Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback: Teachers’ Perspectives

The study is designed to examine the effectiveness of corrective feedback (CF) from Chinese second language (L2) teachers to their students in mainland China. Investigations into how CF works were carried out based on three aspects: teachers’ perceptions of CF effectiveness, factors affecting it, and their interplay. An ecological approach—the nested ecosystem model—was employed to analyze data collected from interviews and stimulated recall interviews. A total of 22 class periods from 11 teachers were observed, and 8 teachers were interviewed. Collected data were then analyzed with Nvivo 11. Findings suggest that teachers’ main criterion for effective CF is raising students’ awareness of the error. Factors affecting teachers’ perceptions of CF effectiveness can be direct or indirect. Direct factors refer to the manner of CF provision, which was determined by reasons including error, teaching focus, audience, learners’ individual difference, teaching experience and class time. Indirect factors include empathy, cultural stereotypes and learners’ emotions. The influence of each individual factor on CF effectiveness, as well as the influence of their interplay, was examined. This study suggests that in the context of mainland China, teachers’ perceptions of effective CF were based on raising students’ awareness on the error; factors affecting CF effectiveness were largely the same as those in previous studies. What is new to the current study is that it highlights the influence of indirect factors from cultural and affective dimensions on teachers’ CF perceptions and the dynamic nature of CF effectiveness.