Faculty of Education

The Best Timing for Immediate Feedback Versus

Delayed Feedback in SLA Tasks

Professor:

Dr. Naomi Nichols

By:

Hossein Zamani

Oct. 04, 2017

 The Best Timing for Immediate Feedback Versus

Delayed Feedback in SLA Tasks

I. Introduction

1.1 Conceptual Background

In this study, the effectiveness of immediate feedback provided in forms of

(recast, explicit correction, and prompts) as well as delayed feedback (oral or

written) being the independent variables on students retention being the

dependent variable in SLA classrooms tasks will be taken into consideration. To

achieve this purpose, we will adopt direct observation of student-teacher

interaction (taking field notes), interview with teachers and students, and

questionnaires (given to both teachers and students).

1.2 Statement of the problem

Despite the inexorable benefits of feedback throughout the history of research,

there has never been a solid agreement on the correct timing of feeding students

back on what they produce within SLA classroom tasks. So, this study aims at

providing qualitative data to prove whether it is appropriate to provide students

with immediate or delayed feedback.

 1.3 Significance and Purpose of the Study

This qualitative study aims at supplying enough grounds on different contexts

where feedback should be given to students using interviews and observations

in SLA classroom settings.

1.4 Research Questions

a) What differences immediate and delayed feedback have on students

comprehension of their errors in SLA?

b) When is it appropriate to adopt immediate feedback or delayed feedback in

SLA?

c) In what skill tasks in SLA? should the teacher provide immediate as against

delayed feedback?

II. Definition of Key Terms

Feedback: According to Ellis (2009), In structural and communicative

approaches to language teaching, feedback is regarded as a way of nurturing

motivation of learner and linguistic accuracy.

SLA: It refers both to the study of individuals and groups who are learning a

language subsequent to learning their first one as young children, and to the

process of learning that language. The additional language is called a second

language (L2), even though it may be the third, fourth, or tenth to be acquired. It
 is also commonly called a target language (TL), which refers to any language that

is the aim or goal of learning. (Saville-Troike, 2017)

III. Literature Review

Teacher and peer feedback as well as essential revision is a communal part of the

process-approach English as Second Language (ESL) writing classroom;

however, the outcome that the feedback and revision process have on the

enhancement of students writing is not determined (Paulus, 1999).

According to a study conducted by Nassaji and Kartchava (2017), There were two

groups to provide feedback with. One of them received immediate feedback and

the other one received delayed feedback after accomplishment of two task). Both

feedback types brought about improvements in scores on a grammaticality

judgment test, proving the advantage of immediate feedback over delayed

feedback. However, none of the feedback types showed any change on scores

from an oral test. The restricted effect of the Corrective Feedback may have been

the result of the learners not being prepared to learn the target language lesson.

On the other hand, according to Ellis (2009), it is impossible to draw a general

conclusion with regard to the comparative usefulness of immediate and delayed

CF. The idea that immediate CF inexorably interrupts the flow of fluency is

perhaps unjustified. Therefore, one of the major debates for postponing

correction would seem to be unacceptable. Also, there is no evidence to prove

that immediate correction is more influential than delayed one.

 Some researchers accepting behaviorist tenets that feedback need to be given

immediately to be influential, have considered that it is necessary to provide

feedback on the spot. A teacher who never replies to a students inquiry until after

two days after it is asked would be thought of as being annoyingly unproductive

(Pressely as quoted in Metcalfe et al. 2009).

If an error is permitted to remain uncorrected, it may be learnt, fused, and

reinforced and may be more likely to reappear than if it were instantly revised. If

reinforcements are supplied quickly, the true answer, rather than an blunder, could

be learnt and consolidated. However, a few studies have proved more enhanced

performance whenever feedback was imparted immediately. For example, Kulik

and Kulik (as quoted in Metcalf et al., 2009) gave reports of a meta-analysis of

53 studies that differed extensively in methodology. The result of the meta-

analysis was that even if delayed feedback was often observed to produce better

outcome in lab studies, immediate feedback led to better performance in applied

studies in real classrooms, and Kulik and Kulik suggested that it could be the

classroom environment itself that was the determinant. (Metcalfe et al. 2009).

III. Conclusions and Implications

The findings of this study will show whether teachers should feed students back

immediately as the errors are made or provide feedback at a later time. The results

of this study could be implicated in ESL language classrooms for all levels from

beginners to advanced levels.

References

1. Ellis, R. (2008). A typology of written corrective feedback types. ELT Journal,

63(2), 97-107. doi:10.1093/elt/ccn023

2. Metcalfe, J., Kornell, N., & Finn, B. (2009). Delayed versus immediate feedback

in childrens and adults vocabulary learning. Memory & Cognition, 37(8), 1077-

1087. doi:10.3758/mc.37.8.1077

3. Nassaji, H., & Kartchava, E. (2017). Corrective feedback in second language

teaching and learning: research, theory, applications, implications. New York:

Routledge.

4. Paulus, T. M. (1999). The effect of peer and teacher feedback on student writing.

Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(3), 265-289. doi:10.1016/s1060-

5. Saville-Troike, M., & Barto, K. (2017). Introducing second-language acquisition.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.