Corrective Feedback, Individual Differences and Second Language Learning

Book excerpt: This book explores current thinking about the role of corrective feedback in language learning and teaching. Corrective feedback is a topic that is of relevance to both theories of second language learning and language pedagogy. Younghee Sheen, an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at the American University in Washington D.C., offers a new perspective by reviewing a wide body of research on both oral and written corrective feedback and its contribution to second language acquisition. She also reports the results of her own study, pointing to the need to examine how individual factors such as anxiety and language aptitude mediate learners’ ability to benefit from the oral and written feedback they receive. This book is an important resource for students and scholars of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. It will also be of interest to language teachers and teacher educators wanting to deepen their understanding of error correction strategies in the classroom.