Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

French

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

This study, designed to investigate teachers' written corrective feedback (WCF) in French immersion classes, both elementary and secondary, indicates that WCF practices vary across educational level, learner proficiency and error type. Students' ability to revise following the provided WCF depends on the WCF technique and on learner proficiency level.

Providing corrective feedback on learners’ errors in writing (WCF) is one of the main hallmarks of second language teaching. Research indicates that WCF promotes second langue learning (Ortega, 2012). Most research focused on the effects of different WCF techniques (Van Beuningen et al. 2012). Little descriptive research has been undertaken to uncover how feedback is provided (Guénette & Lyster, 2013; Lee, 2008) and how students use it. The moderating effects of intervening variables have been rarely accounted for despite calls to do so (Kormos, 2012). The present descriptive study sets out to investigate French immersion teachers’ WCF practices across educational levels; the extent to which those practices vary across error type and learner proficiency level; and if students are able to use the provided WCF.

Six French immersion teachers from two different educational levels (3 elementary, 3 secondary) and their respective classes participated in the study. Twelve students (4 low proficiency, 4 high proficiency, and 4 with learning difficulties) were selected from each class (n=72). They were asked to produce a first draft that was followed by the teacher’s WCF and by revision. Teacher feedback and student revision were analysed in relation to error type and student proficiency level. Two independent judges coded 10% of the data to ensure the reliability of the coding categories.

Results indicate that teachers’ WCF practices vary across educational level, learner proficiency and error type. First, while indirect feedback is the teachers’ technique of choice in elementary school, it is less prevalent in secondary classes. Low proficiency learners receive indirect WCF more often than their high proficiency peers. When addressing syntactic errors, instructors opt for direct feedback; however, they rely more on indirect techniques to signal errors of grammatical morphology. Finally, students’ ability to repair following WCF varies across WCF techniques and learner proficiency level.