Attitudes and preferences of students’ self repair and teachers’ corrective feedback in classroom conversation

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.