The Visibility of Oral Corrective Feedback Research in Teacher Education Textbooks

The issue of whether, when, and how to respond to learners’ oral errors is something every teacher has to consider. Early studies of teachers’ feedback practices consisted of observations of how they managed this complex process (e.g., Lyster & Ranta, 1997). Beginning with these descriptions, a large body of research on types of oral corrective feedback (OCF) and their relative impact on L2 learning has emerged over the past few decades. OCF is thus an ideal topic for examining the degree to which second language acquisition (SLA) research-based discourse has influenced pedagogical discourse (Ellis & Shintani, 2014). This study examined how the topic of OCF is represented in 30 textbooks used in language teacher education courses. The amount of text dealing with OCF and the number of cited SLA references were quantified, and the textbooks’ advice was analyzed and compared to the findings from research. The results revealed variability across the textbooks in the degree to which OCF is treated, what is said about it, and the extent to which research is cited. Some textbook authors clearly have chosen not to highlight the contribution of research for language teaching, thus potentially limiting novice teachers’ exposure to researchers’ insights about error correction.