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Minh - ILLT PDF
To cite this article: Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen, Hanh Thi Pham & Tam Minh Pham (2015): The effects
of input enhancement and recasts on the development of second language pragmatic competence,
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching
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Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2015.1026907
This study investigates the combined effects of input enhancement and recasts on a
group of Vietnamese EFL learners’ performance of constructive criticism during peer
review activities. Particularly, the study attempts to find out whether the instruction
works for different aspects of pragmatic learning, including the learners’ socio-
pragmatic and pragmalinguistic knowledge, as well as their frequency of externally
and internally modifying their criticism. Over a course lasting approximately seven
instructional hours, the learners received visually enhanced pragmatic input and
recasts of their errors of form and meaning. The learners’ pre-to-posttest improvement
was investigated using three production tasks, namely a discourse completion task, a
role play, and an oral peer-feedback task. The findings show there is potential for input
enhancement and recast in teaching different aspects of second language pragmatics
and are discussed with implications for classroom practices and future research.
Keywords: pragmatic competence; input enhancement; recast; speech acts; second
language acquisition; interlanguage pragmatics
1. Introduction
Pragmatic competence is the knowledge of how to express one’s meanings and intentions
appropriately within a particular social and cultural context of communication. This
knowledge involves both having linguistic resources for expressing meanings and
intentions (i.e. pragmalinguistics) and understanding the sociocultural constraints on the
use of these means (i.e. sociopragmatics) (Canale 1983). Pragmatic competence is
essential for effective communication and is featured significantly in various models of
communicative competence in second language (L2) teaching (see Bachman 1990;
Canale and Swain 1980; Canale 1983). Nonetheless, previous research has shown that
pragmatic knowledge in the target language (TL) is incomplete for many learners,
regardless of their proficiency levels (see Kasper and Rose 2002). Unlike grammatical
errors, pragmatic failure may be treated as offensive, thus likely adversely affecting the
learner’s communication with the native speaker (NS) (Thomas 1983). Earlier studies
have also shown that pragmatic features are learned slowly without the benefits of
instruction (see for example Bardovi-Harlig and Hartford 1993; Bouton 1994). This is
because pragmatic functions and their contextual constraints are not salient enough for L2
learners to notice despite prolonged exposure (Kasper and Schmidt 1996). In other words,
mere exposure is insufficient for L2 pragmatic development, and pragmatic acquisition
requires a certain degree of consciousness of form-function mappings and pertinent
contextual variables (Schmidt 1990, 1993).
Recent years have seen an upsurge of interest in the effects of instruction in
promoting pragmatic awareness (see Alcón-Soler 2008; Martínez-Flor, Usó-Juan, and
Fernández-Guerra 2003; Rose and Kasper 2001). These studies address three important
questions: the teachability of L2 pragmatics, the benefits of instruction versus mere
exposure, and the relative effects of different teaching approaches. Generally, the findings
of these studies have attested to the teachability of pragmatic features and overall benefits
of instruction in developing L2 pragmatic competence (see Jeon and Kaya 2006; Kasper
and Rose 2002; Rose 2005; Roever 2009; Taguchi 2011; Takahashi 2010, for a
comprehensive review). Findings have also suggested that explicit instruction (i.e.
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instruction that serves to direct learners’ attention to the target forms with the aim of
discussing those forms) may work more effectively than implicit instruction (i.e.
instruction that allows learners to infer rules without awareness), particularly in teaching
sociopragmatics (Jeon and Kaya 2006; Takahashi 2010). However, findings in this area
may need to be treated with caution (see Ellis 2008; Jeon and Kaya 2006). First, because
current research has focused predominantly on relatively ‘well defined’ speech acts such
as requests and suggestions (e.g. Alcón-Soler 2005; Ghavamnia, Eslami-Rasekha, and
Vahid-Dastjerdi 2014; Eslami, Mirzaei, and Dini 2014; Fuykuya and Zhang 2002; Koike
and Pearson 2005; Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005; Safont 2003; Salazar 2003;
Takahashi 2001, 2005; Takimoto 2009), it has remained much less known whether
instruction works for less clearly defined speech acts or speech act sets such as
constructive criticism that has no predetermined form and thus may cause even more
problems to L2 learners (see Nguyen 2013; Nguyen, Pham, and Cao 2013; Nguyen,
Pham, and Pham 2012). Thus, it is important that further research expand the range of
learning targets under inquiry. Second, due to a limited number of studies that have
examined the impact of implicit instruction on L2 pragmatic development, their findings
must be corroborated in further research to strengthen the body of evidence (Jeon and
Kaya 2006; Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012).
Another limitation, as pointed out by Fuykuya and Zhang (2002), lies in the
inadequate conceptualization of implicit instruction in many earlier pragmatics studies. In
contrast to explicit instruction that is well aligned with a focus on forms approach
(involving intentional learning of form via presentation and consolidation of rules in
increasingly communicative practice), implicit instruction seems to be a less developed
area both conceptually and methodologically (Fuykuya and Zhang 2002, 2–3, but see
Alcón-Soler 2005; Ghavamnia, Eslami-Rasekha, and Vahid-Dastjerdi 2014; Eslami,
Mirzaei, and Dini 2014; Koike and Pearson 2005; Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005;
Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012). In many studies, it is simply defined as mere exposure
to input (Pearson 1998; Tateyama 2001; Takahashi 2001) or the withholding of meta-
pragmatic information (e.g. House 1996). According to Fuykuya and Zhang (2002, 3),
this conventional way of conceptualizing implicit instruction ‘leave[s] us with the
impression that the pragmatists have been caught with a fixed notion of simple exposure
to pragmatic examples,’ whereas implicit instruction may, in fact, refer to a wider range
of instructional techniques varying in degrees of implicitness (see Jeon and Kaya 2006).1
The lack of systematic conceptualization of implicit instruction in earlier studies seems to
suggest that perhaps they are more pedagogically than theoretically motivated (see Ellis
2008). Obviously, this calls for more rigorous designs in future interlanguage (IL)
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 3
reflect differences in the design of the above studies, including research designs
(classroom observation vs. experiments), interaction settings where the recasts occur
(form-focused vs. meaning-focused), linguistic forms targeted for recasting (e.g. morpho-
syntax vs. phonology), types of recasts (e.g. explicit vs. implicit)2, learner factors (e.g.
developmental readiness, cognitive orientation), and outcome measurements. Hence,
Sheen (2008) calls for further research that allows for a more systematic control of these
variables in order to fully understand the efficacy of recasts. Importantly, Ammar and
Spada (2006) have pointed out that it is problematic to associate the effectiveness of
recasts with the rate of uptake and repair following this technique (as did observational
studies). This is because uptake or the absence of it may not always serve as the best
evidence of learning or lack of learning. For example, sometimes opportunities for uptake
to occur are impossible. In other cases, repairs might simply be a sign of ‘mimicking.’
Therefore, it has been argued that the evidence of learning should be measured more
reliably by means of carefully designed experimental research.
Unlike in mainstream SLA research, the role and effects of textually enhanced input
and recasts have been scarcely investigated in L2 pragmatic research (e.g. Alcón-Soler
2005; Fukuya et al. 1998; Fukuya and Clark 2001; Fuykuya and Zhang 2002; Martínez-
Flor and Fukuya 2005). Findings of these studies are also relatively mixed. For example,
whereas Fukuya et al. (1988) found no effects for recasts in teaching sociopragmatic
aspects of L2 requests, Fuykuya and Zhang (2002) reported relatively large impact of
recasts on improving learners’ performance of requests in terms of both sociopragmatic
appropriateness and pragmalinguistic accuracy. Fukuya and Clark (2001) failed to find
positive effects for textual input enhancement in teaching request modifiers. On the other
hand, Alcón-Soler (2005) and Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005) found significant
combined effects of textual input enhancement and recasts on the acquisition of L2
requests and suggestions, respectively. See also the positive impact of combining input
enhancement and input flooding in Ghavamnia, Eslami-Rasekha, and Vahid-Dastjerdi’s
(2014) investigation of suggestions and input enhancement and recasts in Eslami,
Mirzaei, and Dini’s (2014) investigation of requests.
Despite their contributions in terms of offering a more developed definition of
implicit instruction compared to earlier works (for a review, see Jeon and Kaya 2006), the
above studies nevertheless have exclusively focused on requests and suggestions, thus
leaving unanswered the question of how implicit teaching works for other speech acts.
Further, most of the above studies employed only a single outcome measure task, thus
limiting the validity of the data (e.g. Alcón-Soler 2005; Fukuya et al. 1988; Fukuya and
Clark 2001; Fuykuya and Zhang 2002). Finally, due to the absence of a delayed posttest
6 M.T.T. Nguyen et al.
in the reviewed studies, it remains unknown if their findings are stable over an extended
period of time.
potential offense to their peers. The present study is hoped to address the current gaps in
three ways. First, it focuses on a less commonly researched speech act, i.e. giving
constructive criticism to a peer’s performance, hence contributing to expanding the range
of learning targets for investigation (see Nguyen 2013; Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012;
Nguyen, Pham, and Cao 2013). Second, the study employs a mix of written and oral data
elicitation methods to measure the learning outcomes with a view to enhancing the
validity of the data. Third, the study aims to examine both immediate and durable effects
of input enhancement and recasts, thus hoping to be better capable of informing L2
classroom practices. To achieve the specified aims, the current study seeks to answer the
following question:
Does the combination of input enhancement and recasts benefit the different aspects of the
learners’ performance of constructive criticism, as outlined above, in both short and longer
terms?
The rationales for implementing both of the instructional techniques are as follows. First,
the provision of corrective feedback in tandem with instruction is generally supported as
they are deemed complementary in pedagogical terms (see Lyster, Saito, and Sato 2013).
Further, research has shown that employing multiple instructional strategies may produce
more positive learning effects than the adoption of a single teaching strategy (see
Izumi 2002).
Regarding the learning target under inquiry, the present study defines constructive
criticism as a negative assessment of an individual’s work in progress with the aim of
improving current or future performance. This speech act usually involves the
identification of a problematic action, choice, or product as well as advice on how to
change or correct the problem (Nguyen 2005). The use of constructive criticism as a
means of improving L2 learners’ writing skills has been generally supported in the
literature for ‘its social, cognitive, affective and methodological benefits’ (Rollinson
2005, 23). However, due to its face-damaging nature, providing constructive criticism to
a peer can become a daunting experience if learners lack training in it. Research has
documented that students from certain cultures may feel uncomfortable criticizing their
peers’ work or worse yet face considerable difficulty in conveying their message
appropriately. For example, unlike the NS, Vietnamese learners of English tend to soften
their constructive criticism far less frequently while aggravating it far more often, using
modal verbs of obligation inappropriately (see Nguyen 2005). Given that constructive
criticism may pose a challenge to learners who are not familiar with the way it is
performed in the TL, this speech act deserves due pedagogical attention.
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 7
3.2. Participants
The present study was conducted at a teacher training institution in Vietnam. Two high
intermediate EFL intact classes (N = 41) were invited to participate in the study. Before
being recruited, the learners were explained about the research3 and signed consent forms
to indicate their agreement to participate. The learners (2 males and 39 females) were
preservice EFL teachers doing their Year 3 English major. The two classes were randomly
assigned to control (N = 22) and treatment (N = 19) conditions. There were no notable
differences between the two groups in terms of age range, lengths of English study, and
exposure to English outside the classroom. In both groups, learners’ ages ranged between
20 and 22. Their lengths of English study ranged between 6 and 9 years. None of them
had ever resided in an English-speaking country. They had had limited opportunities to
hear and speak English outside the formal instructional time.
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‘traffic’ is single) and (2) internal modifiers, including past tense (e.g. I thought it would
make more sense that way), modal verbs (e.g. may, might, could, would), modal adverbs
(e.g. maybe, perhaps, probably), expression of uncertainty (e.g. I wasn’t sure that was the
best phrase you could’ve used), hedges (e.g. sort of, kind of, seem), and understaters (e.g.
a bit, a little bit, quite, rather) (see details in Nguyen, Pham, and Pham 2012). The above
strategies, modifiers, and pragmalinguistic conventions were selected for teaching
because they were found to occur most frequently in NS criticism in equal power
situations but to present considerable difficulty to many learners of English (see
Nguyen 2005).
Over the 10 weeks, the treatment group was engaged in the following activities:
(1) Exposure to visually enhance input in the first three sessions: In the first session,
learners read samples of NS peer-feedback conversations, answered compre-
hension questions, and evaluated the effectiveness of the NS criticism using a
list of criteria such as whether the criticism is specific, well-grounded, sounds
positive, includes suggestion for improvement, and does not provoke negative
responses from the hearer (see Tracy, van Dusen, and Robinson 1987). They
might add more criteria to the list if they wished to. In the second session, the
learners read and wrote feedback on a sample essay. Then they read the sample
NS feedback on this essay and compared the feedback with their own with
reference to the above criteria.4 In the third session, the learners read different
sample essays, identified the problems with them, and matched them with
corresponding NS feedback samples. Note that all the NS feedback samples
contained bold-faced target structures, and the learners were instructed to pay
attention to these highlighted parts when reading the samples in order to
complete the tasks (see Appendix for samples of the materials).
(2) Communicative practice comprising performance on a discourse completion
task (DCT) and oral peer-feedback tasks (OPFs) in the remaining seven
sessions.
(3) Performance evaluation: For this activity, learners recorded their peer-feedback
conversation, listened to the recording, and evaluated their own performance,
using a set of guiding questions given to them (see Appendix).
(4) Receiving recasts of both pragmatic and grammatical errors that arose out of
communicative tasks (see below). The recasts were also written on the
blackboard at the end of the lesson for students to note down.
Recasts were provided in the form of confirmation checks as these were assumed to
present a clearer corrective intention than the reformulation of errors alone (see Gass and
Alison 2007). Recasts were done as follows. First, the teacher, also the second author,
repeated the erroneous part of the utterance in a rising tone to attract students’ attention.
Then, the teacher said the appropriate utterance, preceded by ‘You mean’, also using a
rising tone. The corrected part was also stressed, as seen in the example below:
In order to decide what and how to recast, the framework proposed by Fuykuya and
Zhang (2002) was adopted. In particular, if an utterance is pragmatically appropriate but
grammatically inaccurate, the teacher recasts only the linguistic form (type 1). If an
utterance is pragmatically inappropriate but grammatically accurate, the teacher recasts its
illocutionary force by using one of the pragmalinguistic conventions for expressing
constructive criticism (type 2). Finally, if an utterance is neither pragmatically appropriate
nor grammatically accurate, the teacher recasts both of its form and illocutionary force
by using one of the pragmalinguistic conventions for expressing constructive criticism
(type 3). This procedure together with illustrative examples is presented in Figure 1.5
magnitude of instructional effects (Jeon and Kaya 2006). Studies employing elicited data
only tend to produce smaller effect sizes than those employing both elicited and natural
data. Thus, to maximize the possibility to track postexperimental changes, both elicited
and naturalistic data were employed in this study. Specifically, the current study made use
of an OPF on actual written works, an 8-item DCT, and a 6-item role play (RP). Details
of these instruments were reported in Nguyen, Pham, and Pham (2012). Also see
Nguyen, Pham, and Pham (2012) for samples of these instruments.
The treatment and control groups’ performance was compared on a pretest and an
immediate posttest, using the three production tasks mentioned above. The pretest was
conducted at the onset of the study while the immediate posttest at the end of the
treatment period. To examine whether the treatment group’s gains (if any) were durable
Learner made an
error
beyond the treatment, a delayed posttest consisting of the above three production tasks
was also conducted for this group five weeks after. Due to limited resources, however, the
delayed posttest was not conducted for the control group. To guard against the
possibilities of the learners’ memorizing responses from the pretest, some adjustments
were made as follows. For the OPF task, the learners were asked to critique a different
essay in each test. Similarly, the order of DCT and RP scenarios was also reshuffled each
time. Finally, to keep the variable of social distance constant, the learners were allowed to
choose their own pairs for the RP and OPF, and this pairing was maintained throughout
all the three tests.
a coding scheme devised and validated by Nguyen (2005) (also see Section 3.3). The data
were first coded independently by each researcher in the team and then were carefully
cross-checked. Cases of discrepancies were discussed until an agreement was reached. In
order to analyze the frequency with which the learners in each group externally and
internally modified their constructive criticism, means and standard deviations of each
category of modifiers were computed. This was done by first calculating the number of
external and internal modifiers produced per criticism in each production task by
individual learners in each group and then averaging the outcomes of the three tasks for
each learner. Next, the average outcomes for individual learners in each group were
entered into an SPSS spreadsheet to compute the means and standard deviations for the
groups.
In order to assess the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic aspects of the learners’
performance of criticism, two rating scales, which were adapted from Martínez-Flor and
Fukuya (2005), were employed. Each scale consisted of five points, with 0 representing
the lowest and five the highest possible score. Sociopragmatic appropriateness (hence-
forth ‘appropriacy’) was assessed in terms of knowledge of what to say to a particular
interlocutor in a particular context of situation. In this study, appropriacy was determined
by the choice of realization strategies and politeness devices from the list that was taught
to the students (see Section 3.3). These items were derived from an NS database of
constructive criticism between peers in the institutional context that was collected by
Nguyen (2005). Pragmalinguistic accuracy (henceforth ‘accuracy’) was assessed in terms
of knowledge of various expressions for conveying intentions and determined by the
correct usage of relevant linguistic structures, also from the aforementioned list. Note that
accuracy was to be scored only when appropriacy had been achieved. This is because the
ultimate goal of pragmatic instruction is to enable students to find socially appropriate
language for the situations that they encounter (Bardovi-Harlig and Mahan-Taylor 2003);
thus, only when learners can connect newly learned grammatical forms to the
corresponding pragmatic functions should the instruction be considered successful.
Also note that scores were given only when learners were able to use one of the target
forms which had been taught to them in the treatment (see Section 3.3).
The scoring procedure for appropriacy is as follows. If the student was able to employ
the realization strategy and at the same time modify its illocutionary force appropriately
according to the context, he or she would be awarded the full mark of 5. He or she,
however, would be awarded only 2.5 points if his or her utterance was lacking in
modality or was accompanied by an inappropriate modifier (e.g. making use of an
intensifier instead of a downgrader). This is because modality constitutes an essential
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 11
means for softening potentially offensive speech acts such as criticism, and the lack of it
may cause serious damage to the hearer’s face (Nguyen 2005). Finally, no point would be
awarded for an inappropriate realization strategy (e.g. ordering a peer to make changes to
his or her essay instead of offering suggestions for improvement). As far as accuracy is
concerned, a full mark of 5 would be awarded for a correct pragmalinguistic form with
the correct connecting part. A deduction of one point would be applied if the connecting
part was inaccurate, however. This type of error was penalized by only one point as it
would only minimally interfere with the overall meaning and would not affect the
recognizability of the speaker’s illocutionary intent. Finally, no point would be assigned
for an incorrect pragmalinguistic form. A learner’s total score for each of two aspects on a
production task was obtained by averaging the sum of sub-scores that he or she achieved
for each criticism that he or she had made when performing the task. Finally, a learner’s
combined score gained for the three tasks was computed by averaging his or her total
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score gained in each task. Scoring procedures were conducted independently and cross-
checked carefully by all researchers on the team with the agreement rate of 90%.
Short- and longer-term improvement of the treatment group was measured in terms of
students’ gains from the pretest to the two posttests (i.e. within-group comparison). In
order to determine whether changes in the dependent variables (i.e. learners’ appropriacy
and accuracy scores as well as their frequency of usage of external and internal modifiers)
can be attributed to the manipulation of the independent variable (i.e. whether or not the
learners received exposure to textually enhanced input and recasts), the gains from the
pretest to the immediate posttest of the treatment group were also compared with those of
the control group (i.e. between-group comparison). (Recall that delayed posttest data were
not available for the control group – see Section 3.5.) A repeated-measures multivariate
analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed for the within-group comparison,
whereas a one-way MANOVA was employed for the between-group comparison.
4. Results
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the treatment group, whereas Table 2
presents the descriptive statistics for the control group.
First, results of the repeated-measures MANOVA conducted for the treatment group
revealed a statistically significant multivariate effect [F(8, 11) = 10.5, p < .001, g2p =.89].
Within-group univariate analyses indicated a significant improvement on all four
measurements (that is, appropriacy and accuracy scores, external and internal modifiers)
between the pretest and the two posttest (see Table 3). Post hoc analyses with the Least
Significant Difference procedure showed that in both aspects of appropriacy and
accuracy, differences lay between results gained from the pretest with those from the
Pre-to-posttest 1 Pre-to-posttest 2
Pretest Posttest 1 Posttest 2 gains gains
M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Appropriacy 1.49 .33 2.18 .36 2.1 .29 .69 .35 .62 .34
Accuracy 1.97 .50 2.52 .38 2.48 .35 .56 .43 .51 .42
External modifier .40 .22 .66 .41 .69 .37 .26 .42 .29 .34
Internal modifier .12 .12 .24 .15 .15 .09 .12 .13 .02 .14
12 M.T.T. Nguyen et al.
M SD M SD M SD
Appropriacy 1.82 .46 1.75 .36 −.07 .47
Accuracy 2.11 .47 1.97 .40 −.15 .46
External modifier .56 .32 .59 .45 .02 .31
Internal modifier .19 .15 .11 .08 −.08 .15
two posttests (p < .001) but not between results from the two posttests (p > .05). These
findings suggest positive effects for the treatment group in terms of both of their
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5. Discussion
The present study sought to explore the combined effects of input enhancement and
recasts on four different aspects of the learners’ performance of constructive criticism in
English: (1) appropriacy, (2) accuracy, (3) external modifiers, and (4) internal modifiers.
In particular, the study addressed whether the instruction produced positive effects on all
of the four aspects, and whether the effects (if any) lasted beyond the immediate
postexperimental observation. To this end, short- and longer-term improvement of the
treatment group in the above aspects was measured in terms of the learners’ gains from
Table 3. Results of the within-group univariate analyses for the treatment group.
Table 4. Results of the between-group univariate analyses for the two groups.
the pretest to the two posttests. In order to determine whether changes in the dependent
variables can be attributed to the manipulation of the independent variable, the gains from
the pretest to the immediate posttest of the treatment group were also compared with
those of the control group.
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using this speech act, which can explain why their increased use of internal modifiers in
the immediate posttest was not retained in the longer term.
Concerning between-group contrasts, results of the present study indicate that the
treatment group gained significantly higher scores than the control group in all four
explored areas. Strong partial η2 values found for treatment-versus-control contrasts in the
areas of appropriacy (g2p = .46), accuracy (g2p = .39), and internal modifiers (g2p = .33) and
moderate partial η2 value found in the area of external modifiers (g2p = .10) revealed that
the sizes of these differences were relatively large between the instructed learners and
their uninstructed peers. Taken together, these results suggest that changes in the learners’
postexperimental performance can be safely attributed to the instruction under
investigation.
To interpret the overall effectiveness of the instructional approach employed in this
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effects of this study compared to that of Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005). In particular,
Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005) conducted 12 hours of instruction, whereas the current
study consisted of only approximately 7 hours. Martínez-Flor and Fukuya (2005) targeted
at 12 head acts and 7 downgraders, whereas the current study included instruction of 15
criticizing conventions and 8 types of modifiers. It was assumed that instruction of a
greater number of forms in a shorter period of time might have led to less effect for the
current study. In fact, Ellis and Sheen (2006) have pointed out that recasts can be more
effective when they are focused and intensive (i.e. directed repeatedly at a single
linguistic form) than when they are incidental and extensive (i.e. directed at all types of
errors that occur). Additionally, the type of recasts provided in Martínez-Flor and Fukuya
(2005) may also be considered more explicit than the type of recast provided in the
present study, which might have made the target forms more perceptually salient to
learners.
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repeating the correct version in a rising voice). Also, the recasts were subsequently
written on the blackboard at the end of the lesson to promote noticing. According to
Doughty (2001), the effectiveness of recasts can be improved when their saliency is
enhanced, for example, by repeating the non-target-like part of a learner’s utterance and
reformulating it in interrogative form (also see Sheen 2006, for further discussion on this
point).
One noteworthy point, however, is that although learners scored significantly higher
in the two posttests than in the pretest with regard to both appropriacy and accuracy, their
posttest mean scores were not as high as expected (i.e. below 3 points out of a maximum
possible score of 5 points for each aspect). A close analysis of individual scores also
showed that learners did not make similar gains. In fact, their mean gains (calculated by
averaging the gains from the pretest to each of the two posttests) ranged between .11 and
1.24 (M = .65, SD = .30) for appropriacy and between −.15 and 1.24 (M = .53, SD = .38)
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for accuracy. Similar observations were also made for the learners’ usage of external and
internal modifiers. Despite a general postexperimental improvement in these two areas,
the learners’ mean gains varied greatly from −.09 to 0.63 for external modifiers (M = .27,
SD = .33) and from −.017 to 0.27 for internal modifiers (M = .07, SD = .11). These
results suggested that the intervention may not work equally successfully for every
learner. These results may have been linked to the possible variation across learners in
terms of their use of target feedback instances and forms during communicative practice
(i.e. peer-feedback sessions). In particular, since there was no specification on the amount
of feedback one needed to provide on a peer’s work, this amount may vary from learner
to learner, leading to possibly different amounts of practice among them. Additionally,
since some learners may have made more errors than others, they may also have received
greater amount of recasts directed at them. Although recasts directed at individual
learners may be available to the rest of the class as hearers (Sheen 2010), not every
learner may be attentive enough to benefit from the feedback that was not addressed to
them directly. An alternative explanation for the varying learning outcomes among the
learners may also be related to possible variations in terms of the learners’ prior
knowledge of the target form as well as cognitive orientation (i.e. whether their attention
is oriented toward form or meaning) (see a further discussion on this point in Ellis and
Sheen 2006; Sheen 2008). In the latter case, the learners might benefit from training in
noticing strategies, so that they know what to look for in the provided input. Such
training, however, was absent in the current study.
6. Conclusion
In sum, the present study explores the possibility of implementing an under-researched
type of pragmatic instruction, namely combining input enhancement and recast for a less
commonly taught speech act, i.e. giving constructive criticism in the L2, within the
context of a writing class. On the one hand, findings of this study show that these two
instructional techniques can work alongside each other during meaning-based lessons to
improve both of learners’ sociopragmatic and of pragmalinguistic knowledge related to
the above speech act, as well as their frequency of modifying their criticism both
externally and internally, making another case for the efficacy of the methods. This
insight is relevant for pedagogical purposes. Conventionally, L2 pragmatics has been
taught explicitly by means of the presentation of pragmatic rules and the use of
consolidation exercises. The findings of this study have shown that the two above
implicit techniques can also legitimately be added to the variety of methodological
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 17
options available to the teacher. On the other hand, this study also raises issues in
improving the effectiveness of the techniques. First, it is assumed that intensive,
prolonged instruction limited to only a few forms may produce more effects. The current
study targeted at 15 pragmalinguistic conventions and 8 types of modifiers, which might
have overloaded learning capacity. Potential individual variation in terms of amount of
practice could also have been more effectively controlled to enhance instructional effects.
For example, detailed protocols may be given to learners to guide them with respect to
how much feedback they should aim to provide to peers in each session. Further, some
learner training in what to attend to in positive and negative input might also help
produce better learning outcomes, particularly when learners are not sufficiently form-
conscious. In this study, it is assumed that the two instructional techniques were not
maximally effective perhaps due to a lack of such training. Finally, it is believed that
opportunities for sustained practice are important for maintaining instructional effects on
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less salient, yet structurally more complex, pragmatic features such as internal modifiers.
In this study, the short-lived effects of the instruction on the learners’ usage of internal
modifiers were attributed to the absence of these opportunities.
Despite the insightful findings, the current study, nevertheless, suffers from
limitations that need to be addressed in future research. The sample size of the current
study was relatively small and gender-biased (2 males and 39 females), thus affecting the
generalizability of the findings. The delayed posttest was given only to the treatment
group, limiting the comparison with the control learners. Other problems include a lack of
consideration of individual learner variables such as working memory, cognitive
orientation, language anxiety, or motivation that may affect learners’ receptivity (Egi
2010; Ellis and Sheen 2006; Sheen 2008). Similarly, research has shown that learners’
perceptions of their own cultural identity may lead to the resistance to NS norms and thus
the teacher’s correction of sociopragmatic choices (see Thomas 1983). Unfortunately,
these issues have not been considered in the present study, but they may be worth
investigating in future research. Finally, while it is believed that input enhancement used
alongside another attention-getting device such as recasts may lead to greater learning
success, this combination, nonetheless, can make it difficult to identify the source of
improvement. Future research may as well single out each technique to test, thus
furthering our understanding of their separate effects on L2 pragmatic development.
Notes
1. As noted by Jeon and Kaya (2006), the distinction between explicit and implicit instruction tends
to constitute a continuum rather than a dichotomy in previous L2 pragmatic research. As such,
the concept of implicit instruction is not absolute but may represent a wide variety of
pedagogical interventions varying in degrees of implicitness. These may range from extremely
implicit conditions (e.g. sole exposure to TL input without any form of manipulation of learners’
attention to target forms) to instructional techniques lying on the adjoining points of the explicit-
implicit continuum toward the implicit end (e.g. visual input enhancement). The current study
shares Jeon and Kaya’s view of the relative nature of explicitness and implicitness.
2. As pointed out by Ellis and Sheen (2006), recasts are far from homogeneous and monolithic but
have been operationalized differently in the literature. Contrary to Long’s (1996, 2006) view that
as an implicit type of corrective feedback recasts do not include an overt focus on form, Ellis and
Sheen point out that recasts may in fact lie at various points on a continuum of linguistic
implicitness-explicitness. In other words, depending on the linguistic signals that encode them
and the discoursal context, recasts can be more or less implicit or explicit. For example, a
conversational recast (a reformulation of a student utterance in an attempt to resolve a
communication breakdown that is often formulated as a confirmation check) may be considered
more implicit than a didactic recast (a reformulation of a student utterance in the absence of a
18 M.T.T. Nguyen et al.
communication problem). However, both types of recasts are deemed less explicit than explicit
and metalinguistic correction (see Lyster, Saito, and Sato 2013).
3. The learners, however, were blind to the real purpose of the study and were only told that the
researchers were interested to know what they did and talked about in a peer-feedback session.
This is to avoid inadvertently influencing their behavior and biasing the collected data.
4. The criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of criticism were mainly based on Tracy, van Dusen,
and Robinson (1987). Tracy, van Dusen, and Robinson (1987) investigated the characteristics of
‘good’ criticism as perceived by people from different cultural backgrounds via an open-ended
questionnaire. They found some stylistic characteristics that distinguish ‘good’ from ‘bad’
criticism. For example, ‘good’ criticism needs to display positive language and manner. The
changes suggested in it must be specific enough, and the critic must offer to help make them
possible. The reasons for criticizing must usually be justified and made explicit and the criticism
compensated for by being placed in a larger positive message. ‘Good’ criticism also does not
violate the relationship between interlocutors and is accurate. While adopting these criteria, we
acknowledge, however, that for some activities, such as responding to sample essays, it was
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difficult for the learners to evaluate the effectiveness of their and the NS feedback without
knowing how it would have been co-constructed by the target hearer. Nonetheless, the real
purpose of these activities was to incidentally expose the learners to the target structures rather
than to teach them how to evaluate criticism, which they had already learned in the first session
and continued to practice in the subsequent reflection tasks.
5. It should be noted that although the corrected part was stressed phonologically, we cannot be
certain that the recast was understood the way it was intended. This may particularly be the case
for Type 3 where there were more than one error to deal with. Unfortunately, we did not
interview the students to find out whether or not they noticed the focus of the correction.
However, the students’ postexperimental improvement has attested to the efficacy of the
treatment.
Notes on contributors
Minh Thi Thuy Nguyen is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. Her research interests and recent publications include
pragmatics and language learning, language pedagogy, and language teacher education.
Hanh Thi Pham is a Lecturer at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education at the University
of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Her professional and
research interests are curriculum development, testing and assessment, SLA, and teacher education.
Tam Minh Pham is a Lecturer at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education at the
University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Her
research interests include language pedagogy and language teacher education.
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Worksheet 4
Instruction: Meredith is giving Sandra some comments on her writing. Please look carefully at the lines in bold
face type and underline all the instances of critical feedback that you can find there. On what aspects of the essay
does Meredith give feedback to Sandra? Do you agree with her? Compare your own comments with Meredith’s.
Which do you think would be more effective? Why?
Meredith: Alright, Sandra, I thought your essay was pretty good, especially taking into consideration that we
have pretty limited time, we didn’t get to research it or anything like that but it was still strong research. I
thought in your topic sentence you sort of have listed about the benefits of public transport then you followed
through in the next sentences. I thought it followed along fairly well. Just in the fourth sentence you sort of
changed from ‘people’ and the generic ‘we’ to ‘you.’ I think maybe you could have kept one or the other,
because later you went back to ‘people,’ so it was a bit inconsistent but it’s nothing too major. In the end I
thought that you didn’t really answer the question, because you sort of had to disagree or agree, and you said
you strongly agree that people should use public transport, but then you said but it’s up to them, so it’s sort of
contradictory.
(A longer feedback episode with highlighted target features continues)
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 23