Leila Ranta

CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK AND LEARNER UPTAKE

This article presents a study of corrective feedback and learner uptake (i.e., responses to feedback) in four immersion classrooms at the primary level. Transcripts totaling 18.3 hours of classroom interaction taken from 14 subject-matter lessons and 13 French language arts lessons were analyzed using a model developed for the study and comprising the various moves in an error treatment sequence. Results include the frequency and distribution of the six different feedback types used by the four teachers, in addition to the frequency and distribution of different types of learner uptake following each feedback type. The findings indicate an overwhelming tendency for teachers to use recasts in spite of the latters ineffectiveness at eliciting student-generated repair. Four other feedback types—elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, clarification requests, and repetition—lead to student-generated repair more successfully and are thus able to initiate what the authors characterize as the negotiation of form.

COUNTERPOINT PIECE: THE CASE FOR VARIETY IN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK RESEARCH

Goo and Mackey (this issue) outline several apparent design fl aws in studies that have compared the impact of different types of corrective feedback (CF). Furthermore, they argue that SLA researchers should stop comparing recasts to other types of CF because they are inherently different kinds of phenomena. Our response to their article addresses (a) the claim that the recast-learning relationship has been “settled,” (b) the misleading representation of our views on uptake, (c) the characterization of the CF comparison studies as being weak and invalid, and (d) Goo and Mackey’s recommendations concerning the most appropriate approach to investigating the effect of feedback on second language learning.

FRENCH SECOND LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN CANADA: EMPIRICAL STUDIES . Sharon Lapkin (Ed.) . Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Pp. xxx + 350.

This volume offers the reader a potpourri of papers relating to many different aspects of the teaching of French as a Second Language (FSL) in English Canada. The collection emerged from a course taught by Sharon Lapkin at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education and makes accessible empirical studies that had previously existed only as unpublished manuscripts or research reports.