A Critical Appraisal of the Correspondence between Students ’ Attitudes towards the Use of Corrective Feedback Strategies and How They Are Implemented by Teachers in EFL Classroom Interactions

As a critical appraisal, this study investigated the correspondence between teachers ’ corrective feedback strategies used in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes and students ’ preferences of corrective feedback strategies by analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data. The participants were 20 high school English teachers and 50 students of Salami High school in Kazeroun. To critically compare their preferences, both the students and teachers were asked to answer approximately identical questionnaires. The CF strategies were ranked according to the students ’ and teachers ’ attitudes. The results of the quantitative data analysis were as follows: There was no overall signi ﬁ cant di ﬀ erence in CF preference of the students and CF usage of the teachers. The CF strategies were ranked by the teachers as teachers ’ elicitation followed by clari ﬁ cation request, repetition, recasting, and explicit correction in order. The students ’ preferences were ranked di ﬀ erently. Clari ﬁ cation request was the most preferred one followed by teacher ’ s elicitation, repetition, recasting, and explicit correction in order. The qualitative results indicated that there were di ﬀ erent individual justi ﬁ cations for their choices. This study concludes with some pedagogical implications and further suggestions for more research of corrective feedback strategies in di ﬀ erent socio-cultural conditions.


Introduction
Corrective feedback is teacher's or peer's response to the erroneous linguistic structures used by learners taking part in interactions. Some other terms like negative feedback and negative evidence are used interchangeably to refer to corrective feedback in second language acquisition research ( [1]). According to Lightbown and Spada [2], corrective feedback is any indication to the learners that their use of the target language is incorrect. This includes various responses that the learners receive. When a language learner says, "He go to school every day" corrective feedback can be explicit, for example, "no, you should say goes, not go" or implicit "yes he goes to school every day," and may or may not include metalinguistic information, for example, "Do not forget to make the verb agree with the subject (p. 171-172).
Corrective feedback can play a remarkable role in language acquisition because of its influential role in motivating learners to participate in dialogic interactions. The feedback can provide adequate information for learners in order to avoid the mistake in the future. According to Ellis [3], feedback plays a contributing role in behaviorist as well as cognitive approaches to second language learning. In his opinion, feedback raises the motivational aspects and ensures language accuracy in both structural and communicative approaches to language education. A lot of research supports the facilitative role of CF strategies but the researchers have different views about the most efficient strategies used by correctors in different conditions.
A myriad of studies has investigated the effect of corrective feedback strategies provided by teachers or peers on learner's uptake. One of them was done by Lyster and Ranta [4]. They proposed six different types of corrective feedback strategies used to react to erroneous utterances by learners: explicit correction, recasting, clarification requests, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition. Lyster and Ranta [4] demonstrated that the survey had seven distinct kinds of feedback implemented by the four teachers: explicit corrections, paraphrases, requests for clarification, metalanguage feedback, repetition, elicitation, and multiple feedbacks (a collection of different types of feedback). The recast turned out to be by large the most common form of feedback of all teachers' modified feedback strategies. Notably, more than half were related to recasts. Ellis [3] also enlisted the CF strategies as follows (p. 9): (a) Recast.  [5], the effective and harmful effects of different corrective feedback for distinct types of error have been repeatedly investigated to find support for or against its use in second language acquisition. As Ellis [3] stated, the main controversy against the usefulness of corrective feedback is associated with Krashen's [6] Comprehensible Input Hypothesis, claiming that corrective feedback poses students on the defensive side by overthinking about what they want to say. In Krashen's [6] opinion, learners should be exposed to comprehensible input in order to internalize correct structures in their interlanguage.
In contrast, Noticing Hypothesis by Schmidt [7] maintains that learners of a second language may not acquire a new linguistic structure without noticing it. Noticing is the basis for many corrective feedbacks applied by teachers in the classroom meaning that if learners do not notice their errors and teachers' corrections, then the learner will not acquire the linguistic structure [8].
Aljaafreh and Lantolf [9] talked about the relationship between providing CF strategies implicitly or explicitly and scaffolding degree.
Research on the different effects of applying CF strategies on second language learning has gained momentum recently. Panova and Lyster [10] investigated the preference of adult learners of English regarding the CF strategies applied. There was a high preference of implicit types of reformulation and translation. Long [11] considered recasting as an effective CF strategy operating better than positive evidence. Mackey et al. [12] also talked about the noticeable role of recasts in L2 learning.
Yoshida [13] also revealed the difference between the teachers' choice of corrective feedback from the students' preference of error correction in learning Japanese in Australia. He also found that teachers' corrective feedback preference corresponds with learners' proficiency level and learning styles.
Investigating the reasons for students' preferences of CF strategies applied by teachers in EFL context is a new area that needs more exploration. Schulz [14] investigated students' and teachers' attitudes towards error correction. According to her, there were considerable differences between their attitudes towards error correction. According to Park [15], there is no qualitative data to explain quantitative results related to the perception of corrective feedback strategies by teachers and students in EFL contexts.
A lot of researchers have been interested in the nature and application of power and dominance by teachers in classroom interactions. Due to the importance of CF strategies working as a powerful means of teaching in classes, the contrasting findings related to their diverse impacts on second language acquisition, and students' perceptions related to the choice of CF strategies by teachers, the study of CF is much needed in SLA research. In order to involve learners in the organization of their own learning and the management of their conversational patterns in English classes, teachers should ascertain their students' perceptions and preferences related to the effective corrective feedback strategies. It also helps teachers to correct students in accordance with their cognitive and affective needs. This research is in line with the one performed by Park [15] with some alterations related to the critical appraisal of CF preference of students and teachers. Knowing learners' preferences helps strategic teachers to empower the students in order to liberate them from teachers' dominant and consistent strategies used in classes regardless of the learners' wants and needs. The effective strategies claimed by teachers to be used more frequently were also investigated. In this research, the researcher tries to see whether there is a correspondence between students' attitudes towards the use of different corrective feedback strategies of teachers and the CF strategies self-reported to be used by teachers in their classroom interactions.
This study sought to answer the following research questions: (1) What corrective feedback strategies do teachers claim to use and students prefer as the most effective ones for dialogic interactions in EFL classes?
(2) Is there any correspondence between the corrective feedback strategies used by teachers and those preferred by students to be used by teachers in EFL classes?

Methodology
3.1. Participants. The participants were EFL teachers and students. They consisted of 20 high school English teachers and 50 students studying at Salami High school in Kazeroun, Iran. It is the most favorite public school in the city. All the students were high school students with an average age of 17 (SD = 0:64). The students were in diverse grades from nine to twelve to represent the intended population of the study Ziashahabi et al. [16]. In order to do quota sampling, onefourth of the participants in each class were given the questionnaire. So, fifty students out of six classes were chosen. The teachers consisted of 10 males and 10 females with an average age of 33 (SD = 1:74). All had a BA in English language teaching.

Instruments.
The researcher preferred a questionnaire as the most economical tool regarding time-management and cost-effectiveness. The questionnaire used by Park [15] to investigate the preference of CF strategies perceived by native English teachers and students was reused. It was according to Lyster and Ranta's [4] classification of CF approaches. It consisted of some factual information like gender and age. It also had attitudinal questions, and it was anonymous. The questionnaire had two varying forms for students and teachers, respectively. In the teachers' form, they were required to register the numbers from 1 (the most commonly used corrective feedback strategies) to 5 (the least commonly used) by them in classes. They had to self-report their use in their EFL classes. For the students' version, the participants were asked to rank these strategies according to their preferences (from 1 to 5). Both teachers and students were also asked to explain the reasons why they ranked them as the first preferred one, the second, and the last one. Because the researchers were interested in the reasons why they considered one strategy as the least frequently used or the least preferred one, one question was added to the original questionnaire.
The aim was to explore the philosophy behind these preferences related to the corrective strategies used for dialogic interactions in EFL context (see appendix). The questionnaire proposed by Lyster and Ranta [4] was utilized to investigate the teachers' and students' preferences of error correction. The main corrective feedback approaches (CFAs) include six distinct strategies to correct errors: explicit correction to give the correct form explicitly without asking for output; recasting to reformulate the student's erroneous utterance; clarification request to ask for clarification in order to indicate that the statement is erroneous; metalinguistic feedback to offer them feedback, explanations, or discussions regarding the utterance; elicitation to push them to produce the correct output by asking them to repeat the stated language in a reformulated way; and repetition to repeat the learner's error in isolation.

Data Collection
Procedures. Data collection procedure for the students was carried out via a Persian questionnaire with three open-ended questions and a researcher-made table for ranking the strategies. Therefore, the study employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Translating the original questionnaire into a Persian one was done by the researchers. An MA student of translation revised it. The students were asked to respond in Persian. Mother tongue was used here because the researchers did not want the responses to be influenced by the participants' inadequate English reading and writing ability.
In order to elicit enough deep and rich data, the researchers stated the purpose and significance of the investigation to the participants in Persian in different classes. In all classes, similar information related to the technical terms was given to clarify the strategies. All participants were asked to explain their preferences in detail. It was also added that participation was voluntary and their responses would remain confidential.
The original questionnaire in English was given to 30 English teachers in different high schools in Kazeroun. Out of them, 20 teachers completed the questionnaires and returned them.
The answers were classified and analyzed in detail in order to pave the way for constructing the theory of correspondence or noncorrespondence between students' perceptions towards the use of different corrective feedback strategies of teachers and the CF strategies used by Iranian teachers in their classes.

Data Analysis.
The scores bestowed to the CF approaches by the instructors and students, with 1 implying the most and 5 indicating the least favorable CF, were 3 Education Research International analyzed. In order to rank different corrective feedback strategies used by the teachers according to their reports, Friedman Test was applied. Friedman Test was also applied to rank the corrective feedback strategies preferred by the students. Then, Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to see whether there is a significant difference regarding each corrective feedback strategy preference by the students and teachers. To analyze these quantitative data, SPSS 21.0 was used. In the qualitative data, the students' reasons why they selected the first, the second, and the last were translated into English by the researchers, and an MA translator revised them.

Results and Findings
To rank different corrective feedback strategies self-reported to be used by teachers in EFL classroom interactions, Friedman Test was used. Table 1 shows the results as follows.
Regarding the results, they used teachers' elicitation most frequently, followed by clarification request, repetition, recasting, and explicit correction in order. Analyzing the mean rank, it should be noticed that they were asked to rank first (1) the most frequent CF strategy and rank last (5) the least frequent one.
In order to see whether there is a significant difference among teachers' self-reported usage of different CF strategies, Friedman Test was also used. Table 2 shows the results as follows.
The test showed that there is a significant difference among teachers' usage of the five CF strategies (p < 0:01).
Next, Friedman Test was used to rank different teachers' corrective feedback strategies preferred by students in EFL classrooms. Table 3 shows the results as follows.
Clarification request was the most preferred one followed by teacher's elicitation, repetition, recasting, and explicit correction in order. As it was stated for the teachers, the students were also asked to rank first (1) the most preferred CF strategy and rank last (5) the least preferred one. So, the least mean rank (2.42) is the most preferred strategy.
Friedman Test was also used to see whether there is a significant difference among students' preferences of different CF strategies. Table 4 shows the results as follows.
In terms of the five CF strategies, there is a significant difference among the student' preferences (p < 0:01).
To investigate the difference between the teachers' and students' preference of each CF strategy separately, Mann-Whitney U test was performed. Table 5 shows the results as follows.

The Reasons behind the High and Low Frequency of CF
Strategies Used by Teachers. The strategy ranked as the first frequently used CF by teachers is teachers' elicitation. One of the teachers reported that teachers' hints can help the students to complete the structure easily because they will do their best to produce the sentence correctly. The next reason considered is creating an interactive atmosphere where teachers stimulate learners by hints to link their old knowledge to the new part in order to discover the best structures. The next teacher also talked about the motivating role of elicitation strategy by challenging them to correct their own mistakes. When they correct themselves, they feel proud of themselves. When one word or one phrase is going to be elicited from the student, the idea is implicitly given to him that the major part of his utterance is correct, and only one small part of it needs revision.
The second strategy self-reported to be used by teachers is clarification request. Asking for clarification by teachers was considered as a less direct and less distracting strategy. As one teacher mentioned, the main reason for his usage of clarification request as the first one is helping learners to be more thoughtful and self-reflected. When they are asked to repeat themselves, they will certainly identify that they have made a mistake. By reflecting on the whole structure to locate the error, they will find the problematic area and revise it.    According to the reports, the third strategy ranked by teachers is repetition. They enlisted different justifications for their choice. One teacher believed that as a notice, it can attract students' attention to their mistakes because they can learn more from their own mistakes. The next teacher talked about students' focusing on meaning rather than form while taking part in classroom interaction. She says, "By repetition, the teacher can provide a situation for the learner to repeat and pay attention to her erroneous form directly." One group of them focused on the independent style of production leading to autonomy. Using this strategy, students can produce the right structure independently.
The teachers ranked recasting as the fourth one for different reasons. Most of the teachers claimed that correcting without focusing on the exact problematic area is not really beneficial. One teacher said, "If you correct him but don't show him the problematic area, he may never find the reason why you changed the sentence." The second participant stated that recasting without focusing on the erroneous structure lasts shorter than other CF strategies and results in superficial learning. Proponents of recasting reported that it is not an embarrassing and humiliating form of correction. It has a positive effect on students' learning while being corrected but not being ashamed of making mistakes in front of peers. In his opinion, recasting is the best way of correction for mistakes but not for systematic errors.
In teachers' opinion, there are different reasons why explicit correction can be ranked as the last one. One teacher stated that telling students what you should say and what you should not say make them bored with taking part in dialogic interactions. They accept the correct form without thinking about and finding the reason why it is wrong. The next reason mentioned by another teacher is that teachers correcting their students directly do not provide them with the opportunity to correct themselves; these learners do not experience independent and autonomous learning by self-correction and production. However, proponents of explicit correction believed that using this CF strategy is necessary in some specific conditions. One of them said, "If we do not have enough time to wait for students' self-correction or if our students do not have the prerequisite knowledge to correct themselves, explicit correction can solve the problem quickly and easily." The next teacher also stated that explicit correction is useful for the students of low proficiency.

The Reasons behind Students' Preference of CF Strategies.
Clarification request used by teachers to ask for more clarification was highly preferred by the students under the study. One of the students reported that "I love it because it works as a hint to make me think that my structure is problematic and can easily think about the problem to be corrected and internalized." The next one claimed that it challenges students "knowledge and makes students" involvement in learning because they have to do their best to make themselves understood. This helps to improve their motivation and self-confidence when they are able to solve the problem themselves. Most of the students wanted teachers to ask students for clarification respectfully. The way they ask them to clarify seems impolite in most cases.
Teacher's elicitation as a means of getting students to reproduce correct structures by completing the teacher's restated part or by asking students to repeat the structure with the reformulated part provided was preferred as the second strategy. One of them claimed that understanding the problematic structures, students can process their linguistic knowledge and correct themselves so that internalization of the structures can be deeper and sooner. Another student complaining about the pressure of being directly corrected by explicit correction in classes considered teachers' elicitation a kind of effective student-friendly indirect contribution and interaction. She believed that enough waiting time in order to give them an opportunity to process data is a crucial factor here but it does not occur in their English classes due to the lack of time.
Opponents of repetition believed that it is not a good CF strategy because it is based on repeating the wrong structure without any prompt to help whereas its proponents considered it as a hint for learners to be aware of the erroneous structures used. One of them stated that some wrong structures are produced because of performance factors not competence. So, the hint can help them to focus on the wrong structure not paid attention to before. Some students want the teachers repeat their erroneous structures respectfully. They were worried about being belittled and mocked in front of their peers. They reported that it seems rude to repeat their mistakes.
While proponents of recasting talked about some benefits like providing the correct response without explicitly talking about their mistakes and making them ashamed of them and being corrected by the most knowledgeable source of linguistic structures in class, its opponents considered it as an ambiguous correction without noticing the exact wrong form. The next participant reported that recasting depends on the students' proficiency level.
Few students who prefer explicit correction believed that they should exactly be aware of making errors. So teachers can play the corrector's role appropriately. One student stated that this strategy is really the best CF for low level proficiency learners not having enough knowledge to correct themselves. They are dependent on their teachers. However, most of them considered explicit correction as the least preferred one. One group believed that it cannot allow students to think deeply to correct themselves. So, not being involved cognitively results in not noticing and internalizing the structure. It can be the easiest but not the best strategy. The next group talked about the demotivating effect of this strategy on students' participation in the next classroom interactions. The next participant mentioned that this type of strategy cannot lead to meaningful learning. A large number of participants stated, "it is kind of educational oppression and inequity to be corrected by teachers all the time. There should be some options to choose." It can disturb the warm and friendly relationship between students and teachers. Their role is just an authority working as the corrector. The corrective feedback provided by explicit correction can be a face-threatening act for the students. So, most of them considered it as the strategy indicating teachers' dominance and social power. The next student stated that teachers mainly show their ability to control and dominate the class interactions through this strategy. They consider the students as passive receivers of the correct answers instead of active participants in correcting themselves.
Regardless of the CF strategy used, most of the students wanted their teachers to provide these strategies in a friendly atmosphere with friendly facial expressions. They asked their teachers to pay attention to affective factors as well as instructional ones.

Discussion and Conclusions
This study investigated students' preferences regarding language instructors' corrective feedbacks in dialogic interactions in EFL classes. It also focused on teachers' selfreports in terms of different CF strategies used by them in their classes. The aim was to see the correspondence between their preferences of various CF strategies employed in EFL learning settings.
The Friedman Test results indicated that there is a significant difference among teachers' usage of the five CF strategies. In terms of the five CF strategies preferred by the students, there is also a significant difference among their preferences. Mann-Whitney U test indicated that there is not a statistically significant difference between the teachers' and students' preferences in terms of each corrective feedback strategy separately. Moreover, there is not an overall significant difference between teachers' and students' preferences.
In accordance with Chaudron [17] and Corder [18], both teachers and students emphasized that elicitation strategy resulting in learners' using their own resources for selfcorrection can enhance learners' ability to monitor their own linguistic utterances.
It was also found that both teachers and students perceived recasting differently. While some reported that recasting can lead to uptake without embarrassment, some others considered it as an ambiguous strategy whose corrective tar-get is difficult to get. So, there should be some further research to understand what specific factors can influence recasting efficiency in EFL classes. It can be the replication of the research done by Han [19] revealing four influential factors of sustained attention, constant concentration, developmental readiness, and perseverance.
As far as CF strategies are concerned, the participants in both groups rated explicit correction as the least preferred one. It is really interesting that a large number of students complained about the social injustice applied in classes due to the usage of explicit correction strategy which leads to missing opportunity to self-correct. As the strategy indicating teachers' dominance and social power, it deprives students of their right to use their linguistic resources to tackle the linguistic problem confronted. They are also deprived of the right to know the reason why the structure is erroneous.
The result of this study is beneficial for researchers interested in analyzing students' attitudes towards corrective feedback strategies used to teach different linguistic skills like writing and speaking in detail.
Other researchers can replicate this study by exploring the relative impacts of diverse types of CF strategies in various cultures to see if it is a culture-based phenomenon. They can also see how socio-cultural patterns like social status and gender can influence the preferences. Regarding students' needs and teachers' attitudes, there is no clear evidence to identify the most effective types of strategies applicable in EFL contexts. More studies should be conducted in different conditions with larger samples of teachers and learners to construct a grounded theory of correspondence between students' attitudes towards the use of different corrective feedback strategies of teachers and the CF strategies used by teachers in their classes.
The results of this study can be important in teacher education programs in Iran. Teachers can critically evaluate the effectiveness of their strategies employed in classes regarding students' attitudes and needs. They can also have some guidelines to provide the most efficient corrective strategies that are in accordance with the preferred ones by the students. The study can also foster a kind of action research by teacher practitioners in their own classrooms.
One possible limitation of the research is that students' proficiency level was not considered although it can influence students' attitudes towards the strategies to a certain extent. However, because the study was done with high school students as the participants, their proficiency level can be considered similar to some extent. Further research can investigate the effect of learners' proficiency level on their preference of CF strategies.