Effects of Different Corrective Feedback Types on Reducing Iranian Test-takers’ Speaking Anxiety: Lower- and Upper-intermediate Levels

The current study explored the effects of different feedback types on reducing Iranian test-takers’ speaking anxiety at the lower- and upper-intermediate levels. For this purpose, ۹۰ male and female learners aged ۲۱ to ۴۵, who were preparing themselves to take the IELTS Mock test, were selected through a convenient sampling method and divided into lower-intermediate and upper-intermediate levels on the basis of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) results. Then, they underwent ten treatment sessions of recast, explicit, metalinguistic, and clarification corrective feedback. To measure the anxiety in speaking performance, Chowdhury’s (۲۰۱۴) questionnaire was given to the participants once before treatment and once after the treatment. Then, the score of each learner was calculated and recorded for the data analysis. The obtained results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference among the feedback types regarding the participants’ speaking anxiety at the lower-intermediate as well as the upper-intermediate level. The implication of this finding is that teachers should constantly implement different types of corrective feedback in their classes to help students with their speaking anxiety problems.  

Keywords:

Feedback , explicit correction , speaking anxiety