A MIXED METHODS STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF LEARNING STYLES ON LEARNERS' UPTAKE OF CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

Ahmadreza Mohebbi

Abstract


The present unprecedented study was undertaken to explore the effect of different learning styles of EFL learners on their uptake of various corrective feedback types provided by their teachers and probe their achievements longitudinally. This study was comprised of 383 adult male students from a popular English language institute. The instruments used in this study were a 30-item perceptual learning style questionnaire developed by Reid (1995) to tap into the students' learning styles together with semi-structured interviews which were conducted to have more rational and sophisticated insights into the phenomenon. The results showed that auditory learning styles prefer to receive corrective feedback explicitly, while repetition proves to be fruitful for interpersonal styles. Furthermore, intrapersonal learning styles have an inclination to recasts, whereas kinesthetic ones have a preference for clarification requests. Logical/mathematical learning styles show a proclivity toward elicitations. Moreover, verbal learning styles have a high rate of uptake when their errors are repaired via metalinguistic feedback. Finally, visual learning styles learn the corrective feedback best when their mistakes are corrected on board. Given the revealing findings, the paper concludes by offering some pedagogical implications to EFL/ESL teachers and also suggestions for future research on under-researched areas.

 

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corrective feedback, learning style, uptake, grammatical errors, EFL/ESL teachers

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejel.v0i0.2924

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