Examining Teacher’s Corrective Feedback and Learner’s Uptake at Different Proficiency Levels: A Study in ESO and Bachillerato English Classes

Abstract

The development of Schmidt’s (1990) Noticing Hypothesis and Swain’s (1985) Output Hypothesis helped to spread the importance of giving learners Corrective Feedback (CF) in an effort to make them progress in their foreign language learning. Since importance was given to CF, research has been conducted on the way teachers give CF and the way students’ respond in their uptake, being one of the most relevant studies the one carried out by Lyster and Ranta (1997). After establishing a taxonomy of CF types and a classification of uptake types, Lyster and Ranta (1997) also studied that the selected CF type could be somehow related with the type of uptake students produced. Furthermore, students’ level of proficiency has been another object of study in the field of CF since it was believed teachers had to select the type of CF taking into consideration learners’ level of proficiency. Therefore, as teachers’ selection of the CF could be determined by students’ level of proficiency and by learners’ production of a particular type of uptake, the present study aims to examine the type of CF that a single teacher employs with ESO and Bachillerato learners as well as the type of uptake that these students produce after receiving teacher’s feedback.