The effects of oral corrective feedback on Chinese secondary school students' acquisition of English past tense

M.Phil.This study compared the effects of explicit and implicit oral corrective feedback on the acquisition of English past tense. In relation to regular-irregular morphology of English past tense, feedback effect is specified as three sub-types of effect (i.e., training effect, generalization effect, and transfer effect), which correspond to three research questions.The participants were 90 Chinese secondary school students. Research Question 1 (training effect, the effect on the acquisition of trained regular past tense) and Research Question 2 (generalization effect, the effect on the acquisition of untrained regular past tense) aim to compare the findings from adolescent learners with the findings from adult learners in Ellis, Loewen, and Erlam (2006). Research Question 3 (transfer effect, the effect on the acquisition of untrained irregular past tense) is pioneering and exploratory.Three intact classes, each class with 30 students, were randomly assigned to two experimental groups (an explicit group and an implicit group) and a control group. For treatment, the three groups did the same Focus-on-Form instructional activity, during which the explicit group received explicit feedback from the teacher in response to their errors in past tense, the implicit group received implicit feedback, and the control group received no feedback. The participants’ acquisition was measured in terms of implicit knowledge (by oral test) and explicit knowledge (by grammaticality judgment test) before, immediately after, and two weeks after treatment.In terms of training effect and generalization effect, it is found that for the acquisition of implicit knowledge, explicit feedback is more effective than implicit feedback, due to explicit feedback’s following characteristics in comparison with implicit feedback: 1) higher saliency (according to Noticing Hypothesis proposed by Schmidt,1990, 1994, 2001); 2) greater deployment of explicit knowledge (according to the inter-relationships among explicit and implicit learning, and explicit and implicit knowledge, proposed by scholars such as Dörnyei, 2009, and N. C. Ellis, 2005); 3) promotion of self-repaired output (according to Output Hypothesis proposed by Swain,1985); 4) promotion of more frequent output (according to Skill Acquisition Theory proposed by scholars such as DeKeyser,1998). For the acquisition of explicit knowledge, explicit and implicit feedback are similar, because before treatment the learners had already had high levels of explicit knowledge and little room for improvement.In terms of transfer effect, it is found that for the acquisition of implicit knowledge, implicit feedback is more effective than explicit feedback. For the acquisition of explicit knowledge, explicit and implicit feedback are similar, because of the learners’ ceiling levels of explicit knowledge before treatment.For training effect and generalization effect, the findings from adolescent learners are generally similar to those from adults learners in Ellis et al. (2006). For transfer effect, the superiority of implicit feedback over explicit feedback is unexpected and needs further exploration. Meanwhile, it indicates that there does exist a connection between the acquisition of regular past tense and the acquisition of irregular past tense, but the single-mechanism (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986) vs. dual-mechanism (Pinker & Prince, 1988; Pinker & Ullman, 2002) question still remains debatable.本研究比較顯性口語糾錯反饋和隱性口語糾錯反饋對于英語一般過去時習得的效果。基於英語一般過去時規則 不規則形態的特點，反饋效果具體分為三種效果（即：訓練效果、類化效果、遷移效果），分別對應三個研究問題。本研究的參與者為90 名中國中學生。研究問題 1 （訓練效果，即針對訓練的規則一般過去時的習得的訓練效果）和研究問題 2 （類化效果，即針對未訓練的規則一般過去時的習得的類化效果） 旨在比較從青少年學習者中得出的研究發現和 Ellis, Loewen, and Erlam ( 從成年人學習者中得出的研究發現。研究問題 3 （遷移效果，即針對未訓練的不規則一般過去時的習得的遷移效果 為創新性、探索性的研究問題。3個完整的班級，每個班級 30 名學生，被隨機分配為 2 個實驗組（ 顯性反饋組和隱性反饋組 ）和 1 個控制組。在實驗中， 3 個組的學習者參與同樣的Focus on Form 教學活動，而在活動過程中，教師針對顯性反饋組學習者的一般過去時錯誤提供顯性反饋，針對隱性反饋組學習者的一般過去時錯誤提供隱性反饋，針對控制組學習者的錯誤不提供任何反饋。學習者對英語一般過去時的習得水平被從兩方面進行測評：隱性知識（由口語測試來測評）和顯性知識（由語法判斷測試來測評），測試分別在實驗前、實驗后即刻、實驗后兩周進行。在訓練效果、類化效果方面，本研究發現：在隱性知識的習得上，顯性反饋的效果優於隱性反饋，這是因為顯性反饋相對於隱性反饋，有如下特點： 1更明顯（根據 Schmidt, 1990, 19 94, 2001 提出的 Noticing Hypothesis 2 更大程度上調動顯性知識（根據 Dörnyei , 2009, N. C. Ellis, 2005 ，等學者提出的關於顯性學習、隱性學習、顯性知識、隱性知識之間的相互關係 3 激發學習者自主糾錯產出（根據 Swain, 1985 提出的 Output Hypothesis 4 促進更多的語言產出（根據 DeKeyser, 1998 等學者提出的 Skill Acquisition Theory ）。在顯性知識的習得上，顯性反饋和隱性反饋的效果相似，這是因為在實驗之前，學習者的顯性知識水平已然很高，提升空間小。在遷移效果方面，本研究發現：在隱性知識的習得上，隱性反饋的效果優於顯性反饋。在顯性知識的習得上，顯性反饋和隱性反饋的效果相似，這是因為在實驗之前，學習者的顯性知識水平已然很高，提升空間小。在訓練效果、類化效果方面，本研究從青少年學習者中得出的發現和 Ellis etal. (2006) 從成年人學習者中得出的發現總體相似。 在遷移效果方面，本研究發現 隱性反饋的效果優於顯性反饋，這項發現出乎預期 ，有待于進一步探索。同時，這項發現表明：英語規則一般過去時和不規則一般過去時的習得之間確實存在關聯，而單機制理論 (Rumelhart & McClelland, 、雙機制理論 (Pinker &Prince, 1988; Pinker & Ullman, 2002) 之間的分歧仍無定論。Qu, Congyi.Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2019.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-112).Abstracts also in Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on 5, May 2021)