Teacher's Feedback to Learners' Errors: A Focus on Level of Proficiency

Abstract

As one of the theoretical conditions for language learning (Alcón-Soler, 2004), feedback plays a key role in the English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) classroom. At any level, language learners make errors as part of their learning process. However, little research regarding the CF and uptake across proficiency levels has been conducted. In order to shed further light on this topic, three EFL classrooms focused on interaction with learners’ of different levels of proficiency (i.e., beginner, intermediate and advanced) were analysed to examine teacher’s corrective feedback and learners’ uptake. Our results show that lexical errors account for the vast majority of errors across levels, and that over 80% of feedback is provided by the teacher. As for the type of feedback employed, recasts are the most used feedback strategy in the three levels. Nevertheless, the different levels of proficiency do not coincide with the second most used strategy, which is translation at the beginner level, explicit correction at the intermediate one, and clarification request in the advanced group. In regard to uptake, repetition is the most frequent response after recasts in the three levels, followed by acknowledgement. Notwithstanding, peer-feedback and clarification request are only beneficial at higher levels and incorporation appears only at the intermediate and advanced level. In light of our results, some pedagogical implications emerge for language learning, since level of proficiency seems to be a factor which influences the provision of CF.