The effect of timely interference of English language teachers on the improvement of learners’ oral performance

Abstract

Corrective feedback or error correction techniques are two terms interchangeably used to mean the interfering of language teachers to correct errors committed by their students. The issue has been controversially debated over the time. Many teachers support the view of immediate interference to correct learners’ error. These are the old disciples of teacher-based theory in education, while others defend the idea of student-centered education. This paper aims to pool the efforts of both schools; but the researchers prefer the timely interference of the instructor to correct his/her student’s error. The researchers believe that, this may be the practical way to modify learners’ oral language errors. The word timely should be relatively understood to simply mean that teachers should decide the well-timed moment to get involved in the learning process. The teacher is the master of the place and time of the whole teaching environment, so s/he will have to soundly judge their interference by considering: 1. The vitality of the text 2. The degree of the criticality of the context. 3. The sound calculation of the possibility of loss OR gain if the interference is not well-timed.