Examining the effects of gestures in providing oral corrective feedback

Abstract

The observational study reported here examined the effects of gestures provided along with corrective feedback (CF) by two Japanese teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL). The data comprised video recordings of one junior and one senior high school lesson conducted mainly in English. The utterances of both the teachers and the students were transcribed and their accompanying gestures categorized into six types, as informed by previous studies in this field. The results revealed that the teachers’ gestures facilitated students’ noticing of CF, enabling them to repair previous erroneous utterances. However, differences in gesture type did not seem to affect the student’s noticing and repair. The study went on to analyze the relationship between the teachers’ CF and gestures, on the one hand, and their effect on student uptake, on the other. The results suggest a need for the effective use of gestures to accompany CF in English-medium lessons in EFL classrooms.