Impact of Prompts as Corrective Feedback Strategy on Teaching /θ/ and /ð/ among Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners

Subject Areas :

Maryam  Karami ¹ (Department of Foreign Languages, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran)
Laya  Heidari Darani ² (Department of English, Falavarjan Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran)

Received: 2018-05-07 Accepted : 2018-09-21 Published : 2018-03-01

Keywords: corrective feedback, Form-focused instruction, error correction, prompt, sounds /θ/ and /ð/,

Abstract :

This study investigated the effects of prompts as corrective feedback strategy on teaching /θ/ and /ð/ sounds to Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this objective, after 30 students studying English at a language institute took a placement test, the intermediate-level students were selected based on their scores on this test. They were randomly assigned to one experimental group and one control group. The experimental group was instructed these two sounds giving prompts as corrective feedback, while the control group received no feedback. In this experimental study, two teacher-made tests on sounds /θ/ and /ð/ were administered to the participants before and after the treatment. After collecting the data and confirming normality of them; through employing two independent-samples t tests and two paired-samples t tests, the collected data were analyzed. The results indicated that language learners in the experimental group did not significantly outperform in the posttest; thus, it can be concluded that prompts were not an effective feedback in teaching these two sounds to Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Findings of the present study can help language teachers and teacher trainers in teaching these complex sounds to Iranian EFL learners