Pair form-focused instruction with prompts that push learners to self-repair rather than recasts¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (3 for) · 2 studies (1 causal, 1 associational), q2–q3 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description¶

When delivering form-focused instruction, teachers should use corrective feedback in the form of prompts (which push learners to retrieve and repair their own output) rather than recasts. The study found that "FFI is more effective when combined with prompts than with recasts or no feedback," particularly for enabling learners to acquire rule-based representations of grammatical gender and proceduralize that knowledge. The advantage appeared mainly on written tasks.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Form-focused instruction on predictable form-meaning patterns already in place
• Teachers able to implement prompts consistently during subject-matter lessons

Constraints¶

• Advantage shown mainly on written tasks and to a lesser degree oral tasks; strongest evidence concerns grammatical gender attribution in French immersion contexts

Target Learners¶

• Fifth-grade (10–11-year-old) French immersion students

Target Learning Goals¶

• Accurate grammatical gender attribution and proceduralization of emerging L2 forms

Claims¶

• Form-focused instruction combined with prompts is more effective than FFI combined with recasts or no feedback, especially on written tasks [+W]
• Recasts were provided more predominantly than prompts and explicit correction in both French immersion and Japanese immersion elementary classrooms [+W]
• Learner repair following feedback differed by setting: prompts yielded the largest proportion of repair in French immersion, recasts in Japanese immersion [+W]

Related Strategies¶

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Roy Lyster. (2004). DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF PROMPTS AND RECASTS IN FORM-FOCUSED INSTRUCTION. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume 26, Issue 3. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263104263021