8)b research on recasts and their implications for FL teaching

Question 0

RECAST RESEARCH: given various functions recasts can serve, learners are likely to have difficulty deciding how to respond to them. ex: since instructors often repeat correct utterances, Ss are not sure whether they are being echoed or corrected.

Answer 0

RECAST IMPLICATION: make recasts less ambiguous/more salient by focusing them on a single linguistic feature and signaling the correction by use of emphatic stress on the targeted form (tone of voice/gesture/facial expression that says “I think I understand what you are saying and I’m telling you how you can say it better”

Question 1

RECAST RESEARCH: learners in content-based (immersion) classes are likely to perceive recasts as a focus on message content rather than language. In these settings, teachers often do not allow time for Ss to uptake their recasts but rather they continue w/topic development.

Answer 1

RECAST IMPLICATIONS: teachers in content-based classes should allow more time for learners to demonstrate uptake of recasts and should integrate focus on form into the curriculum or course.

Question 2

RECAST RESEARCH: learners w/well-developed metalinguistic knowledge (adults who have had form-focused instruction) are more likely to perceive recasts as explicit correction than are learners w/less-developed metalinguistic knowledge (elementary students). Recasts may allow students w/higher proficiency to notice the corrected linguistic forms better than Ss w/lower proficiency, for whom recasts tend to go unnoticed.

Answer 2

RECAST IMPLICATIONS: teachers might reserve the use of recasts for older Ss who have more metalinguistic knowledge and a higher proficiency level

Question 3

RECAST RESEARCH: if the recasts target linguistic features that a learner is developmentally ready to acquire, those recasts may be effective in leading to uptake. If the recasts target features that are beyond the learners’ current stage of development, they are likely to be unsuccessful. In addition, the timing of the recast may contribute to its salience; if it occurs in a teachable moment it will have the best chance of being noticed / processed

Answer 3

RECAST IMPLICATIONS: teachers should take care to provide recasts for linguistic forms that learners have the ability to notice and correct. They should also time the use of recasts so that they occur at teachable moments when the learners is entering a hypothesis-testing mode.

Question 4

Recasts have been found to lead to uptake with repair if they are short (requiring one or two changes), declarative (as opposed to interrogative with rising intonation), focused on pronunciation/vocabulary rather than on grammar, and involve substitution or an item in the language utterance.

Answer 4

RECAST IMPLICATIONS: when using recasts, teachers should remember to keep them short, declarative, focused primarily on pronunciation or vocabulary, and involving substitution of an item in the learner utterance.

Question 5

RECAST RESEARCH: recasts do not work well as feedback that elicits output from learners or that offers metalinguistic information

Answer 5

RECAST IMPLICATION: elicitation and clarification requests may be more effective overall because they elicit pushed output from learners, which provides evidence of uptake. Another option is to provide recasts along with negotiation of meaning.