Erlam & Loewen (2010) - Implicit Explicit Recasts

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Implicit and Explicit Recasts in L2 Oral
French Interaction
Rosemary Erlam
Shawn Loewen
Abstract: This laboratory-based study of second- and third-year

American university students learning French examines the effectiveness of
implicit and explicit corrective feedback on noun–adjective agreement errors.
The treatment consisted of one hour of interactive tasks. Implicit feedback was
operationalized as a single recast with interrogative intonation; explicit
feedback was operationalized as a single repetition of the incorrect utterance
with interrogative intonation, followed by a single recast with declarative
intonation. Testing instruments were administered on three occasions. They
comprised a spontaneous production test, an elicited imitation test, and an
untimed written grammaticality judgement test. Results showed no significant
differences for type of feedback but significant effects for oral interaction.
Keywords: corrective feedback, implicit/explicit feedback, recasting,

interaction
Résumé : L’étude évalue l’efficacité de la rétroaction corrective

implicite et explicite sur des erreurs d’accord entre nom et adjectif chez des
étudiants américains en deuxième et troisième année d’apprentissage du
français. Elle a été effectuée en laboratoire, pendant une période d’une heure
consacrée à des tâches interactives. La rétroaction implicite prenait la forme
d’une reformulation unique avec intonation interrogative; la rétroaction
explicite était fournie sous la forme d’une répétition unique de l’énoncé
incorrect avec une intonation interrogative, suivie d’une reformulation unique
avec intonation déclarative. Le protocole d’évaluation comportait un test de
production spontanée, un test d’imitation sollicitée et un test écrit non minuté
de jugement de grammaticalité. Ce protocole a été mis en œuvre à
trois reprises. Dans l’ensemble, les résultats ne démontrent aucune différence
significative entre les deux types de rétroaction fournis, mais révèlent que les
effets de l’interaction orale avec les participants sont significatifs.
Mots clés : rétroaction corrective, rétroaction implicite et explicite,

reformulation, interaction
# 2010 The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes,
66, 6 (December/décembre), 877 –905 doi:10.3138/cmlr.66.6.877
878 Erlam and Loewen
There has been a considerable amount of focus on recasts in recent

second language acquisition (SLA) research literature (e.g., Carpenter,
Jeon, MacGregor, and Mackey, 2006; Egi, 2007; Ellis, 2007; Ellis &
Sheen, 2006; Li, 2010; Loewen & Philp, 2006; Long, 2007; Mackey &
Goo, 2007; McDonough & Mackey, 2006; Sheen, 2006). Two key
factors may explain why recasts merit ongoing research attention.
First, recasts are the most frequent type of feedback inside and
outside of the language classroom (Loewen & Philp; Sheen), and
second, and perhaps more importantly, questions remain regarding
the effectiveness of recasts for second language (L2) learning.
Mackey and Goo define recasts as ‘reformulations of learners’
ungrammatical or inappropriate utterances which maintain their
intended meanings’ (2007, p. 413). Recasts have a number of benefits
as a form of corrective feedback. Given that L2 learners often have dif-
ficulty in focusing on form and meaning at the same time (VanPatten,
1989), recasts, which are provided when meaning is already contextua-
lized, may free attentional resources (Doughty, 2001; Long, 1996;
Mackey, 2007) and facilitate form – meaning mapping. Furthermore,
the more implicit nature of recasts in comparison to some other
forms of corrective feedback (e.g., metalinguistic explanation) often
means that the flow of communication is not interrupted.
Three recent meta-analyses throw some light on the effectiveness of
recasts, although in each case the conclusion is that more research is
needed. Russell and Spada’s (2006) meta-analysis examined the contri-
bution of both oral and written corrective feedback to L2 learning. Of
the 15 studies included in the analysis, only three investigated the
effects of more implicit types of corrective feedback such as recasts.
These three studies produced medium to large effect sizes. Russell
and Spada conclude that there is a need for more research comparing
the effectiveness of varying degrees of explicit and implicit feedback on
L2 learning. Mackey and Goo (2007) conducted a meta-analysis of
research on L2 interaction. Of the 28 analyzed studies, 14 examined
the effectiveness of recasts and found large effect sizes on all post-tests.
Mackey and Goo call for additional studies that include delayed
post-tests before conclusions can be drawn about the long-term
effects of recasts. A more recent meta-analysis investigating the effec-
tiveness of corrective feedback in L2 learning, Li (2010), looked at 33
studies, including 11 unpublished doctoral dissertations. Twenty-two
of these investigated the effectiveness of recasts. Results showed a
medium effect size for recasts and, similar to Mackey and Goo
(2007), produced evidence to suggest that the long-term effects of
recasts were greater than the short-term effects. Other interesting
66, 6 (December/décembre), 877 –905
Implicit and Explicit Recasts in L2 Oral French 879
findings were that lab-based studies showed a greater effect than

classroom-based ones and that shorter treatments generated a larger
effect than longer treatments.
The implicit – explicit continuum
A number of studies have argued that explicit corrective feedback is

superior to implicit because it is more salient (Carroll & Swain, 1993;
Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006). Although recasts have traditionally
been considered implicit (Long, 2007), recent classroom-based research
suggests that recasts may be better conceptualized as varying on a con-
tinuum of explicitness (Sheen, 2006). Explicitness is concerned with
how the feedback is realized linguistically (Sheen), whereas salience
is a psycholinguistic construct relating to whether a particular linguis-
tic feature, the target of the feedback, is noticeable to the learner.
Several factors can influence the explicitness of feedback, which in
turn can affect how salient it is likely to be to a learner. These factors
are examined in turn.
Intonation
Recasts can be provided with either interrogative or declarative intona-

tion. Interrogative recasts are generally considered less explicit than
declarative ones (Kim & Han, 2007; Sheen, 2006). On the one hand,
Lyster (1998a) argues that interrogative recasts are often ambiguous
(and thus less salient) because they are interpreted by the learner as
confirmation checks rather than corrective feedback. On the other
hand, Ellis (1995) points out that the rising intonation of interrogative
recasts invites the learner to consider whether the teacher’s response is
what the learner intended to say and so may elicit greater cognitive
comparison than declarative recasts.
Loewen and Philp (2006) found that declarative recasts were far
more common in the classroom and were predictive of successful
uptake, suggesting that the learner had noticed the recast (Ellis,
Basturkman, & Loewen, 2001). By contrast, interrogative recasts were
predictive of accuracy in subsequent tests, suggesting that learning
may have occurred. However, whether improved test scores resulted
from the implicitness of the recasts or the deeper processing encour-
aged by interrogative intonation is unclear and awaits further
investigation.
Intensity of focus
Intensive recasts focus on one or two particular linguistic structures,

while extensive recasts focus on a range of items. There is research evi-
dence to suggest that intensive feedback is more salient and thus more
effective (Ellis 2001; Lyster, 1998b). Lyster and Izquierdo’s (2009) study
provides evidence to suggest that the intense targeting of French
gender errors with recasts and prompts, respectively, may have super-
seded any differential impact for the two types of feedback. Russell
and Spada (2006) did not find differences according to whether feed-
back was extensive or intensive, but they had too few studies on which
to draw for results to be convincing. Mackey and Goo (2007) found a
greater effect for intensive focus conditions on short-term delayed
post-tests but not on immediate post-tests, although once again the
lack of studies means that it is too soon to draw conclusions.
Length of feedback
Research suggests that short recasts are more explicit than long ones
because they pinpoint the error for the learner (Sheen, 2006). Sheen
defines short recasts as consisting of one word or a short phrase with
one content word; long recasts consist of more than two words.
Loewen and Philp (2006) found that short recasts were predictive of
improved accuracy on subsequent test scores. Furthermore, Philp
(2003) suggests that shorter recasts may be more effective because
the learner can retain them in working memory more accurately.
Number of feedback moves
Another factor that may influence explicitness is the number of feed-

back moves provided to the learner, and it has been suggested that
multiple feedback moves may make the correction more explicit than
single moves do because of the double focus on the error (see
Doughty & Varela, 1998; Loewen & Philp, 2006; Sheen, 2006). One
example (Sheen, p. 371) of a feedback move that contains a repetition
of the error and a recast (sometimes referred to as a ‘corrective
recast’) is as follows:
Student I pay the cost.

Teacher I pay? I’ll pay the cost.
Several studies have investigated corrective recasts. Doughty and

Varela’s (1998) quasi-experimental study found that corrective recasts
were beneficial for learning English regular past tense. Sheen’s (2006)
observational study investigated the occurrence of single-move and
multi-move recasts, with the former involving only one recast and
the latter consisting of more than one feedback move in a single
teacher turn. Furthermore, she divided multi-move recasts into three
sub-categories: (a) corrective recasts, as defined above, (b) repeated
recasts, containing two or more recasts, and (c) combination recasts,
comprising a recast and other types of corrective feedback. Sheen
found that 21% of recasts in her data involved multiple moves, and
although corrective recasts were the least common type of multi-move
recast (accounting for almost 10%), they always resulted in uptake and
repair.
Similar to multi-move recasts, multiple-response feedback episodes
provide more than one feedback move in reaction to an error; however,
the various feedback moves may be separated by students’ unsuccess-
ful uptake moves (Braidi, 2002; Muranoi, 2000). Research examining
multiple feedback moves ending in recasts found that they accounted
for 22% of the data (Loewen, 2009). Furthermore, the category of elicita-
tion followed by recast, which included repetition of the error as a type
of elicitation, was the most common (48%); however, repetitions were
not distinguished from other types of elicitations such as clarification
requests. Nevertheless, Loewen found that there was significantly
more successful uptake following multiple-response feedback than fol-
lowing single-response recasts, but there was no corresponding differ-
ence in students’ test scores.
Social context and student orientation to correction
In addition to features inherent to recasts, external factors may affect

the explicitness of recasts. Ellis and Sheen (2006) suggest that the
extent to which corrective feedback is noticed depends to a large
extent on the instructional or social context in which it is given.
Some research evidence suggests that recasts are more effective in con-
texts such as foreign language classrooms or laboratory contexts, where
learners find it more obvious that the recast is a reaction to the form of
the utterance rather than to the meaning (Nicholas, Lightbown, &
Spada, 2001). However, Gass, Mackey, and Ross-Feldman (2005), com-
paring groups of learners engaged in learner– learner interaction,
found no difference in the effectiveness of feedback given in classroom
or laboratory settings. In contrast, Lyster and Mori (2006) suggest that

feedback that acts to counterbalance a classroom’s predominant com-
municative orientation is likely to be more effective. For example,
when there is a predominant focus on meaning in a classroom, explicit
corrective feedback may be more effective than implicit feedback in
signalling to learners that the feedback move addresses linguistic
form rather than semantic content. Ellis and Sheen also state that it is
important to consider the learners’ orientation to receiving the correc-
tive feedback (i.e., whether they are positively or negatively oriented
toward it). Indeed, several studies (e.g., Loewen, Li, Thompson,
Nakatsukasa, Ahn, & Chen, 2009; Schulz, 1996) have found that
foreign language learners are often favourably disposed to error correc-
tion, although some variation in opinion has been found according to
the target language and teaching context. Additionally, these studies
have investigated error correction as a general phenomenon and
have not examined learners’ beliefs about specific types of error
correction.
Assessing the effectiveness of recasts
Russell and Spada (2006) point out that the type of instrument used to
measure L2 learning is an important variable in the results obtained
from corrective feedback studies. Recent research suggests the need for
1. measures of both implicit and explicit knowledge (Ellis, 2007;

Loewen & Philp, 2006)
2. studies that report reliability and validity of measures (Russell and
Spada found that such studies resulted in more modest effect sizes
than those that did not.)
3. studies that include delayed post-tests (Mackey & Goo, 2007)
4. studies that investigate both open- and closed-ended prompted
production (Mackey & Goo).
The current study
This paper reports on a study that manipulated several variables in

order to seek answers to some of the questions raised above.
University students of foreign language French received recasts that
were either implicit or explicit. The relationship between provision of
feedback and successful learning was investigated using a variety of
measures (described as tests of implicit and explicit language
knowledge). Students were also questioned with respect to their orien-

tation to the corrective feedback.
The research questions the study sought to address are as follows:
1. Is there a differential effect for implicit and explicit recasts on

implicit L2 knowledge of a specific French structure?
2. Is there a differential effect for implicit and explicit recasts on expli-
cit L2 knowledge of a specific French structure?
3. What are students’ perceptions of the target structure used in the
treatment sessions?
4. What are students’ perceptions of the feedback used in the treat-
ment sessions?
Methodology
Research design
The effects of two types of recasts, one implicit and the other explicit,
were investigated with respect to the acquisition of noun – adjective
agreement in French. Year 2 or 3 (Y2 or Y3) students of French from
an American university completed an hour of instructional treatment
in which they worked on communicative tasks designed to elicit the
target structure and received either implicit or explicit recasts in
response to their errors with respect to that structure. A comparison
group performed the same tasks but received no corrective feedback.
All participants completed a pre-test, two treatment sessions, an
immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test. The testing involved
three instruments: an oral imitation test, an untimed grammaticality
judgement test (GJT), and a spontaneous production test. Students
completed a written background questionnaire at the pre-test and par-
ticipated in mini oral interviews after the post-test and the delayed
post-test.
Participants
Fifty students of French participated in the study. Thirty-two were

enrolled in Year 2 French courses and 18 in Year 3 courses. Their pro-
ficiency level was not assessed by any means other than academic
year, although such an external measure of proficiency would have
been desirable (Thomas, 2006). Students received extra credit for
taking part in the study outside of their timetabled classes. They
were told that the project aimed to investigate the characteristics of

interaction between learners and teachers of French and to examine
the effects of this interaction on language learning. The average age
of students was 20, with a range from 18 to 23. Forty participants
were female and 10 were male. All but one of the participants
(whose first language was Russian) claimed English as their first
language.
Choice of target structure
Noun – adjective agreement is widely documented in the literature as

causing learners of French difficulty (Ayoun, 2007; Herschensohn,
2007; Prodeau, 2005). French has a binary gender system in which
nouns are either masculine or feminine. Inherently female nouns are
feminine and inherently male nouns are masculine, but according to
Séguin (1969) semantically motivated gender categories account for
only 10.5% of all French nouns. The majority of other nouns are
assigned a grammatical gender arbitrarily (Ayoun) but, as Lyster
(2006) points out, word-internal structural patterns can determine
gender. He cautions, however, that these patterns need to be made
salient for L2 learners as they are unlikely to be learned incidentally
(Lyster, 2008). All determiners and adjectives must agree in gender
with the noun modified. An example (taken from the oral elicited imi-
tation test) is
Quand on reçoit une mauvaise note, il vaut mieux l’oublier.

When you get a bad mark, it’s best to forget it.
In the above example, mauvaise is the feminine form of mauvais, used

here because the noun it precedes and modifies, une note, is feminine.
Marking gender agreement is difficult for learners of French because it
has low perceptual salience and limited communicative value (Ayoun,
2007). As masculine forms are selected more frequently than feminine
forms, masculine is called the default case (Prodeau, 2005). There is
documented evidence that gender agreement goes unacquired by
classroom learners after many years of exposure despite its frequency
in the input (Harley, 1989). In the research context described in this
study, noun – adjective agreement is taught in the first semester of the
first year and is recycled during the second and third years of instruc-
tion. In addition, noun– adjective agreement errors commonly receive
incidental corrective feedback during classroom interaction at all
levels (A. Violin-Wigent, personal communication, May 2010).
Instructional treatments
Students were asked to sign up for two interaction sessions at a time

that was convenient to them. Each of the sessions, which were all con-
ducted by the first researcher, lasted one hour and was divided into
two half-hour parts, each targeting one of two linguistic structures.
Y2 students’ tasks targeted the use of être and noun – adjective agree-
ment, while Y3 students’ tasks targeted the use of direct object pro-
nouns and noun – adjective agreement. In this study, however, only
the results for noun – adjective agreement data are presented, as a
result of the small sample sizes for the other structures. During the
study, students spent one hour in total working on tasks designed to
elicit noun – adjective agreement. For the explicit feedback group, n ¼
21 (Y2 ¼ 13, Y3 ¼ 8), for the implicit group, n ¼ 19 (Y2 ¼ 9, Y3 ¼ 10),
and for the no feedback (i.e., comparison) group, n ¼ 10.
Because students had freedom to choose time slots that suited them,
they did not necessarily find themselves with the same peers in both
treatment sessions. Furthermore, the treatment group sizes varied,
with an average of four students per group and a range of one to seven.1
Tasks
A series of four tasks were used in the interaction sessions to create

obligatory occasions for noun – adjective agreement. All interaction ses-
sions were audio-recorded.
Tasks were designed to require a primary focus on meaning, and
there was a clearly defined outcome rather than just a display of
correct language (Ellis, 2003). The tasks were created to include infor-
mation gaps that needed to be filled through the communicative
efforts of the learners and required students to rely on their own lin-
guistic resources rather than just manipulate language that had been
given to them. Examples of tasks included having students guess
who different television characters were from a classmate’s description
and describing objects that they had lost at a ‘lost and found’ bureau.
(See the Appendix for an example of one of the tasks.)
Corrective feedback
It is important to note that while the corrective feedback was directed at

individual students, the tasks were designed and implemented to focus
all of the students’ attention as much as possible on the speaker at any
one time. In other words, the tasks required the whole group to listen
to and guess the missing information needed to solve a given infor-

mation gap. In this way, the likelihood that all students had attended
to the corrective episodes was maximized. The rationale for this was
based on evidence that observing feedback, and not just receiving it
directly, can be beneficial (Kim & Han, 2007; Ohta, 2000).
Implicit recasts
In this study, implicit recasts consisted of correction of the error made,

given with rising intonation. In the following example, the recast is set
in bold, the correct adjective form is underlined, and a translation is
provided for the reader:
Student Je pense elle n’est pas intelligent parce qu’elle . . .

I think she isn’t intelligent because . . .
Researcher Elle n’est pas intelligente?
Student Elle n’est pas intelligente.
Explicit recasts
The current study operationalized an explicit recast as consisting of two

uninterrupted feedback moves. In the first, the student’s error was
repeated with rising intonation. In the second, a correction was provided
in declarative form. The rationale for operationalizing explicit recasts in
this manner comes in part from descriptive studies that have found the
occurrence of multiple feedback moves in response to learners’ errors in
the classroom (Ellis et al., 2001; Loewen, 2009; Sheen, 2006). These
studies found that approximately 20% of feedback in their respective
classes contained two or more feedback moves.The following example
shows an explicit recast episode from the current study:
Student Elle est heureux.

She is happy.
Researcher Elle est heureux? Elle est heureuse.
Student Heureuse.
In summary, the key differences between the two types of recasts

were the number of feedback moves (one for implicit, two for explicit)
and the intonation (interrogative for implicit recasts, declarative for

explicit). The other variables that account for whether a particular feed-
back type is considered more or less implicit or explicit (such as inten-
sity of focus) were held constant. The recasts were partially segmented;
that is to say, the entire noun phrase containing the error (i.e., the noun
and adjective) was used in the recast (e.g., de taille grande). If the adjec-
tive was used predicatively, the whole clause, including the verb
element, was recast (e.g., elle est intelligente). However, when students’
utterances contained additional phrases, these additional phrases were
not repeated in the recast. Thus, the length of the recasts was consist-
ently operationalized across both treatment groups.
Testing instruments and scoring/coding procedures
Tests were administered on three occasions: pre-test, post-test 1, and

post-test 2. Given that participants selected convenient times to take
the tests, the number of days that intervened between the various com-
ponents of the study varied. However, the median number of days
between components was as follows: pre-test to treatment 1 ¼ 19
days; treatment 1 to treatment 2 ¼ 5 days; treatment 2 to post-test
1 ¼ 1 day; post-test 1 to post-test 2 ¼ 21 days. There was no significant
variation among the groups in the number of days between com-
ponents, apart from a difference from pre-test to treatment 1 in
which one group had an average of five fewer days.
On each testing occasion, a battery of three tests was administered in
the following order: spontaneous production test, oral imitation test,
and untimed grammaticality judgement test. All tests were adminis-
tered in a computer lab. The spontaneous production test and the
oral elicited imitation test (Erlam, 2006) were both designed to
provide measures of the learners’ implicit language knowledge. The
spontaneous production test was a measure of open-ended prompted
production and the oral elicited imitation test was a measure of
closed-ended prompted production (Mackey & Goo, 2007). The
untimed grammaticality judgement test (ungrammatical sentences)
was designed to provide measures of learners’ explicit knowledge.
(For a discussion of the theoretical grounds for this claim, see Ellis,
2004, 2005; Ellis, Loewen, Erlam, Philp, Elder, & Reinders, 2009.) A
split-block design was used in test administration. Three similar ver-
sions of each test (A, B, and C) were rotated among students during
each administration. By the end of the delayed post-test, all students
had completed all three versions of each test type. The tests are
described in detail below.
Spontaneous production test
The test consisted of a picture prompt and asked questions designed to

elicit use of noun-adjective agreement. Students were allowed time to
look at the tests but were not allowed to write anything down. This was
to minimize any possibility that they could draw on explicit knowl-
edge, although it needs to be acknowledged that it was not possible
to totally preclude them from monitoring their output while narrating
the story. The tests were audio-recorded and transcribed. Students
were given two scores for each test: one that indicated frequency of
use of the target feature (there was no limit to this score) and another
that reflected the percentage of correct use of the target feature (of
the total number attempted).
Oral imitation test
This test, which was described to students as a survey questionnaire,

consisted of a series of belief statements. Each test contained between
26 and 28 statements. Between 13 and 14 of these statements targeted
noun – adjective agreement and four were grammatically incorrect.2
Some statements contained more than one instance of the target struc-
ture. The following example shows the target items in bold:
Les petites filles rêvent de se marier en robe blanche.

Little girls dream of getting married in a white dress.
In total the different versions of the tests had between 24 and 26 items
that targeted noun– adjective agreement. In these items, the main focus
was the use of feminine adjectives with feminine nouns, but some
items also tested the use of the masculine form.
Students were told they would hear statements that would require
them to give an opinion. They were given an answer sheet that con-
tained a picture corresponding to each statement, the aim of which
was to cue them to the meaning of the statement and further direct
their attention away from form. (For a discussion of the theoretical
rationale for this test, see Erlam, 2006). Students listened to an audio-
recorded statement and then selected ‘true,’ ‘not true,’ or ‘I don’t
know’ on the answer sheet. Next they were required to repeat the state-
ment in correct French. Because participants heard each statement only
once and in real time, the test was completed under time pressure, as
were the original tests on which this test was based (see Ellis, 2005;
Erlam, 2006). Pre-test training on distracter sentences provided both
grammatical and ungrammatical stimuli as well as the correct response

to each item.
Students’ responses to all items were recorded and then analyzed to
establish whether obligatory occasions had been created for the use of
the target structure. Errors involving language structures other than
those targeted were disregarded. Each test item was allocated a score
of either 1 (i.e., the grammatically correct target structure was correctly
imitated or the grammatically incorrect target structure was corrected)
or 0 (i.e., the target structure was avoided/the grammatically correct
target structure was attempted but incorrectly imitated/the grammati-
cally incorrect target structure was imitated but not corrected). At times
it was impossible to make a decision about a particular item because
the recording was not clear enough. Such items were coded as
missing data. Scores were expressed as percentages. Reliability for
the three versions of the test was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha
to give the following results for Year 2: Version A, .698; Version B,
.806; and Version C, .779. For Year 3 results were as follows: Version
A, .916; Version B, .890; and Version C, .886.
Untimed grammaticality judgement test
This was a pen-and-paper test consisting of 28 sentences for Year 2 and

27 for Year 3. For the Year 2 tests, 14 sentences targeted noun – adjective
agreement; of these, 6 were ungrammatical. For the Year 3 tests, 14 sen-
tences targeted noun – adjective agreement and 6 were ungrammatical.
Students were asked to indicate whether each sentence was grammati-
cally correct or incorrect. For incorrect sentences, students were asked
to circle the incorrect part and write the correct sentence in the space
provided. Items were presented on separate pages and students were
not allowed to turn back to previous pages. Responses to ungramma-
tical items were marked as correct (1 point) only if students correctly
indicated that the sentence was ungrammatical, identified the error,
and corrected it. Scores for learners’ judgements of grammatical and
ungrammatical test items were calculated both together and separately.
For the purposes of this study, only the scores for the ungrammatical
items are presented, given that they have been shown to be better
measures of explicit knowledge (Ellis, 2005). Year 2 reliability
(Cronbach’s alpha) for the different versions of the tests was as
follows: Version A, .827; Version B, .852; and Version C, .776. Year 3
results were as follows: Version A, .680; Version B, .615; and Version
C, .753.
Interviews
Two short interviews were conducted and recorded at the end of

each post-testing session by either the first author or a research assist-
ant. After the first post-test, students were asked what they noticed
about the type of feedback that they had received. These interviews
were audio-recorded and the data were coded according to the type
of feedback students reported receiving. For example, a student who
said ‘You repeated my mistake and then corrected me’ was coded
as reporting an explicit recast. Students were also asked about any
preference they had for how they are corrected when they make
mistakes.
After the delayed post-test, students were asked questions that
aimed to establish whether they were aware of the grammatical struc-
ture that was targeted in the study. Their responses were recorded and
analyzed. Students who reported a focus on noun – adjective agree-
ment, gender, or masculine and feminine were coded as demonstrating
awareness of the target structure, namely noun – adjective agreement.
In addition, because the researchers were not able to control exposure
to the target linguistic structure outside of the study, students were
asked if there had been a focus in their regular classes on the structure
or whether they had personally done any study on this structure.
Analysis
In order to answer the main research questions, mixed-design analysis

of variance (ANOVA) tests were performed, with time of test (pre-,
post-, delayed post-test) as the within-subjects independent variable
and feedback group (implicit, explicit, comparison) as the between-
subjects independent variable. Accuracy scores on each test served as
the dependent variables. Alpha was set at 0.05.
Before conducting the ANOVAs, the researchers tested the statistical
assumptions of normality, homogeneity of variance, and sphericity
(Larson-Hall, 2010). Sphericity was not violated; however, homogen-
eity of variance was violated on two occasions. Finally, normality
was violated on the GJT and in the scores for the frequency and accu-
racy of production. Given the lack of a non-parametric equivalent of
mixed-design ANOVA, these violations suggest caution in interpreting
the inferential statistics.
Furthermore, in order to assure initial equivalence among the
groups, the pre-test scores for each instrument were subjected to a
one-way ANOVA. There were no significant differences between the
groups, except for the noun – adjective agreement scores on the oral
imitation test. Since the Year 3 groups’ scores were higher than the
Year 2 groups’ scores on this measure, year of study was included as
an independent variable.
Results
Because feedback was contingent on learner errors and number of

opportunities for discourse turns, the groups received differing
amounts of feedback. An analysis of tape transcripts of all instances
of error correction showed that the groups received on average 19
instances of feedback targeting noun – adjective agreement, with a
range of 8 to 32 instances. Furthermore, the feedback was of the appro-
priate type at least 85% of the time, and usually more than 90%, indi-
cating that the implicit group generally received an implicit recast, and
the explicit group an explicit recast, although some crossover between
the two feedback conditions was unavoidable. Identification of feed-
back type was conducted by both researchers, and the few differences
in coding were mutually negotiated.
Combined results for Year 2 and Year 3 groups, in Table 1, showed
some improvement on the oral imitation test over the testing period.
The mixed-design ANOVA results showed main effects for time and
year, but no main effect for group, indicating that there was overall
improvement from pre-test to post-tests and an overall difference
TABLE 1
Imitation scores
Pre-test Post-test Delayed

post-test
M SD M SD M SD
Implicit (n ¼ 19) 0.50 0.16 0.53 0.17 0.55 0.14

Explicit (n ¼ 21) 0.55 0.17 0.60 0.21 0.63 0.18
Comparison (n ¼ 10) 0.45 0.09 0.53 0.15 0.56 0.10
2
Time, F(2, 90) ¼ 5.69, p ¼ 0.005, h ¼ 0.112
Year, F(1,45) ¼ 14.69, p , 0.001, h2 ¼ 0.246
Group, F(2, 45) ¼ 0.564, p ¼ 0.57, h2 ¼ 0.024
Year*Time, F(2, 90) ¼ 0.659, p ¼ 0.52, h2 ¼ 0.014
Group*Time, F(4, 90) ¼ 0.360, p ¼ 0.836, h2 ¼ 0.016
Group*Year, F(1,45) ¼ 1.02, p ¼ 0.317, h2 ¼ 0.022
between Year 2 and Year 3 students. However, there were no statistical

interaction effects, signifying that there were no differential effects for
treatment group or for year of study on the test scores.
Turning now to GJT results for noun – adjective agreement, Table 2
shows similar results to those of the imitation test. The ANOVA
results indicate main effects for time and year but no main effect for
group, indicating that there was overall improvement from pre-test
to post-tests and an overall difference between Year 2 and Year 3
students. Furthermore, there were no statistical interaction effects,
which means that statistically all groups improved equally from
pre-test to post-test.
Finally, we consider the spontaneous production test data for noun –
adjective agreement, looking first at frequency of production (Table 3).
Students averaged around seven tokens on the pre-test, with a slight
increase on the post-tests. However, no statistical differences were
found for either main or interaction effects.
The results are similar for accuracy of production (Table 4). There
were slight increases on the post-test, which generally disappeared
on the delayed post-test, and none of the differences between the
groups or between tests was statistically significant.
Perceptions
The final two research questions asked about participants’ perceptions

regarding the target structure and feedback given. Given that one of the
TABLE 2
Grammaticality judgement test scores

post-test
M SD M SD M SD
Implicit (n ¼ 19) 0.44 0.33 0.66 0.31 0.67 0.33

Explicit (n ¼ 21) 0.62 0.34 0.74 0.26 0.75 0.27
Comparison (n ¼ 10) 0.38 0.27 0.40 0.33 0.45 0.38
2
Time, F(2, 90) ¼ 9.10, p , 0.001, h ¼ 0.186
Year, F(1, 45) ¼ 5.00, p ¼ 0.03, h2 ¼ 0.100
Group, F(2, 45) ¼ 1.28, p ¼ 0.29, h2 ¼ 0.054
Year*Time, F(2, 90) ¼ 0.191, p ¼ 0.28, h2 ¼ 0.004
Group*Time, F(4, 90) ¼ 1.38, p ¼ 0.25, h2 ¼ 0.058
Group*Year, F(1, 45) ¼ 0.326, p ¼ 0.571, h2 ¼ 0.007
TABLE 3
Spontaneous production test: Frequency of production scores
post-test
M SD M SD M SD
Implicit (n ¼ 19) 7.1 5.5 9.6 7.8 8.5 5.3

Explicit (n ¼ 21) 6.9 5.3 8.0 5.1 5.8 3.8
Comparison (n ¼ 10) 6.5 4.1 10.3 6.2 9.4 8.5
2
Time, F(2, 88) ¼ 2.12, p ¼ 0.13, h ¼ 0.046
Group, F(2, 44) ¼ 0.335, p ¼ 0.71, h2 ¼ 0.015
Year, F(1, 44) ¼ 2.88, p ¼ .10, h2 ¼ 0.062
Time*Group, F(4, 88) ¼ 0.902, p ¼ 0.47, h2 ¼ 0.039
Year*Time, F(2, 88) ¼ 1.20, p ¼ 0.31, h2 ¼ 0.027
Group*Year, F(1, 44) ¼ 0.096, p ¼ 0.76, h2 ¼ 0.002
issues investigated was the difference in explicitness of two types of

feedback, it is worthwhile to consider participants’ awareness of the
structures targeted by the feedback. Table 5 shows the level of reported
awareness of the target structure, as measured by an interview follow-
ing the delayed post-test. For noun – adjective agreement, the aware-
ness level was similar for the two treatment groups at roughly 65%,
but the rate was lower for the comparison group (44%).
In addition to enquiring about the targeted structure, the inter-
viewers also asked the treatment groups about the feedback they
TABLE 4
Spontaneous production test: Accuracy of production scores

post-test
M SD M SD M SD
Implicit (n ¼ 19) 0.55 0.26 0.70 0.24 0.68 0.20

Explicit (n ¼ 21) 0.64 0.29 0.71 0.28 0.61 0.29
Comparison (n ¼ 10) 0.71 0.22 0.70 0.22 0.59 0.26
2
Time, F(2, 88) ¼ 2.27, p ¼ 0.11, h ¼ 0.049
Year, F(1, 44) ¼ 0.002, p ¼ 0.97, h2 ¼ 0.000
Group, F(2, 44) ¼ 0.068, p ¼ 0.93, h2 ¼ 0.003
Time*Group, F(4, 88) ¼ 1.12, p ¼ 0.35, h2 ¼ 0.048
Time*Year, F(2, 88) ¼ 1.28, p ¼ 0.28, h2 ¼ 0.028
Group*Year, F(1, 44) ¼ 0.00, p ¼ 0.99, h2 ¼ 0.000
TABLE 5
Awareness of target structure
Group Comments Proportion aware of structure (%)
Explicit 21 62
Implicit 19 67
Comparison 10 44
received. Seventy percent of the students reported that they were aware
of receiving feedback during the treatment sessions. Roughly equal
numbers of students reported receiving a specific type of correction.
Fifteen students clearly demonstrated that they remembered receiving
an implicit recast (e.g., ‘You told me what I was supposed to say’), and
13 clearly indicated that they remembered receiving an explicit recast
(e.g., ‘You would repeat what I said and then say what it should
have been’).
When asked about their thoughts regarding the feedback, most
students were positive. Students who reported that they liked receiving
correction in the form of an implicit recast gave reasons such as the
following:
† It made me aware of what I was saying before I said it so I could

think about the best way to say it.
† I mean I don’t think that there is a better way.
Only one student reported not liking an implicit recast: ‘I like to be told
(rather than corrected) so I think about it – it’s easier for me to remem-
ber.’ Another student, although positive about an implicit form of
feedback, suggested that a more explicit explanation of an error
would also have been welcome: ‘I do think it was effective, although
it is up to the other person to realize their normal patterns of a
problem – maybe a conversation with the teacher would be good –
telling me that I have problems with my endings.’
Of the 13 students who reported receiving an explicit recast, eight
were positive about this type of feedback as a means of correction.
They gave a number of reasons why they liked it:
† It is very effective if you get the person to repeat what they said
and the right way to say it. It will stick in their head.
† Because you are not just given the answer, you are given a
choice of answers so you are learning when you choose the
correct answer.
† I liked being corrected that way because they were double

checking – giving you another opportunity to redeem yourself.
However, three students reported not liking receiving an explicit recast

and two were unsure. Reasons for not liking an explicit recast included
the following:
† I didn’t like it – you would pose it as if I had a choice between

which ones like the masculine or feminine but clearly if I used
masculine and you posed the question then clearly it was
feminine so I [would] rather that you would just say it like
how to say it.
† Instead of her repeating what I said I think she should have said
this is what you do wrong and help me figure out how to say it.
I didn’t like how she would repeat what I said in a question
tone – it made me feel stupid – a statement form of a correction
would have been more preferable.3
Finally, one student made an interesting comment regarding the obtru-

siveness of an implicit recast in the interaction: ‘Occasionally it threw
me off my thought but most of the time it was beneficial.’
Discussion
The first research question asked whether there was a differential effect
for implicit and explicit recasts on implicit L2 knowledge of a specific
French structure. The answer is no.
The second research question asked whether there was a differential
effect for implicit and explicit recasts on explicit L2 knowledge of a
specific French structure. Again, the answer is no.
Overall, then, the type of feedback that students received did not
have a differential impact on learning. In addition, the presence or
absence of feedback did not appear to influence test performance.
The fact that the comparison group made gains along with the
treatment groups suggests that participating in the testing sessions
and/or in the interactive activities was beneficial.
In this study it was, regrettably, not possible to include a control
group that completed only the tests. However, data from Philp and
Iwashita (2010) allow us to address this issue because they used oral
imitation tests and grammaticality judgement tests for testing
noun-adjective agreement that were identical to those in the current
study. Their participants were Year 2 French students at a
New Zealand and an Australian university. Eleven students completed

a pre-test, post-test (four to five days later), and delayed post-test (20
days after the pre-test), but they did not participate in any treatment
activities. The tests were scored in consultation with the first researcher
of the current study, and the data allow us to consider to what extent
the tests themselves may promote learning. Descriptive statistics for
the two tests are given in Table 6.
Mixed-design ANOVAs showed that there were no significant gains
from pre-test to delayed post-test on the oral imitation test or the GJT.
Thus, we can infer that in the current study, learning resulted from
interaction during the tasks rather than from simply completing the
tests.
Possible explanations for the findings are now considered. First, the
intensiveness of both types of feedback (i.e., focusing repeatedly on
errors with the same target structures) may help to explain why, for
the most part, gains were not differentiated according to type of feed-
back. This intensive focus could have helped learners to recognize
that the feedback they received was in response to the well-formedness,
and not the semantic content, of their utterances (Nicholas et al., 2001).
In other words, the implicit recasts may have been as salient to learners
as the explicit recasts, despite the fact that the two types were operatio-
nalized differently in terms of explicitness. Further evidence is that each
group reported similar levels of awareness (62% and 67%) of the target
structure that was the focus of the study (Research question 3). A
post-hoc t-test comparing the level of awareness of the explicit and
the implicit group did not reveal a significant difference for this struc-
ture. This finding, that gains were not differentiated according to the
type of feedback groups received, corroborates other research evidence
that suggests that corrective feedback may be more salient in a labora-
tory or even a foreign language setting, where the primary focus is on
learning language itself, than in an immersion setting, where there is
a greater focus on communication or content (Ellis & Sheen, 2006;
Loewen & Nabei, 2007; Lyster & Ranta, 1997).
TABLE 6
Control group use of noun–adjective agreement
Test Pre-test Post-test Delayed
post-test
M SD M SD M SD
Imitation 0.57 0.16 0.65 0.16 0.66 0.15

Grammaticality judgement test 0.57 0.29 0.71 0.29 0.63 0.32
However, results showing that the comparison group also made

gains suggest that it was not the feedback alone that facilitated learn-
ing; the tasks that the students completed in the interaction sessions
seem to have resulted in learning. This conclusion is further supported
by evidence that any learning from the tests alone was minimal (i.e.,
the relative lack of improvement for the control group from Philp
and Iwashita’s study).
The question thus arises: What was it about this task-based inter-
action that contributed to learning? As has already been described,
the tasks were designed to elicit target structures. They may therefore
have met Loschky and Bley-Vroman’s (1993) criterion of ‘task essential-
ness,’ in that they could not be successfully performed unless the struc-
ture was used. Furthermore, the researcher found that the students in
all groups needed guidance in order to complete the tasks. For
example, in an activity for which they had to describe television char-
acters to fellow classmates, they were told to focus not only on physical
characteristics such as âge, taille, cheveux (age, size, hair) but also on
caractère (personality). In accessing the vocabulary that they needed
to complete the task, learners may have had the opportunity to
attend briefly to form while they were engaged in the communication
of meaning. As a result, students may have noticed gaps between their
own interlanguage resources and the language they needed, even
though no corrective feedback was provided. Anecdotal evidence
comes from the researchers’ observation that the comparison group
made many mistakes in completing these tasks. It is interesting to
note here that almost half of this group (44%) was aware of the
target structure as the focus of the study, even though they received
no corrective feedback, either implicit or explicit, on the structure.
This result corroborates Mackey and Goo’s suggestion (2007) that inter-
action with feedback may not necessarily be more facilitative of L2
development than interaction alone. A number of students involved
in this study also indicated that the opportunity to engage in commu-
nicative activities differed from their more form-focused classroom
instruction. It is interesting to consider whether the opportunity to
engage in a different type of instruction motivated them to attend
more to the content of these activities. Such a conclusion would
provide evidence for the counterbalance hypothesis (Lyster & Mori,
2006; Yang & Lyster, 2010).
A strength of this study that needs to be considered in any attempt
to explain its results is the measures of learning it employed. Measures
of both implicit and explicit knowledge (Ellis, 2007; Loewen & Philp,
2006) and of both open- and closed-ended prompted production
(Mackey & Goo, 2007) were used. It is worthwhile to consider to what

extent results for corrective feedback in other studies are evidence of
gains in explicit rather than implicit knowledge, although much exper-
imental research following Mackey (1999) has used production, argu-
ably more a measure of implicit knowledge, as a gauge of learning.
Students’ responses to questions about the type of corrective feed-
back they liked to receive demonstrated considerable variation
(Research question 4), mirroring that found in previous studies of lear-
ners’ beliefs about error correction in general (Loewen et al., 2009;
Schulz, 1996). Given that previous studies have not conducted such a
finely grained analysis regarding learner preference for specific types
of feedback, it is interesting to note that 2 students out of the 15 who
reported receiving an implicit recast suggested that they would have
preferred a more explicit explanation of their errors. On the other
hand, 8 students out of 13 indicated that they liked the explicit form
of feedback they received, 3 did not like it, and 2 were not sure. One
said, ‘It made me feel stupid.’ It is interesting to consider how
learner preference may have influenced the learning that did take
place, although this is not a question that this study can answer. In
this experimental study it was, of course, not possible to explain to
the students why they received the type of feedback they did, some-
thing that could be explained or even negotiated with students in a
more naturalistic classroom setting.
It is also interesting to consider, and a possible topic for further
research, to what extent the results obtained in this study were influ-
enced by the structure targeted. Long (2007) suggests that the effects
of recasts may differ according to the structure targeted, and studies
by Long, Inagaki, and Ortega (1998) and Ellis (2007) found that feed-
back on different morphosyntactic features did not result in similar
gains.
Limitations
As with any study, there are limitations to the current one. One limit-
ation was the difficulty of ensuring the same number of students in
each treatment group and the same number of days between testing
and treatment conditions, reflecting one of the problems of using real
students with busy schedules. A correlation analysis comparing stu-
dents’ gains with the size of the treatment groups in which they
were and the number of days between their participation in the
various components of the study did not show even moderate
correlations, however, suggesting that these factors did not unduly

affect the results. Nevertheless, more control over these variables
would have been desirable.
Another potential limitation was that we could not control for what
students were learning outside of the treatment sessions in relation to
the target structures. As described in the method section, we asked stu-
dents on completion of the study whether they had focused on the
target structures either in class or in their own private study.
Students reported a passing classroom focus on noun – adjective
agreement.
Conclusions
In spite of the limitations, this study makes a useful contribution to our

understanding of corrective feedback. It suggests that the intensive
feedback learners receive when involved in task-based interaction
can promote L2 learning. However, it suggests that this feedback
may not be more effective in promoting learning than the mere oppor-
tunity to engage in tasks that are specifically designed to elicit targeted
structures and that therefore draw learners’ attention to these struc-
tures and to any gap between their language resources and the
language they need to complete the tasks. More research is needed
to establish in what contexts corrective feedback leads to learning
that is superior to that which results from activities in which students
have the chance to focus on form while engaged in the communication
of meaning but do not receive any feedback about their production.
This study also points out that the operationalization of explicitness
by researchers may not correspond with the saliency of feedback for
learners, particularly in laboratory contexts. It shows that multiple
measures of test learning are important since learners may show
improvement on some instruments but not on others. Given that
several of these issues have been under-researched in the field, this
study helps to fill the gaps and points to additional research that is
necessary in these areas. It is hoped that further research will investi-
gate the impact that different types of feedback have on different
target structures and examine the effectiveness of this feedback on
measures of both explicit and implicit knowledge.
Correspondence should be addressed to Dr Rosemary Erlam, Department of

Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland, Private
Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. E-mail: r.erlam@auckland.ac.nz.
Acknowledgements
The authors are indebted to the following people for their help in making this
study possible: Scott Chien-Hsiung Chiu, Sandhya Shanker, and Anne
Violin-Wigent. Any shortcomings in the study of course remain the
responsibility of the authors.
Notes
1 Timetable constraints prevented six students from attending a group

session for one of the two treatment sessions. In such cases the students
worked at the tasks with the researcher, who took the role of another
classmate and also gave corrective feedback as appropriate. Note that all of
these students had at least one session with a group and also that they were
distributed fairly evenly according to group (three students in the implicit
group, two in the explicit group, and one in the comparison group).
2 Because each version of the test comprised a different set of statements,
some of which contained more than one example of a given target structure,
there was variation among the tests. The smaller number of ungrammatical
items replicates the test design described by Ellis (2005), in which there
were fewer ungrammatical than grammatical items. In the current study,
the number of test items was constrained by the fact that the study was
originally designed to target more than one structure; therefore, each test
contained two target structures.
3 This comment was made to the research assistant who interviewed five
participants. It is hard to know whether more students would have been
more openly critical had they been interviewed by the research assistant
rather than the researcher.
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Appendix
The following is an example of one of the tasks used in the treatment

sessions.
Qui est ton personage de télévision préféré?

Who is your favourite television character?
I am going to give you a picture of a television character. You mustn’t

show it to anyone else in the class. When it is your turn you will
describe him/her to the others in the class. You must not say his/her
name, or the name of the series in which he/she appears, or the
names of any other characters in that series.
1. Start by describing his/her physical appearance. Describe him/her

as well as you can so that others can identify who your character is.
2. Then describe his/her personality. What is he/she like?
3. If no one has guessed who it is, go on to describe his/her role in the
series in which he/she plays, something that has happened to
him/her recently.
When all the students had described the characters they had been
given, the pictures were put up on the board and individuals had to
elect the one that they liked best. They had to say why the character
they voted for was their favourite.

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Abstract: This laboratory-based study of second- and third-year

Keywords: corrective feedback, implicit/explicit feedback, recasting,

Résumé : L’étude évalue l’efficacité de la rétroaction corrective

Mots clés : rétroaction corrective, rétroaction implicite et explicite,

There has been a considerable amount of focus on recasts in recent

findings were that lab-based studies showed a greater effect than

The implicit – explicit continuum

A number of studies have argued that explicit corrective feedback is

Recasts can be provided with either interrogative or declarative intona-

Intensive recasts focus on one or two particular linguistic structures,

Number of feedback moves

Another factor that may influence explicitness is the number of feed-

Student I pay the cost.

Several studies have investigated corrective recasts. Doughty and

Social context and student orientation to correction

In addition to features inherent to recasts, external factors may affect

or laboratory settings. In contrast, Lyster and Mori (2006) suggest that

Assessing the effectiveness of recasts

1. measures of both implicit and explicit knowledge (Ellis, 2007;

The current study

This paper reports on a study that manipulated several variables in

knowledge). Students were also questioned with respect to their orien-

1. Is there a differential effect for implicit and explicit recasts on

Fifty students of French participated in the study. Thirty-two were

were told that the project aimed to investigate the characteristics of

Choice of target structure

Noun – adjective agreement is widely documented in the literature as

Quand on reçoit une mauvaise note, il vaut mieux l’oublier.

In the above example, mauvaise is the feminine form of mauvais, used

Students were asked to sign up for two interaction sessions at a time

A series of four tasks were used in the interaction sessions to create

It is important to note that while the corrective feedback was directed at

to and guess the missing information needed to solve a given infor-

In this study, implicit recasts consisted of correction of the error made,

Student Je pense elle n’est pas intelligent parce qu’elle . . .

The current study operationalized an explicit recast as consisting of two

Student Elle est heureux.

In summary, the key differences between the two types of recasts

and the intonation (interrogative for implicit recasts, declarative for

Testing instruments and scoring/coding procedures

Tests were administered on three occasions: pre-test, post-test 1, and

Spontaneous production test

The test consisted of a picture prompt and asked questions designed to

Oral imitation test

This test, which was described to students as a survey questionnaire,

Les petites filles rêvent de se marier en robe blanche.

grammatical and ungrammatical stimuli as well as the correct response

Untimed grammaticality judgement test

This was a pen-and-paper test consisting of 28 sentences for Year 2 and

Two short interviews were conducted and recorded at the end of

In order to answer the main research questions, mixed-design analysis

Because feedback was contingent on learner errors and number of

Pre-test Post-test Delayed

Implicit (n ¼ 19) 0.50 0.16 0.53 0.17 0.55 0.14

between Year 2 and Year 3 students. However, there were no statistical

The final two research questions asked about participants’ perceptions

Pre-test Post-test Delayed

Implicit (n ¼ 19) 0.44 0.33 0.66 0.31 0.67 0.33

Implicit (n ¼ 19) 7.1 5.5 9.6 7.8 8.5 5.3

issues investigated was the difference in explicitness of two types of

Pre-test Post-test Delayed

Implicit (n ¼ 19) 0.55 0.26 0.70 0.24 0.68 0.20

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