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Volume 6 Number 4, Winter 2009, Pages 1-296   


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Feedback and Uptake in Chinese EFL Classrooms: In Search of Instructional Variables

    Yingli Yang


In second language research, a substantial body of research has demonstrated the facilitative role of corrective feedback in second language development (Chaudron, 1988; DeKeyser, 1998; Spada & Lightbown, 1993; Spada, 1997). A number of empirical studies conducted in different settings revealed that context may affect the extent to which different kinds of feedback are noticed and incorporated in subsequent speech by learners. This paper reports an observational study conducted in Chinese EFL classes. Lyster and Mori's (2006) feedback coding scheme was adopted in documenting the frequency of teachers' feedback moves and learner uptake rate following feedback. The findings show that the distribution of prompts and recasts was in reverse order compared to other communicative second language contexts. Findings also reveal that explicit correction and prompts had a higher uptake rate than recasts, which was in tandem with previous findings. These results suggest that form-oriented Chinese foreign language context indeed mediates the pattern of feedback and uptake.

Keywords: feedback, communicative orientation, uptake, classroom contexts