EFL Learner's Noticing of Corrective Feedback: Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency

Corrective feedback is shown to facilitate language learning. Eight types of corrective feedback, including four types of recast classified by Lyster (Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20:51-81, 1998), clarification request, elicitation, repetition, and explicit correction, were chosen to examine the effect of English as a foreign language learners' noticing of them on oral development of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Fifty-four Taiwanese English majors who participated in this study were assigned to eight experimental groups and the control group. After the pretest, the researcher provided each group with three sessions of speaking instruction along with the eight types of corrective feedback respectively, while the control group did not receive any feedback. The noticing log and focused group interviews were adopted to understand learners' noticing and perceptions of teacher feedback. Learners completed the posttest immediately after the treatment condition and the delayed posttest 4 weeks after the posttest. Results showed a short-term effect of the treatment condition on accuracy and complexity, yet only a long-term effect was found in complexity. However, no significant variations were found in unpruned and pruned fluency. Therefore, a trade-off effect was shown between fluency and accuracy as well as that and complexity. The qualitative data illustrated that learners indeed noticed the feedback offered by the teacher regardless of the type. Learners' noticing of certain types of feedback fostered the learning of accuracy and complexity to a greater extent than others.