Teacher Feedback and Language Aptitude

The present study explores the effectiveness of two different corrective feedback (CF) moves in the learning of two English target features (English question formation and comparatives) and whether language aptitude mediates the extent to which learners benefit from the two CF moves in the process. Three 5th-grade intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to three conditions: implicit (recasts), explicit (explicit correction), and comparison (no feedback) conditions. Learners (N = 55) carried out various classroom activities including story retelling, information gap tasks, and guessing games over 4 treatment sessions. CF was provided in response to learners’ nontargetlike utterances (with respect to the two target features) during the treatment sessions, according to their group affiliation. Results show that the implicit feedback class outperformed the explicit feedback class, albeit not statistically significantly, in both written and oral measures on comparatives. With respect to the learning of question formation, the implicit condition also performed better in the written test than the explicit condition, but vice versa in the oral test. Language aptitude measured via LLAMA F was found to be significantly correlated with the efficacy of CF moves on the development of the two structures, but with target type and test type interacting with language aptitude.