The Effect of Explicit Feedback in Oral Performance in Use of Past Tense

The correction of grammar was said not to be facilitating in the language learning process by some researchers, including Krashen (1982, 1985) because it might affect learners negatively. However, the feedback has been studied in terms of its influence on language acquisition, and many studies point the positive effect of feedback on language learning (Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006; Khanlarzadeh & Nemati, 2016; Russel & Spada, 2006). Concordantly, this study examined the effect of corrective feedback on performance in speaking tasks targeting the use of simple past tense. Since many studies on corrective feedback (CF) focused on feedback on writing, especially in regard to grammatical errors, the present study aimed to contribute to the existing prose with the focus of oral performance and speaking. The participants were first-year students at a private university in Istanbul. Since intact classrooms were used to create samples, a quasi-experimental design was applied. A pre-test was applied to identify their current competence of the target topic in terms of oral production. The control and experimental groups were assigned randomly. The experimental group received explicit feedback, while the control group was not exposed to any kind of feedback. Verbal feedback was provided with regard to grammatical error correction. Pre-test and post-test results of control and experimental groups which were examined indicated that the experimental group receiving feedback for six weeks outperformed the control group. Based on this finding, corrective feedback can be considered as a facilitating tool for speaking activities with a grammar focus.