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Corrective Feedback, Individual Differences and Second Language Learning

Article  in  System · September 2013

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Vera Busse
University of Münster
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Book review
Corrective Feedback, Individual Differences and Second Language Learning, Younghee Sheen. Springer, London
(2011). xvi þ 199 pp.

The role of feedback for student learning in general is widely recognised, and Hattie’s (2009) synthesis of meta-
analyses has confirmed what most educators are convinced of, namely that teacher feedback can make a crucial
difference to student achievement and successful learning. Given this general importance of feedback, and taking into
consideration the slow-going nature of language learning, studies on corrective feedback (CF) are highly valuable.
Existing research has already provided much needed insights into the gains (and limitations) of different kinds of CF.
Surprisingly, however, few systematic empirical attempts have been made to explore whether and to what extent
individual differences (ID) influence the effectiveness of CF. Sheen sheds light on this under-researched field of
research and presents insightful findings from her doctoral study, thus making a timely and useful contribution to the
wider research community.
The book is straightforwardly organised into eight chapters. These are broken down by four to seven subheadings,
which enable other researchers to identify the information relevant to their own research. Chapter 1 provides an
introduction that defines CF and discusses theoretical issues also in relation to the wider second language literature.
Chapter 2 examines theoretical issues of CF in more depth and draws a distinction between written and oral corrective
feedback, which is maintained throughout the following chapters. An exception is Chapter 3, which explores peda-
gogical perspectives on oral and written CF jointly. It is worth noting, in particular with the target audience of teachers
in mind, that Chapter 3 is the shortest of all, comprising only twelve pages. In contrast, the longest chapter, Chapter 4,
comprises 33 pages plus a three page appendix; it deals with oral corrective feedback research and introduces the
author’s own quasi-experimental study. Chapter 5, though much slimmer, follows a similar pattern and focuses on
written CF. Chapter 6 is innovative as it breaks away from the separation between written and oral CF and compares
their efficacy. Chapter 7, which is again quite extensive, sheds light on the relationship between individual differences
and corrective feedback. The final chapter, Chapter 8, provides a summary of the main findings and touches briefly on
pedagogical implications.
Given that there are many books on corrective feedback, I will pay particular attention to those features that set it
apart from related works. To start with, Chapter 1 provides a very easy-going introduction to CF which could be used
by teacher educators who want to give students a first flavour of theoretical issues. The author draws attention to the
fact that corrective feedback has become an umbrella term for basically anything that provides some kind of evidence
to the student that the oral or written output is incorrect. She also gives useful examples of oral feedback strategies
(e.g., different kinds of recasts and explicit correction), and compares indirect and direct written feedback strategies. Is
corrective feedback effective? Sheen touches briefly upon the infamous error correction debate before answering in
the affirmative, stating that explicit oral CF as well as written CF are effective, at least when focused on a single
feature. There are, however, many factors which influence the effectiveness of CF, as Sheen rightly points outs, among
them the role of the learning context and IDs. With regard to the latter, the author draws particular attention to
language aptitude, working memory, noticeability, anxiety and learner attitudes.
Chapter 2 holds few surprises in store and provides the mandatory overview of different theoretical perspectives on
CF, covering the usual suspects such as universal grammar-based perspectives and interactive perspectives. Sheen’s
research is conducted within a cognitive-interactional framework, but she also explores the potential of sociocultural
theory for the study of CF. This chapter has primarily a summarising function and does not seem to be intended as a
critical discussion, but the various sub-sections are well-referenced and indicate where the interested reader can find
more information.

0346-251X/$ - see front matter.

Particularly appealing is the structure of Chapter 3, which is organised around key pedagogical questions, such as:
Should errors be corrected? When should errors be corrected? Which errors should be corrected? Which strategies are
available for correcting errors? Unfortunately the answers provided are in rather broad strokes, and the author rarely
takes a position. Sheen opens the discussion by asserting that: “Teachers are often uncertain about correcting students’
errors, but students themselves are very clear about what is needed” (p. 39). This suggests a very uniform picture of
students’ wishes, which is probably somewhat misleading. While it is true that studies indicate how students in general
seem to expect some kind of feedback on language problems, more specific preferences with regard to form and scope
of teacher feedback depend on a variety of factors, including the specific student cohort and learning context. The
latter is acknowledged, but the reader needs to wait until pages 43e44, where Sheen tackles learners’ perceptions
about written CF.
Sheen points out that there is a growing consensus that teachers should correct learners’ oral errors, in particular
those that stigmatise learners as ‘uneducated’, but that correction should be delayed in a communicative activity. She
also points to the affective dimension of feedback highlighting that oral CF can increase anxiety in students. The
author then moves to written CF and gives reasons for the correction of error, warning at the same time of the danger of
over-correcting. She delves into Ferris’ (2002) work pointing out that errors need to be categorised, and that CF is
particularly useful when it focuses on treatable, stigmatising and frequently occurring errors. As Bitchener and Ferris
(2012) rightly emphasise in their recent work, certain grammatical features can only be acquired at certain stages in
the language development. Sheen’s criticism that it is difficult for teachers to decide whether or not an error is
treatable, is certainly justified, and, one may add, the larger the classroom and the more heterogeneous the student
body, the greater the challenge.
While the chapter is definitely worth reading, the brevity comes at a cost. For instance, given that the overarching
questions are very general in nature and thus of interest to both second language (L2) and foreign language (FL)
teachers, it might have been useful to make it clearer to the reader that the focus is on pedagogical perspectives
concerned with L2 learning, and that L2 teachers will have different concerns from FL teachers such as the treatment
of errors perceived as stigmatizing. It might also be said that in her endeavour to do justice to different pedagogical
perspectives, the author sometimes presents outdated pedagogical views (e.g., avoiding error, p. 40) without much
critical discussion. Additionally, the conclusion that learners’ anxiety and low self-confidence is not as important an
issue in written CF as in oral CF seems somewhat premature. While it is true that the latter takes place in front of the
class while the former is more private and that in her cohort anxiety played only a role in the case of oral feedback (as
elaborated on in Chapter 7, pp. 150e151), the affective dimension of written CF should not be underestimated.
Younger students in particular are likely to compare their marked essays. Given that individual differences in students’
motivational profiles, in particular self-efficacy beliefs, influence the acquisition of writing skills (for an overview, see
Pajares, 2003), it would seem counterintuitive to conclude that already existing self-efficacy beliefs had no effect on
how students perceive written CF.
The following chapters walk the reader through the various steps involved in Sheen’s quasi-experimental studies,
all of which focus on the acquisition of the English articles. The first study as presented in Chapter 4 involved 80 ESL
students in the US and focused on oral feedback. Students were provided with oral feedback in forms of either recasts
or explicit correction with metalinguistic information on the use of English articles and compared to one control
group. No difference between the control group and the recast group could be found. The metalinguistic feedback
group, however, outperformed both the control group and the recast group. Explicit corrective feedback with meta-
linguistic explanations might thus be more beneficial than a simple repetition of the correct form, probably, the author
explains, because students failed to notice the corrected error in the recast.
The second study discussed in Chapter 5 focused on written feedback and involved 91 second language learners
studying in the same setting. The comparison between the effect of written direct correction and written direct
correction with additional metalinguistic explanations showed that metalinguistic explanations were more effective
over time, although both experimental groups outperformed the control groups.
Since oral CF is usually explored independently from written CF, Chapter 6 might be particularly interesting to the
reader. Sheen compares differences in the effect of oral CF and written CF, in particular, the effect of oral recasts
compared to direct written correction and oral direct correction with metalinguistic feedback, compared to written
direct correction with metalinguistic feedback. The findings revealed that direct written CF was more effective than
oral recasts, yet no significant difference could be found between oral metalinguistic feedback and written meta-
linguistic feedback. Based on these findings, the author suggests that oral and written CF are equally effective,
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Book review / System xx (2013) 1e3 3

provided feedback is explicit. Nevertheless, the author acknowledges that implicit feedback such as recasts could be
more effective if students had to repeat the correct form, which learners in her study were not required to do.
Chapter 7 then provides the long-anticipated entry of IDs into the discussion, and explores to what extent language
aptitude, in particular language analysis ability, anxiety, and attitudes towards error correction mediate the effect of
oral and written CF. Not surprisingly perhaps, language analysis ability indeed mediated the effect of CF in all groups,
except for the oral recast group. (Recall that students failed to notice the corrections in recasts.) Language anxiety also
played a mediating role but only in the oral feedback situation, where students with lower anxiety tended to perform
better than those with high anxiety. Conversely, learners’ attitudes towards error correction played a more important
role in the case of written feedback. Sheen concludes that CF is most useful when it draws explicit attention to errors,
when learners have the necessary language analysis abilities and hold positive attitudes towards error correction.
All in all, this is a well-researched book and the comprehensive explanations of the methodological details of the
study will provide a good resource for fellow researchers and graduate students interested in this aspect of CF. For very
similar reasons, however, it might be less attractive to time-pressed practitioners, who are also identified as the target
audience on the back cover. The focus of the acquisition of English articles may not go down well with this target
group either, although it is understandable from a research perspective. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that
Sheen’s comments and thoughtful observations of her own experience as a non-native English speaker give the book a
personal voice and can therefore also make it a good read for those who have little prior knowledge of CF.

References

Bitchener, J., Ferris, D.R., 2012. Written Corrective Feedback in Second Language Acquisition and Writing. Routledge, New York.
Ferris, D.R., 2002. Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing. University of Michigan Press, Michigan.
Hattie, J.A., 2009. Visible Learning: a Synthesis of over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge, New York.
Pajares, F., 2003. Self-efficacy beliefs motivation and achievement in writing: a review of the literature. Reading Writing Q. 19, 139e158.

Vera Busse
Carl von Ossietzky Universität, Fakultät I Bildungs- und Sozialwissenschaften, Institut für Pädagogik, 26111
Oldenburg, Germany
E-mail address: [email protected]

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