ORAL CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK STRATEGIES IN EFL. A PILOT STUDY IN CHILEAN CLASSROOMS

Abstract

Oral corrective feedback has been of great importance in foreign language acquisition since it helps improving oral production in students. Many studies have been conducted on this topic. However, the results may vary in every context. For this reason, this investigation aimed to comprehend Chilean teachers’ use of corrective feedback strategies and their efficacy in students’ performance. In this descriptive study, five teachers audio-recorded two lessons of 90 minutes each, where students from 5th to 8th grade received feedback from their teachers. The results include the frequency and effectiveness of corrective feedback strategies, as well as the type of errors that teachers correct in the classroom. 
The findings show that Chilean teachers use corrective feedback strategies to correct pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical and content errors. 
Also, there is a tendency of Chilean teachers to use explicit correction as the most frequent strategy. In terms of effectiveness, most of the corrective feedback provided followed repair from the learner. Among the most effective corrective feedback strategies, we could find repetition, elicitation, clarification request and metalinguistic feedback.