps will be explained in the following sections.

3.2.1 Observation

Neither the students nor the teachers were told about the observation and the purpose of the study in order to achieve the authenticity and accuracy of the study.

Seven 45-minute classes were observed and recorded. Therefore, the author collected 315 minutes of records. Through observation, the teacher’s feedback to the errors that the students made and the students’ acceptance of the teacher’s feedback in the actual classroom were recorded.

3.2.2 Interview

In addition to observations, the teacher’s interview is also conducted within one and a half hours at the teachers’ office to understand teachers’ perceptions of correcting errors and correcting feedback for further analysis.

3.3 Date collection and analysis

According to the classroom observation, 107 errors were made by students, of which 76 were corrected by teachers. The error correction rate is up to the percentage of 71.0%. Most of the errors students made are grammatical errors. The following are phonological errors and vocabulary errors. Expression and discourse errors occur least. This is not because the students in this class are good at expressing and talking, but because there are very few opportunities for students in the class to say too much in the classroom. They also have problems with expression and discourse, but due to the limitations of discourse time, the errors cannot be fully reflected in the classroom. Because not every student has enough opportunities to speak for a long time, there are few errors in expression and discourse. Of the errors made by students, 77.8% of the grammatical errors were corrected. Next are phonological (73.5%) as well as vocabulary errors (54.5%). As can be seen from the table below, the most common errors made by students are grammatical errors, phonological errors and vocabulary errors, and most of the errors corrected by teachers are also these kinds of.

After recording classroom observations, statistics were made according to the classification of errors and the corresponding corrective feedback methods. The following table shows that recast ranks first in the frequency of corrective feedback, mainly used to correct grammatical errors. The second one is explicit feedback, which is also mainly used for grammatical error correction. The third one is metalinguistic feedback, which is basically used for lexical error correction. The repetition rate is the third lowest, which is mainly used for speech error correction. The last two is elicitation and clarification request.

Although in interviews, I found that the teacher prefers recasting to explicit feedback. While according to classroom observations, recasting has the lowest absorptivity in the teacher’s good feedback. It shows that teacher does not like explicit feedback while students like it best, with the highest acceptance rate. Most importantly, explicit feedback has the highest self-tuning absorptivity. In addition, the teacher said that when the author came to observe their class, the students’ attitude of answering questions is more positive than before, although the author didn’t tell the students that she would go to class.

4. Discussion and Result

4.1 The problem of students

Under the influence of examination-oriented education, contemporary junior high school students often indulge themselves in the sea of questions and neglect the practice of oral English, which is no way to improve their oral expression ability. By observation, we can see that junior high school students are often unwilling or afraid to actively express their views in class, thus losing the opportunity to practice oral English in class. Because of the influence of the restriction of mother tongue environment and the communication in the mother tongue after class, students do not have the opportunity to express their spoken English.

4.2 The problem of teachers

Form the English Curricular Standards in the Phase of Compulsory Education which is issued by the ministry of education of China in 2017, teachers should give full opportunities to students in the classroom and improve students’ participation. However, influenced by traditional ideas, teachers are thought of the core of teaching. This teaching concept will hinder students’ passion and motivation in learning. More importantly, in such a learning situation, students will lose the ability of learning or thinking independently. In addition, students have strong language learning ability and can even be developed stronger in junior high school. If they do not fully integrate into the classroom and simply accept the knowledge imparted by teachers, their own learning strategies and actual English communicative competence will be difficult to establish.

4.3 Main findings

As can be seen from the table above, recast, explicit feedback and metalinguistic feedback rank the top three in the frequency of corrective feedback. And the three feedback methods are mainly used for different types of errors, namely grammatical error, phonological error correction and lexical error correction. From the interview, we know that teachers prefer using implicit feedback to explicit feedback. According to classroom observations, recasting has the lowest absorption rate in teachers’ good feedback. In contrast, explicit feedback that teachers disliked and students liked had the highest rate of self-correction.

What the teacher thought is different from what she did in the class. Although she thinks it would be better to correct errors after students answer the questions, in the actual class, most of the time she just interrupts the students to correct the errors. In addition, the teacher believes that error correction should focus on content errors, while she overemphasizes on and spends a lot of time on grammar, vocabulary, and phonological errors in the class. The teacher believes that other students or the whole class should be given the opportunity to help the speaker correct the errors, but in the actual classroom, the teacher basically corrects the errors for the students who speak by herself.

In the process of teaching, teachers regard the goal of language teaching as emphasizing the accuracy of grammar, lexical and pronunciation. However, according to the English Curricular Standards in the Phase of Compulsory Education revised in 2017, the general objective of English teaching is to enable students to form the ability of comprehensive language using through English learning, to promote mental development and to improve the overall human quality. In order to achieve excellent exam results, both teachers and students choose to correct grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation errors. For less important words and expressions in exams, they selectively ignore them. Another reason for this phenomenon is that the teacher herself does not have a good command of the language, so she cannot correctly identify the students’ errors in expression and help them correct the errors.

5. Conclusion

5.1 Implication for future teaching

First of all, teachers should apply what they have learned to classroom teaching. At the same time, teachers should think ahead about what needs to be done to correct errors in class, rather than what they want to do. Consistency between thought and practice is a necessary condition to ensure the effectiveness of classroom corrective feedback.

Secondly, the teacher should make a balance between the application of recasting and explicit feedback in class. While teachers often use recasting, students prefer explicit feedback. A balance needs to be found between the two feedback points. Recasting is the least popular among students, but it doesn’t mean that teachers should abandon this feedback. On the contrary, teachers can still use it because it has its own advantages, and teachers should continue to explore more ways to improve the effectiveness of error correction. In addition, teachers need to consider the use of other useful and relatively good feedback for students, such as meta-linguistic feedback, rather than just using some kind of feedback that teachers themselves are familiar with.

Thirdly, whatever the factors, teachers need to correct errors properly. To be sure, teachers in real classes must consider the limitation of classroom time and the realization of teaching tasks, but they cannot use this as an excuse to give up some useful corrective feedback and even repeatedly shorten the time for students to speak in class. The focus of error correction needs to be balanced. Teachers should not overemphasize grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary errors, but take note of students’ expression and discourse errors. Although these errors cannot be shown in the short term, they are equally important for students’ long-term language learning. Teachers should not confine error correction to a narrow range. Considering that students’ preferences are very important to language teaching, teachers must be in consideration of students’ love of teachers’ teaching methods in language teaching. If teachers’ teaching ideas cannot fully meet students’ needs, or teachers can not consider what the students like, corrective feedback will not work.

5.2 Study limitation

Like many other studies, this study has its limitations.

First, this is a case study; the sample is just 53 students and one teacher. The data of this study and the scope of data collection are very small, so the research results are inaccuracy and cannot be widely promoted. Secondly, classroom observation is limited to the short term. Only one teacher was interviewed, which made the data too single and for reference. Thirdly, the results of the study are affected by lots of elements, such as class type, students’ English proficiency and the proficiency of that teacher in the use of corrective feedback. Based on the results reflected in future classroom studies, it is easier to judge which kind of corrective feedback will become unscientific. Last but not least, the students’ attitude of answering questions in class is more positive than before, so the results of this study are lack of truth. However, the results do contribute to a better understanding of students’ perceptions of error correction and to the understanding of classroom error correction.

Finally, I hope this study can be helpful to similar research and provide meaningful guidance and help for teaching practice in the future.

Works Cited

Chaudron, C. “A Descriptive Model of Discourse in the Corrective Treatment of Learners’ Errors.” Language Learning 27(2010): 29-46.

Corder, S. P. “The Significance of Learners’ Errors.” International Review of Applied Linguistics 5(1967): 161-169.

戴炜栋：《误差起因分析综述》. 《外语界》，2（1990）：1-6.

[Dai Weidong. “Review of Error Cause Analysis.” Foreign Language World 2(1990):1-6.]

Eillis, R. B, H. and Loewen, S. “Learner Uptake in Communicative ESL Lessons.” Language Learning 51(2001): 281-318.

葛虹宇《英语口语教学中纠正性反馈研究》，齐齐哈尔师范高等专科学校学. 5（2012）:117-118.

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