Percepción de los estudiantes universitarios de inglés como lengua extranjera sobre la corrección oral inmediata en dos instituciones privadas costarricenses

Abstract

In recent years, there has been extensive research focusing on oral corrective feedback (CF), an essential aspect of English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) learning from the teachers' and the linguists' point of view, but very little on the students' perspective. Most higher education programs in Latin America make great efforts to reinforce their EFL programs because of the language's relevance to most professional development. Aiming to contribute to improving strategies for corrective feedback that foster better oral communication, this research gathers learners' insight about oral corrective feedback given by teachers in EFL courses at two private universities from San Jose, Costa Rica. This research is descriptive, transversal and quantitative in nature. The data collection required the implementation of an online questionnaire, which was answered voluntarily by 160 A1/A2 students of the EFL program from these universities. They were interrogated on their general attitude towards CF and the importance they give to it, the frequency with which they like to receive feedback, which type of errors they consider should be corrected and the preference for error correction from a selection of seven standard error correction types. The obtained results demonstrate positive perceptions regarding the feedback received from teachers on all types of errors. The participants expressed a desire to be permanently corrected when there is a deviance in grammar, vocabulary, or pronunciation. The preferred method of corrective feedback was explicit correction, followed by recast and clarification; metalinguistic correction and non-verbal cues were the least liked. The findings corroborate the necessity to include oral corrective feedback on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation as expected by the students.