Exploring Native and Non-Native EFL Teachers’ Oral Corrective Feedback Practices: An Observational Study

Abstract

Commonly defined as L2 teachers’ responses to learners’ erroneous utterances, oral correctivefeedback (OCF) is an interactional classroom phenomenon which frequently occurs in foreignlanguage classes and has gained growing momentum in SLA research in recent years.However, how OCF preferences of English teachers vary in terms of their native-nonnativespeaker status remains as an uncharted territory of inquiry specifically in an expanding-circlecontext. This study aims to reveal the differences between in-class OCF practices of native andnon-native English-speaking teachers (NESTs & NNESTs) in Turkish EFL context and toexplore the cross-cultural influences that might affect these practices. To these ends, structuredclassroom observations and interviews were conducted with seven NESTs and seven NNESTs.The findings of the observations showed that the NESTs’ and NNESTs’ in-class OCF practicesdiffered considerably in terms of their tolerance of errors, preferred OCF types, the amount ofOCF and different types of OCF to different types of errors. Moreover, the follow-up interviewfindings demonstrated some similar and different dispositions between the teacher groupsconcerning several dimensions (whether, how, when, and which errors should be corrected, andby whom) including the effect of teaching experience and teacher education on their OCF-giving patterns.