Understanding the relationship between personality traits and oral corrective feedback from the perspectives of teachers and students

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between personality traits and oral corrective feedback from the perspectives of teachers and students

Corrective feedback (CF), especially oral CF, is indispensable in classroom teaching. There are six types of oral CF, including explicit correction, metalinguistic feedback, recasts, clarification requests, repetition, and elicitation. A great number of studies have shown that oral CF has positive effects on the improvement of learners’ language ability. Personality traits, as dispositional characteristics, are relatively stable over time. This is particularly true for adults. Personality traits have also been identified as a contributing factor in a person’s L2 acquisition. However, few researchers have investigated the relationship between personality traits and oral CF. This study, therefore, explored the relationship between teachers’ and students’ personality traits and oral CF through questionnaires, classroom audio recordings, and in-depth interviews. The results showed that (1) personality traits might influence the extent to which teachers would use oral CF, but would not affect teachers’ general attitude towards oral CF in terms of different types of errors. (2) There were some differences between teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards oral CF, particularly on explicit correction, recast, and repetition. (3) Teachers and students with different personality traits might differ in terms of their perspectives on oral CF, especially with respect to explicit correction, metalinguistic feedback, recast, and elicitation.