Contributors: Paula Rastrero-Pulido and Edurne Orce Franco | Reviewer: Marta González-Lloret
Overview of the study
This research study focuses on how students react to recasts, an implicit correction form, in two different classes of Spanish as a foreign language. The main objective of this study is to investigate the amount of recognition and integration of recasts following exercises in Spanish as a foreign language. From this focal point, two questions were developed to guide the investigation: (i) will there be more recognition and integration after recasts than after the instructor’s affirmative repetitions? and (ii) will there be more recognition and integration after recasts if they are accompanied by a hand signal than if they are used by themselves?
Research method
The study that was carried out had a total of 47 native speakers of English as participants. Moreover, two classes that met five days a week were observed during the ninth month of the academic year, and the focal points of these classes were indirect complement pronouns and the formation of the present indicative with verbs whose tonic vowel changes to diphthongs. The data was collected through the filming of two identical classes of 43 minutes. Parts of these classes were transcribing, specifically three different activities whose main goal was to develop communicative linguistic competence through questions and answers with affirmative or corrective feedback. Finally, the researchers worked individually to separate recasts from the instructor‘s non-corrective repetitions. Moreover, the students’ replies were divided into “simple recognition”, “integration” or neither.
Results
The results of the study answered the two main questions that were proposed at the beginning of the study accordingly:
- No group struggled to distinguish between the instructor’s affirmative repetitions and recasts.
- The group that received recasts followed by a hand signal did not get any sort of advantage in trying to figure out the corrective intentions of the instructor.
Practical Implications/Significance
The study proved that additional cues may be unnecessary when learners are told by other means the answers that match the communication objective set by the teacher. Also, contrary to previous research results about recasts, the study shows that there is almost a 100% relationship between the teacher’s cues and the students’ behavior.
Original Text:
Gurzynski-Weiss, L. (2013). Instructor Characteristics and Classroom-Based SLA of Spanish. In K.L. Geeslin (Ed.). The Handbook of Spanish Second Language Acquisition (pp. 530–546). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118584347.ch30
Cite this summary:
Rastrero-Pulido, P. & Orce Franco, E. (2025, February 23). Recasts in Feedback. Multiʻōlelo. https://multiolelo.com/?p=5120
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