Learner Interpretation of Teacher Corrective Intention of Feedback in EFL Classrooms

The role of corrective feedback (CF) has long been discussed in the field of second language acquisition. It has been claimed that CF enables learners to notice the problems in their second language (L2) production. However, it should not be assumed that learners always adequately interpret teachers' responses to their problematic utterance as correction. Especially when feedback is provided in an implicit way, the possibility that CF goes unnoticed should not be excluded. In this regard, the study aims to investigate how learners perceive teachers' corrective feedback in English classrooms in Korea. The study focuses particularly on examining the relationship between type of feedback and target linguistic content with learner interpretation of teacher corrective intention. Nine classrooms were observed and videotaped. Forty-five students and nine teachers participated in stimulated recall interviews. Their comments were analyzed to document the learners' perception and the teachers' intention of feedback. It was found that learner perception of teacher corrective intention was at its greatest when feedback was provided explicitly and was focused on morphological errors.