Teachers' and students' perceptions of oral error correction in the EFL classroom

Gibb, Helen (2021) Teachers' and students' perceptions of oral error correction in the EFL classroom. Doctoral thesis (EdD), University of Sussex.

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Abstract

This doctoral research paper focuses on one of the many pedagogical debates in modern language teaching. Teaching and learning occur in a variety of different ways and there are many theories on how these transpire. This thesis focuses on the oral error correction (OEC) offered by teachers and the teacher and student perceptions of OEC. It is presented within the field of English language teaching, utilising discussions from other modern language research. Different schools of thought exist regarding the importance of correctness in light of English as a Lingua Franca (Crystal, 2003), and the need for standardised accepted norms (Cameron, 1995). For teachers this provides a quandary of what constitutes an error, and how (if at all) these could be corrected. Whilst there has been much research into the causes of linguistic errors and the ways in which teachers respond to them, there has been comparatively little research into perceptions regarding OEC. The aim of this study is to provide a teacher and student narrative on OEC in a UK context using qualitative data collection.

The thesis focuses on three key questions for the initial data collection:

o How do teachers respond to errors in spoken language in the ESL classroom?

o How do teachers perceive oral error correction in the ESL classroom?

o How do students perceive oral error correction in the ESL classroom?

Having collated this data, the analysis will review the following principal question:

To what extent are there tensions and commonalities between the perceptions of oral error correction (OEC) of teachers and students, and how does this impact ELT?

This study focuses on understanding the nature of OEC through the lens of the participants. Using a participatory and interpretive research design, the study employed student questionnaires (n = 13) and semi-structured interviews with teachers (n = 6) to gain an individual perspective on giving and receiving correction. This was followed by a focus group with 5 teachers to discuss the points raised in the previous dataset and explore these further.

Teachers were asked to consider:

 the extent to which OEC benefited students' interlanguage development,
 which methods they perceived to be better received by students and why, and
 what considerations teachers had when correcting (or not) students' spoken errors?

Students were asked:

 what errors they felt were important for the teachers to correct,
 which correction method(s) they preferred, and
 how they felt when they were corrected.

The focus group questions were designed around the findings of the interviews and questionnaires to explore some of the similarities and differences in perceptions of OEC and how teachers feel about the students' responses.

The research presented here shows that students are largely more receptive to explicit correction; however, much of the current research has found that implicit correction is more widely used. The students expressed a desire to be corrected and felt it has a positive developmental influence overall; nevertheless, the teachers mostly believed intelligibility and communication were more important than linguistic correctness. Many of the teachers stated OEC was not something they consciously devoted time to, but it occurred ad hoc often in response to communication breakdown. Although the teachers did not entirely agree with each other regarding the impact of OEC, they all considered the student before responding. The findings of this research demonstrate not only the complexity of providing correction during interactions, but also the lack of consensus in how and when to provide it. If these differences are acknowledged, teachers and students can negotiate their understanding and perceptions of OEC so teaching and learning can occur to the satisfaction of both parties.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Schools and Departments: School of Education and Social Work > Education
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PE English > PE1001 Modern English > PE1065 Study and teaching
P Language and Literature > PE English > PE1001 Modern English > PE1097 Grammar > PE1117 Readers > PE1128 Textbooks: Grammars. Readers, etc., for foreign students
P Language and Literature > PE English > PE1001 Modern English > PE1097 Grammar > PE1117 Readers > PE1128 Textbooks: Grammars. Readers, etc., for foreign students > PE1128.A2 Theory, methods, etc. Manuals for teachers
Depositing User: Library Cataloguing
Date Deposited: 12 Mar 2021 14:58
Last Modified: 21 Apr 2021 10:53
URI: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/97769

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