Abstract:
Oral errors are commonplace in the EFL learning process. Eliciting teachers’ and students’
collaboration in error treatment towards enhancing oral production and uptake is the main
concern of this study. Based on the central questions: Who repairs? When? What? How to
repair? And how much uptake is generated?, two attitudinal questionnaires were delivered to
150 second year LMD students and 16 teachers in the English department inquiring their
perceptions about error repair. The main hypothesis speculates that the betterment of students’
spoken language can be achieved through a conscious collaborative repair work regarding
each participant’s preferences. The repair behaviour was probed via a non-participatory
natural classroom observation during 16 hours of oral courses varied between interaction and
presentations. Controversial, though not conflicting, results were detected on two levels of
analysis: The students’ Vs The teachers’ attitudes and preferences towards the repair of oral
failures, besides the claimed attitudes Vs those revealed during the classroom observation that
achieved average amounts of students’ uptake. These findings lend a strong support for the
main hypothesis and encourage further pursuit of research in this field.
