The Role of Feedback

One of the keys, but not the only key, to successful second language learning lies in the
feedback that a learner receives from others. Chapter 9 of PLLT described Vigil and
Oller’s (1976) model of how affective and cognitive feedback affects the message-
sending process. Figure 19.8 depicts, metaphorically at least, what happens in Vigil and
Oller’s model in the case of learners’ orally produced utterances.

Figure  19.8.  Affective  and  cognitive  feedback  

Abort  
Recycle  
Message  
Continue  
Continue  

Affective  
Feedback  

The “green light” of the affective feedback mode allows the sender to continue
attempting to get a message across; a “red light” causes the sender to abort the attempt.
(The metaphorical nature of such a chart is evident in the fact that affective feedback
does not precede cognitive feedback, as this chart may lead you to believe; both modes
can take place simultaneously.) The traffic signal of cognitive feedback is the point at
which error treatment enters. A green light here symbolizes noncorrective feedback that
says, “I understand your message.” A red light symbolizes corrective feedback that takes
on a myriad of possible forms (outlined below) and causes the learner to make some kind
of alteration in production. To push the metaphor further, a yellow light could represent
those various shades of color that are interpreted by the learner as falling somewhere in
between a complete green light and a red light, causing the learner to adjust, to alter, to
recycle back, to try again in some way. Note that fossilization may be the result of too
many green lights when there should have been some yellow or red lights.
The most useful implication of Vigil and Oller’s model for determining how you
will administer error treatment is that cognitive feedback must be optimal in order to be
effective. Too much negative cognitive feedback—a barrage of interruptions, corrections,
and overt attention to malformations—often leads learners to shut off their attempts at
communication. They perceive that so much is wrong with their production that there is
little hope of getting anything right. On the other hand, too much positive cognitive
feedback—willingness of the teacher-hearer to let errors go uncorrected, to indicate
understanding when understanding may not have occurred—serves to reinforce the errors
of the speaker-learner. The result is the persistence, and perhaps the eventual fossilization
(or stabilization), of such errors. The task of the teacher is to discern the optimal tension
between positive and negative cognitive feedback: providing enough green lights to
encourage continued communication, but not so many that crucial errors go unnoticed;
and providing enough red lights to call attention to those crucial errors, but not so many
that the learner is discouraged from attempting to speak at all.
We do well to recall at this point the application of Skinner’s operant conditioning
model of learning (see PLLT, Chapter 4). The affective and cognitive modes of feedback
are reinforcers to speakers' responses. As speakers perceive “positive” reinforcement (the
green lights of Figure 19.8), they will be led to internalize certain speech patterns.
Corrective feedback can still be “positive” in the Skinnerian sense, as we shall see below.
Because ignoring erroneous behavior also has the effect of a positive reinforcer, teachers
must be very careful to discern the possible reinforcing consequences of neutral
feedback. What we must avoid at all costs is the administration of punitive
reinforcement—correction that is viewed by learners as anaffective red light -devaluing,
dehumanizing, or insulting them.

When and How to Treat Errors

Against this theoretical backdrop we can evaluate some possibilities of when and how to
treat errors in the language classroom. Michael Long (1977,p. 288) suggested that the
question of when to treat an error (that is, which errors to provide some sort of feedback
on) has no simple answer:

Having noticed an error, the first (and, I would argue, crucial) decision the teacher
makes is whether or not to treat it at all. In order to make the decision the teacher
may have recourse to factors with immediate, temporary bearing, such as the
importance of the error to the current pedagogical focus of the lesson, the
teacher's perception of the chance of eliciting correct performance from the
student if negative feedback is _given, and so on. Consideration of these
ephemeral factors may be preempted, however, by the teacher’s beliefs (conscious
or unconscious) as to what a language is and how a new one is learned. These
beliefs may have been formed years before the lesson in question.

In a very practical article on error treatment, James Hendrickson (1980) advised

teachers to try to discern the difference between global and local errors (to be described
later in this chapter). Once a learner of English was describing a quaint old hotel in
Europe and said, “There is a French widow in every bedroom.” The local error is
clearly—and humorously—recognized. Hendrickson recommended that local errors
usually need not be corrected since the message is clear and correction might interrupt a
learner in the flow of productive communication. Global errors need to be treated in some
way since the message may otherwise remain garbled. “The different city is another one
in the another two” is a sentence that would certainly need treatment because it is
incomprehensible as is. Many utterances are not clearly global or local, and it is difficult
to discern the necessity for corrective feedback. A learner once wrote, “The grammar is
the basement of every language.” While this witty little proclamation may indeed sound
more like Chomsky than Chomsky does, it behooves the teacher to ascertain just what the
learner meant here (no doubt “basis” rather than “basement”), and to provide some
feedback to clarify the difference between the two. The bottom line is that we simply
must not stifle our students’ attempts at production by smothering them with corrective
feedback.
The matter of how to treat errors is complex. Research on error correction
methods is not at all conclusive on the most effective method or technique. It seems quite
clear that students in the classroom generally want and expect errors to be corrected.
However, some methods recommend no direct treatment of error at all (Krashen &
Terrell, 1983). After all, in natural, untutored environments, nonnative speakers generally
get corrected by native speakers on only a small percentage of errors that they make.
Balancing these perspectives, I think we can safely conclude that a sensitive and
perceptive language teacher should make the language classroom a happy optimum
between some of the overpoliteness of the real world and the expectations that learners
bring with them to the classroom.
Error treatment options can be classified in a number of possible ways, but one
useful taxonomy was recommended by Kathleen Bailey (1985, p. 111). Seven “basic
options” are complemented by eight “possible features” within each option.

Basic Options Possible Features

1. To treat or to ignore 1. Fact of error indicated
2. To treat immediately or to delay 2. Location indicated
3. To transfer treatment (to, say, 3. Opportunity for new attempt
other learners) or not given
4. To transfer to another 4. Model provided
individual, a subgroup, or the 5. Error type indicated
whole class 6. Remedy indicated
5. To return, or not, to the original 7. Improvement indicated
error maker after treatment 8. Praise indicated
6. To permit other learners to  
initiate treatment
7. To test for the efficacy of the
treatment
 
All of the basic options and features within each option are viable modes of error
treatment .in the classroom. It is important to understand that not all error treatment is
error correction. Among Bailey's eight features, it is possible to see none of them as a
correction, in that none (with the possible exception of #6) specify the wrong form and
supply the correct form. Error treatment encompasses a wide range of options, one of
which—at the extreme end of a continuum—may be considered to be a correction. The
research (Williams, 2005) shows that the best way to help a learner to repair malformed
utterances is, first, to assist the learner in noticing an incorrect form (through recasts,
prompts, and other attention-getting devices), and second, for the learner to initiate repair
(with as little prompting as possible from the teacher).
The teacher needs to develop the intuition, through experience and established
theoretical foundations, for ascertaining which option or combination of options is
appropriate at given moments. Principles of optimal affective and cognitive feedback, of
reinforcement theory, and of communicative language teaching all combine to form those
intuitions.
One step toward developing such intuitions may be taken by considering the
model in Figure 19.9, which illustrates what I would claim are the split-second series of
decisions that a teacher makes when a student has uttered some deviant form of English
in the classroom. In those few nanoseconds, information is accessed, processed, and
evaluated, with a decision forthcoming on what the teacher is going to “do” about the
deviant form. Imagine that you are the teacher and let me walk you through the
flowchart.
Some sort of deviant utterance is made by a student. Instantly, you run this speech
event through a number of nearly simultaneous screens:

1. You identify the type of deviation (lexical, phonological, etc.).

2. In addition, you often, but not always, identify its source, which will be useful in
determining how you might treat the deviation.
3. Next, the complexity of the deviation may determine not only whether to treat or
ignore but how to treat, if that is your decision. In some cases a deviation may
require so much explanation, or so much interruption of the task at hand, that it
isn’t worth treating it.
4. Your most crucial and possibly the very first decision among these 10 factors is to
quickly decide whether the utterance is interpretable (local) or not (global). Local
errors can sometimes be ignored for the sake of maintaining a flow of
communication. Global errors by definition often call for some sort of treatment,
even if only in the form of a clarification request.
5. Then, from your knowledge of this student, you make a guess at whether it is a
performance slip (mistake) or competence error (see PLLT, Chapter 2); this is not
always easy to do, but you may be surprised to know that a teacher’s intuition on
this factor will often be correct. Mistakes rarely call for treatment, while errors
more frequently demand some sort of teacher response.

Figure  19.9.  A  model  for  treatment  of  classroom  speech  errors  

 
DEVIANT  UTTERANCE    

1.  Type   2.  Source  
lexical,  phonological,  grammatical,   L1,  L2,  teacher-­‐induced,  other  
discourse,  pragmatic,  sociocultural   Ss,  outside  L2  input,  
A/V/print/electronic  m edia  
3.  Linguistic  Complexity  
intricate  &  involved  or  easy   4.  Local  or  Global  
to  explain/deal  with    
6.  Learner’s  Affective  State  
5.  Mistake  or  Error   language  ego  fragility,  anxiety,  
  confidence,  receptiveness  
7.  Learner’s  Linguistic  Stage  
emergent,  presystematic,   8.  Pedagogical  Focus  
immediate  task  goals,  
systematic,  postsystematic  
lesson  objectives,  course  
goals/purposes  
9.  Communicative  Context  
conversational  flow  factors,  individual,   10.  Teacher  Style  
group,  or  whole-­‐class  work,  S -­‐S  or  S-­‐T   direct  or  indirect,  
exchange   interventionist,  laissez-­‐faire  

TREAT   IGNORE   OUT  

WHEN? immediately end of utterance much later

WHO? T another S whole class self

HOW?
Fact Location Correction Type/source Metalinguistic
a. input to S indicate indicated modeled indicated indicated
d

b. manner indirect/unintrusive direct/intrusive

c. S 's output none rephrase utterance

d. follow-up
• affective none “okay” “good” [gush]

• cognitive none acknowledge verbalize further clarification

The above information is quickly stored as you perhaps simultaneously run

through the next five possible considerations.

6. From your knowledge about this learner, you make a series of instant judgments
about the learner’s language ego fragility, anxiety level, confidence, and
willingness to accept correction. If, for example, the learner rarely speaks in class
or shows high anxiety and low confidence when attempting to speak, you may
decide to ignore the deviant utterance.
7. Your knowledge of the learner’s linguistic stage of development will help you
decide how to treat the deviation.
8. Your own pedagogical focus at the moment (Is this a form-focused task to begin
with? Does this lesson focus on the form that was deviant? What are the overall
objectives of the lesson or task?) will help you to decide whether or not to treat.
9. Also consider the communicative context of the deviation (Was the student in the
middle of a productive flow of language? How easily could you interrupt?).
10. Somewhere in this rapid-fire processing, your own style as a teacher comes into
play: Are you generally an interventionist? laissez-faire? If, for example, you tend
as a rule to make very few error treatments, a treatment now on a minor deviation
would be out of character and misinterpreted by the student.

You are now ready to decide whether to treat or ignore the deviation! If you decide to
do nothing, you simply move on. But if you decide to do something in the way of
treatment, you have a number of treatment options, as discussed earlier. You have to
decide when to treat, who will treat, and how to treat, and each of those decisions offers a
range of possibilities, as indicated in the chart. Notice that you, the teacher, do not always
have to be the person who provides the treatment. Manner of treatment varies according
to the input to the student, the directness of the treatment, the student's output, and your
follow-up.
After one very quick deviant utterance by a student, you have made an amazing
number of observations and evaluations that go into the process of error treatment. New
teachers will find such a prospect daunting, perhaps, but with experience, many of these
considerations will become automatic.

Originally published in Brown, D. (2007), Teaching By Principles: An Interactive

Approach to Language Pedagogy, 3rd Edition. New York, NY: Pearson-Longman.
Reformatted by BYU-Idaho for accessibility purposes, 4 November 2014.