Corrective Feedback and Learner Uptake during a Small Group Activity in an ELI Context

Abstract

Despite a lot of empirical supports for the benefits of meaning negotiation with peers, little has been reported in its descriptive nature. Thus, the present study investigates corrective feedback and learner uptake during a small group discussion session. It also investigates learners’ perception on their peers’ feedback to their erroneous utterances. Interaction data from the seven participants’ class discussion were analyzed based on Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) ‘error treatment sequence’ and Lyster’s (1998) coding scheme. Also, survey asked about students’ perception on their peers’ feedback in terms of frequency and effectiveness. The results indicated that learners hardly provided feedback in response to their peer’s erroneous utterance in a natural instructional setting. As a result, they also rarely had a chance to uptake in response to the feedback. However, they showed quite positive attitudes toward the peer feedback and their uptake following it. The study has pedagogical implication that adequate selection of task types has significant importance for facilitating meaningful negotiation.