The effect of recast versus repetition on grammar instruction

The significant role of different types of feedback has been the concern of past research. However, as Ellis (2007) believes “what is needed in future research is to determine how linguistic factors may determine when different types of feedback will work for acquisition” (p. 360). Given this, this study is aimed to show how the teacher can use feedback (recast and repetition) in order to arouse the learners’ awareness about grammatical accuracy using some tasks. This research compares recast and repetition results for task-based second language grammar instruction (comparative and superlative adjectives) and uses teacher-led discourse (recast versus repetition). 32 female participants cooperated in this study, and they were divided in two classes. Afterwards, the researcher accomplished four form-focused production activities that elicited the target forms. Teachers every time provided one type of feedback in two feedback groups (i.e., either recasts or repetition) in response to learners’ errors during the activities, and only content feedback was given by the teachers. In order to evaluate the participants’ oral production, pretests and posttests were administered. Comparisons of group means across testing sessions using an independent sample T-test significantly disclosed diverse effects. Moreover, independent sample between-group analyses of the posttest measures revealed major gains by the recast group on all measures. This study recommends that teachers ease L2 learning by indirect attention to the target structure considering the learners’ weak background for a specific structure.