A MULTI-METHOD INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS AND UTILITY OF DELAYED CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK IN SECOND-LANGUAGE ORAL PRODUCTION By JAMES DUNCAN HUNTER, MA Module 3 (thesis) submitted to the School of Humanities of the University of Birmingham in partial fulfilment of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Applied Linguistics Centre for English Language Studies Department of English University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT UK NOVEMBER 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT A major challenge in second-language pedagogy and research is that of determining linguistic competence. Fluent oral production gives some indication of the state of a learner’s interlanguage, but the presence of non-target-like forms in such production confounds the analysis since the teacher or researcher cannot be certain whether such forms are random or systematic. Corrective feedback (CF) in oral production, usually in the form of recast or elicitation, can thus appear arbitrary and inconsistent. This thesis investigates the effectiveness of delayed CF, in which representative samples of learners’ non-target-like production are systematically collected and tracked. The investigation employed three methods: first, accuracy and fluency in production were measured by means of a test in which learners reformulated their own non-target-like production; second, accuracy and reaction time were measured as learners judged the well-formedness of those same reformulations; third, the developing complexity of learner production is monitored by means of an error database. Results indicate that delayed CF of this kind is effective in pushing learners towards greater complexity and accuracy in both production and recognition, and constitutes an approach to the problem of determining what the individual learner knows that has both theoretical validity and pedagogical relevance. DEDICATION I would like to dedicate this work to my parents, Ann Hunter and Keith Hunter and to Bridget, Ceilan, Zeke, and Fionn, the loves of my life. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge a huge debt of gratitude to several people whose guidance and support have been indispensable throughout my doctoral studies, in particular my parents. I would like to thank my supervisor, Charles Owen, and to apologise for taking so long. I would also like to thank my colleagues and students in Spokane and Abu Dhabi for participating in the research and for giving me valuable feedback and suggestions. For those who proof-read drafts and gave suggestions, Ann Hunter, Bridget Green, and Charles Owen, I am greatly indebted and beg your forgiveness for any remaining inaccuracies, which are all my own. Many thanks to Dr. Clodagh Brook for giving me a home in Birmingham. Finally, a special thank you to Dr. Ron Harris for the inspiration. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 1.1 Statement of the problem ............................................................................................... 1 1.2 Review of Module I and II ............................................................................................ 3 1.3 Overview of research ..................................................................................................... 6 1.4 Significance of the study ............................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND .................. 10 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 10 2.2 Theoretical foundations ............................................................................................... 10 2.2.1 Interlanguage and the origin of error .................................................................... 10 2.2.2 Developmental sequences ..................................................................................... 14 2.2.3 L1–TL interface .................................................................................................... 15 2.2.4 Sociocultural perspectives ..................................................................................... 16 2.3 Fluency ........................................................................................................................ 17 2.4 The connection between complexity, accuracy, and fluency ...................................... 21 2.5 Methodological issues ................................................................................................. 23 2.5.1 Grammaticality judgements .................................................................................. 23 2.5.2 Reaction time ........................................................................................................ 27 2.5.3 The ecological validity of teacher research ........................................................... 29 CHAPTER 3: PILOT STUDY OF A TIMED GRAMMATICALITY JUDGMENT TEST... 32 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 32 3.2 Research questions ...................................................................................................... 32 3.3 Participants .................................................................................................................. 34 3.4 Design and procedures................................................................................................. 34 3.4.1 Timed judgement tests .......................................................................................... 34 3.4.2 Selection of test items ........................................................................................... 35 3.4.3 Linguistic profile of the pilot test items ................................................................ 37 3.4.4 Recording of the test items .................................................................................... 42 3.4.5 Design of the testing platform ............................................................................... 42 3.4.6 Elimination of unreliable items ............................................................................. 46 3.4.7 Summary of stage one ........................................................................................... 48 3.5 Stage two data collection and findings ........................................................................ 49 3.5.1 Anomalous responses by NS group ...................................................................... 49 3.5.2 Response bias ........................................................................................................ 51 3.5.3 The relationship between item length and judgement data ................................... 52 3.5.4 The relationship between judgement accuracy and reaction time ........................ 53 3.5.5 Judgements as ungrammatical and grammatical ................................................... 54 3.5.6 Group mean differences ........................................................................................ 57 3.6 Differential performance by two NNS participants ..................................................... 61 3.7 Implicational hierarchies ............................................................................................. 64 3.8 Discussion .................................................................................................................... 65 3.9 Summary of findings ................................................................................................... 66 CHAPTER 4: ELICITED IMITATION AND CORRECTION TESTS .................................. 68 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 68 4.2 Research questions ...................................................................................................... 68 4.3 Description of ‘Running Lists’ .................................................................................... 69 4.4 The role of memory in elicited imitation ..................................................................... 71 4.5 The Running List Test (RLT) ...................................................................................... 75 4.6 Participants .................................................................................................................. 75 4.7 Methodology ................................................................................................................ 77 4.7.1 Pedagogical use of the RLT .................................................................................. 77 4.7.2 Operationalization of accuracy and fluency .......................................................... 79 4.7.3 Automatic calculations of words per minute .......................................................