L2 Teachers’ Beliefs About Corrective Feedback: the Mediating Role of Experience

Abstract

Although research on corrective feedback (CF) is well-visited in second language acquisition, the exploration of teachers’ cognitions of CF has not moved in tandem with this thick literature. On this ground, the present study aimed to investigate the mediatory role of experience in language teachers’ beliefs about CF. To this end, 137 novice and experienced L2 teachers were asked to fill out a questionnaire, followed by interviews with 10 teachers (five per group) in order to obtain a detailed picture of their CF-related cognitions. The results of data analyses indicated that among the components of the questionnaire, novice teachers were significantly disposed toward immediate feedback provision, and their experienced counterparts preferred peer and delayed feedback. The results of the follow-up interviews showed that while novice teachers viewed feedback as a more affective, personalized consideration, the experienced teachers considered it as a developmental learning aid. Also, both groups referred to a number of challenges in employing CF, especially those pertaining to learner self-correction. The findings of the study have been situated and discussed within the terrain of teacher education and a number of empirical implications have been suggested.