Examining the Impact of Gender onTask-Based ConversationalInteractions Among EFL Learners:The Case of Recasts

This study aims at investigating whether the gender of EFL learners in conversational interactions influences the incidence and effectiveness of one salient type of feedback, namely, recasts. Forty EFL students who were all English teaching majors taking English laboratory classes at Islamic Azad University, Najafabad branch completed the interactional tasks with both male and female interlocutors. Their language production was analyzed for the use and provision of recasts empirically demonstrated to facilitate foreign language learning. The study investigated whether (1) interactions differ according to the group type (matched vs. mixed), (2) males and females interact differently in mixed-gender groups, and (3) learners interact differently according to their interlocutorsʹ gender. The results of statistical analysis indicate that the gender composition of the groups influenced the occurrence of recasts: there were more recasts in mixed-gender than matched-gender groups, and participants provided interlocutors of different gender with more recasts than interlocutors of the same gender, but this difference depends highly on the type of task the participants are engaged in. Thus, the gender of both learners and their interlocutors can influence the use and provision of recasts and should be considered in foreign language research and teaching.