A teacher-researcher's exploration of learner engagement with corrective feedback : an action research

Abstract

Corrective feedback includes oral corrective feedback and written corrective feedback. Although a number of studies have examined the impact of student engagement with written corrective feedback in second language (L2) acquisition studies, student engagement with oral corrective feedback has been under-conceptualised and under-explored. In addition, there are a substantial number of studies that have investigated the effect of student engagement with corrective feedback for higher education, but only a few studies focus on primary and high schools. This research explores the types of oral corrective feedback that foster young students' engagement in Chinese in the L2 classroom in an Australia context, thereby helping beginning Chinese L2 teachers to improve their teaching ability. In this study, the teacher-researcher completed two cycles of data collection using an action research design to explore the phenomena. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were both used to investigate young students' engagement with oral corrective feedback. Data was collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, classroom observation and self-reflective journals. It was found that different types of oral corrective feedback may affect student engagement to varying degrees in the Chinese classrooms as a number of factors influence the effectiveness of corrective feedback. In addition, language proficiency level affected student engagement when the teacher-researcher implemented the different types of oral corrective feedback. Comparatively more explicit feedback types led to better student engagement for the advanced level students, while more implicit feedback could better engage the students with lower language proficiency. Several implications and recommendations were made at the end of this thesis, highlighting the importance of oral corrective feedback for young learners in the Chinese as second language classes.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English