Feedback Opportunities and Interactional Context in Adult EFL Classrooms

Despite the enormous interests that the role of negative feedback (NF) in second language (L2) classrooms has garnered, little research has focused on examining NF in relation to the various contexts that learners encounter. The current study investigated teacher NF provided during teacher-student (T-S) interaction in adult EFL classrooms. In particular, the study focused on whether or not NF opportunities differed and if they produced modified output opportunities differently according to four different interactional contexts: content, communicative, management, and explicit language-focused exchanges. T-S interaction from four intermediate classes was collected and analyzed for the study. It was found that there was a difference in the portion of NF the learners received to their initial non-target-like turns in T-S interaction according to the different contexts. The opportunities for modified output following the feedback and the learners’ use of these opportunities also provided somewhat different pictures according to the contexts. The study underscores the important role played by interactional contexts in L2 learning.