Learners’ Beliefs as Mediators of What

Is Noticed and Learned in the Language

Classroom
EVA KARTCHAVA AND AHLEM AMMAR
Universit

e de Montr

e al
Montr

e al, Canada

The goal of this study was to determine whether learner beliefs

regarding corrective feedback mediate what is noticed and learned in
the language classroom. The participants were four groups of high-
beginner college-level francophone English as a second language
learners and their teachers. Each teacher was assigned to a treatment
condition that fit his corrective feedback style, and each provided
feedback in response to errors with the past tense and questions in
the past. Participants (N = 197) completed a beliefs questionnaire,
and half (n = 99) took part in the intervention that followed. Beliefs
were probed using a 40-item questionnaire, and average belief scores
were calculated for each learner. These were then correlated both
with the noticing reported on an immediate recall measure and with
the test scores on picture description and spot-the-differences tasks.
The results reveal four common beliefs, two of which mediated the
noticeability of the supplied feedback, but none of which impacted
the learning outcomes.
doi: 10.1002/tesq.101

I ndividual differences (IDs)—such as intelligence, language aptitude,

motivation, risk taking, and beliefs—are thought to influence and
even to predict second language (L2) learning success (Breen, 2001;
D€ornyei, 2005; Fox, 1993; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1992; Horwitz, 1985,
1999; Sawyer & Ranta, 2001). However, little is known about their
effect on the processes of L2 acquisition and, more specifically, about
their impact on the ways learners process language instruction (Sheen,
2011). Corrective feedback (CF) is an integral part of language study
and allows teachers to provide information about the grammaticality
of a learner’s oral and written production. In particular, CF is said to
facilitate learners’ noticing the difference between their incorrect
utterance and the target form, leading to L2 development (Schmidt,
1990, 1995). For feedback to be effective, however, learners need to

86 TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 48, No. 1, March 2014

© 2013 TESOL International Association
recognize its didactic focus (Carroll, 1997) by understanding that the
teacher’s correction is targeting the form, and not the meaning, of an
ill-formed utterance. As such, it makes sense to question whether IDs
influence the noticeability and thus the effectiveness of oral CF.
Studies on the impact of IDs on the effectiveness of oral CF have
considered differences in learners’ age (Mackey & Oliver, 2002); profi-
ciency (Ammar & Spada, 2006; Philp, 2003); and attention, memory,
and language aptitude (Ammar & Sato, 2010; Mackey, Philp, Egi, Fujii,
& Tatsumi, 2002; Trofimovich, Ammar, & Gatbonton, 2007), though
these investigations are scarce (Russell & Spada, 2006). Together, they
suggest that age, proficiency, and a number of cognitive factors affect
learners’ ability to notice and, as a result, profit from oral feedback,
more specifically from recasts, that is, a CF technique that provides
the target form in response to an error. In terms of age, children
between 8 and 12 years old are able to respond to feedback on ques-
tions in dyadic interactions with adults and to benefit from it sooner
(leading to more immediate changes in their restructuring and inter-
language) than their adult counterparts (Mackey & Oliver, 2002). As
for proficiency, high-level learners tend to notice and benefit from
recasts more readily than low-proficiency learners (Ammar & Spada,
2006; Philp, 2003). Finally, it has been demonstrated that learners with
a large working and phonological memory (Mackey et al., 2002) as
well as a broad attention span (Ammar & Sato, 2010) are more likely
to notice recasts than prompts (i.e., CF techniques that cue the prob-
lem in the learner’s utterance and encourage self-correction).
Only two affective variables, anxiety and learner attitudes, have been
investigated in relation to CF effectiveness, but not to its noticeability
(Sheen, 2008, 2011). These two variables, along with analytical ability
(a cognitive factor), were examined in relation to both oral and writ-
ten feedback. The results show that although all three factors medi-
ated the effectiveness of different types of CF, their impact depended
on the mode in which the feedback was delivered and on the specific
CF type. Of the affective factors, anxiety proved to be a variable in oral
feedback, but did not play a role in written feedback. Learner attitudes
towards CF, on the other hand, figured much more in the case of writ-
ten than oral feedback. These attitudes measured the degree to which
the participants were willing to accept feedback and whether they saw
it as helpful and important; their perceptions towards grammatical
accuracy were also investigated. In terms of CF type, learners with
lower anxiety outperformed those with higher anxiety in the case of
oral metalinguistic CF (operationalized as the teacher’s provision of
the correct form following the error, together with a metalinguistic
explanation; Sheen, 2011), but anxiety was not a factor in the effective-
ness of oral recasts (defined as “a teacher’s reformulations of a

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 87

student’s erroneous utterance, without changing the meaning of the
student’s original utterance in the context of a communicative activ-
ity”; Sheen, 2011, p. 62). Similarly, learner attitudes mediated gain
scores for the learners in the oral metalinguistic group, but not for
those in the oral recast group. These findings suggest that affective
variables influence the effectiveness of CF in the classroom, but it is
still not clear whether they impact the noticeability of oral feedback.
With this in mind, the current study was designed to determine
whether the noticeability and benefits of feedback are dependent on
differences in learner beliefs about corrective feedback.
The consideration of learner beliefs in general is important because
they “have been recognized as learner characteristics to count with
when explaining learning outcomes” (D€ ornyei, 2005, p. 214) and have
been empirically shown to be constant among learners and consistent
across different language groups (Horwitz, 1985, 1987, 1988). Investi-
gation into learner beliefs about CF in particular is necessary because,
to date, no published studies have considered learners’ perceptions of
what feedback is, how it is best delivered, and the factors that make it
effective. Although learner beliefs have been claimed to underlie many
aspects of learner behaviour and learning outcomes, no studies have
looked into learner beliefs about CF independently from other lan-
guage-related constructs; rather, they have allotted the concept second-
ary importance (e.g., Loewen et al., 2009; Schulz, 1996, 2001). In fact,
Loewen et al. (2009) show that learners view grammar instruction and
CF as distinct categories and call for future research to consider this
differentiation. Finally, there have been a number of calls for second
language acquisition (SLA) research to consider IDs as mediators of
what CF is noticed and consequently learned from in the classroom
(e.g., Lyster & Saito, 2010; Russell & Spada, 2006). Russell and Spada
(2006) observe that
few studies have investigated the impact of individual learner factors in
relation to CF . . . [and that] until more studies are done to isolate
these variables and investigate them in a series of studies in classrooms
and laboratories, they remain compelling arguments without adequate
supporting evidence. (p. 155)
Research that has considered the noticeability of CF has primarily
focused on recasts, suggesting that the learners’ ability to recognize
their corrective intent is limited by error type (Mackey, Gass, &
McDonough, 2000), length (Philp, 2003) and explicitness of the recast
(Ammar & Sato, 2010); proficiency level (Philp, 2003); working mem-
ory capacity (Mackey et al., 2002); and attention-switching ability
(Ammar & Sato, 2010). Comparisons of noticing between recasts and
prompts are rare; only two studies have broached the subject (Ammar,

88 TESOL QUARTERLY
2008; Mackey et al., 2000). Although an early attempt of this evalua-
tion was inhibited by an unbalanced distribution of the techniques
(Mackey et al., 2000), Ammar’s (2008) systematic comparison of
recasts to prompts reveals that the latter is more noticeable than the
former. Yet it is not clear whether beliefs affect learners’ ability to
notice CF.
The effectiveness of recasts and prompts seems to be context spe-
cific. Although early laboratory studies (e.g., Leeman, 2003; Mackey &
Philp, 1998) found that recasts facilitate L2 grammar learning, investi-
gations that compared recasts to other feedback types either found
recasts more effective (Long, Inagaki, & Ortega, 1998; Mackey & Philp,
1998) or yielded no differences between the CF types (e.g., Lyster &
Izquierdo, 2009; McDonough, 2007). In the classroom-based studies,
however, prompts yielded the most gains (e.g., Ammar & Spada, 2006;
Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006; Lyster, 2004; Yang & Lyster, 2010). The
fact that recent laboratory studies have failed to differentiate the effec-
tiveness of the CF techniques suggests that recasts and prompts differ
in the type of learning opportunities they afford (Lyster & Izquierdo,
2009; Lyster & Saito, 2010). That is, whereas recasts provide correct
reformulations of the ill-formed utterance and invite learners to infer
the corrective intent, prompts overtly signal the presence of an error,
cue its location, and push students to self-correct. Still, there is no
indication of whether learner beliefs about CF impact what is learned
in the classroom.
In light of this, it is necessary to examine learner beliefs regarding
CF and to determine whether differences in learner perceptions medi-
ate their ability to notice and learn from the feedback they receive in
the classroom. If beliefs influence L2 learning, then there could be a
link between beliefs and noticing and between beliefs and learning.
Hence, this study poses the following research question: Do learner
beliefs about CF mediate their noticing and learning of L2 norms?

METHODOLOGY

Participants

Three highly experienced English as a second language (ESL)

teachers and their 197 high-beginner college students (mean age:
20.75 years old), who came from intact classes and spoke French as
their first language, participated in this study. All 197 participants
completed a beliefs questionnaire (see the Learner Beliefs subsection
in the Data Collection Measures section for details), and 99 from six
intact classes took part in the intervention to ensure experimental

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 89

comparability. Table 1 breaks down the number of learners across
groups and teachers. The participants’ prior exposure to ESL instruc-
tion amounted to 120 hours in primary school and 670 hours in high
school. The college English classes they were enrolled in met once a
week for 3 hours, 2 of which were spent in the classroom and 1 in the
language laboratory. The courses were taught by the same teachers for
the entire term.
The teachers, bilingual in English and French, were observed and
interviewed prior to the investigation in order to identify if and how
each provided CF. The three teachers addressed most of the learners’
errors but did so using different methods. Whereas one teacher
(Albert) responded to errors primarily with recasts, another (Brian)
showed a clear preference for prompts. The third teacher (Charles)
consistently alternated between recasts and prompts. Because it was
not possible to find another teacher from the same college who
provided no feedback, the first author taught the control group.

Corrective Feedback Conditions

The CF conditions were operationalized in accordance with the CF

types documented by Lyster and Ranta (1997) and Sheen (2004).
Recasts were operationalized as the teacher’s reformulation of a lear-
ner’s incorrect utterance. The Recast teacher was allowed to react with
a full, partial, interrogative, or integrated reformulation. For example,
in response to a student’s utterance *He go to the movies yesterday, any of
the following approaches could be adopted:
Full reformulation: Okay. He went to the movies yesterday.

Partial reformulation: (He) Went.

Interrogative reformulation: Where did you say he went yesterday?

Integrated reformulation: He went to the movies yesterday. Did he

go alone or with someone?
TABLE 1
Participants Across Groups and Teachers

Group Teacher n
Recast Albert 31
Prompt Brian 25
Mixed (Recasts & Prompts) Charles 23
Control Researcher 1 20

90 TESOL QUARTERLY
 Prompts were defined as techniques that elicited the correct form
from the learner. These techniques included (1) repetition, where
the teacher repeated the student’s incorrect utterance, either as a
whole with rising intonation or partly by zooming in on the error
while withholding the correct form; (2) elicitation, where the teacher
repeated part of the learner’s utterance and paused at the error to
provide a clue as to the problem, as well as to invite the student
to self-repair; and (3) metalinguistic information, where the teacher
provided metalinguistic clues but did not provide the correct form,
thus pushing the learner to self-correct. Hence, the Prompt teacher
could adopt any of the following in response to *He go to the movies
yesterday:
Full repetition: He go to the movies yesterday?

Partial repetition: Go yesterday? Go?

Elicitation: He what [stressed] yesterday?

Metalinguistic information: It happened yesterday. So what should

we say? (How do we form the past in English?)
The Mixed group’s teacher was asked to alternate between recasts
and prompts as equally as possible during the activities. The need for
a combination of techniques stems from Lyster and Ranta’s (1997)
early observation that language teachers regularly use combinations of
feedback types to address learners’ errors. As such, the use of a mixed
group is warranted not only to provide pragmatically justified evidence
for the noticeability and effectiveness of CF types, but to also answer
the call of “moving away from dichotomous comparisons of CF strate-
gies that isolate CF from other relevant instructional variables and
towards an examination of combinations of CF types that more closely
resemble teachers’ practices in classroom setting” (Lyster, Saito, &
Sato, 2013, p. 30).

Linguistic Targets

The past tense and questions in the past were chosen as the lin-
guistic targets for the current study because both (1) are problem-
atic for ESL learners, regardless of first language (L1); (2)
represent different levels of complexity (DeKeyser, 1998, 2005); (3)
are subject to L1 interference (Ammar, Sato, & Kartchava, 2010;
Collins, 2002); (4) occur frequently in the input (Doughty & Varela,

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 91

1998), facilitating their elicitation during communicative tasks
(McDonough, 2007); and (5) have been shown to be good candi-
dates for learner improvement when they are targeted with CF (for
questions, see Mackey, 2006; Mackey & Philp, 1998; McDonough,
2005; for past tense, see Doughty & Varela, 1998; Ellis et al., 2006;
Yang & Lyster, 2010). Research has also shown that the noticing of
CF leads to language development, though this largely depends on
the technique employed and on the nature of the error (Ammar,
2008; Ammar & Sato, 2010; Mackey et al., 2000).

Intervention

The treatment consisted of two 120-minute sessions, during which

the participants (n = 99) engaged in a communicative task designed
to promote the use of both linguistic targets (adapted from Gatbon-
ton, 1994). For each task, the students worked in groups to create
accounts of their whereabouts (activity 1) or those of an accident
victim (activity 2); these were then questioned by the whole class. Cor-
rective feedback was provided during the student-fronted portions of
the activities, which were video-recorded. No instruction on the two
targets was given prior to the intervention.

Data Collection Measures

Learner beliefs. To uncover learner beliefs about CF, a two-part
questionnaire was created. In Part 1, demographic information on the
participants was gathered, including their linguistic background. For
each of the languages spoken, the participants then indicated (1) where
they learned it (i.e., classroom, home, other); (2) the number of years
they had been speaking it; and (3) how well they spoke, wrote, listened,
and read in each using a scale of poor to excellent. Part 2 of the question-
naire consisted of 40 statements about CF, which were based on theoreti-
cal and empirical findings in the CF literature (e.g., Horwitz, 1988, 1999;
Mohamed, 2011; Schulz, 1996, 2001). Specifically, the statements, the
rationale for which is described next, centered on the (1) importance
and (2) expectations for feedback; the (3) mode, (4) timing, and (5)
amount of CF; as well as (6) recasts, (7) prompts, and (8) the manner in
which and (9) by whom the CF should be delivered. On a scale of 1 to 5
(1 = strong disagreement and 5 = strong agreement) the participants indi-
cated the degree to which they agreed with each statement. The ques-
tionnaire was written in French, and the items were randomized prior to
the administration during Week 1 of the term.

92 TESOL QUARTERLY
 Rationale for the questionnaire statements. Researchers (e.g., Long,
1996; Schmidt, 1990, 1995, 2001) and L2 learners (Chenoweth, Day,
Chun, & Luppescu, 1983; Schulz, 1996, 2001) agree that CF is impor-
tant in language learning. In fact, learners across different contexts
expect to have their oral and written errors corrected (Schulz, 1996,
2001; Sheen, 2011) and in large amounts (Chenoweth et al., 1983; Jean
& Simard, 2011). If they are not, their motivation to learn an L2 may
decrease and they may question their teacher’s credibility (Horwitz,
1990; Schulz, 1996, 2001). In terms of timing, although some methodol-
ogists believe that CF interrupts the communicative flow (e.g., Bartram
& Walt, 1991; Harmer, 2007) and recommend that teachers address
errors at the end of a task (e.g., Willis, 1996; Hedge, 2000), learners
value teachers who provide immediate feedback to oral errors (Brown,
2009). It is not clear how much feedback is necessary to affect learning,
but methodologists promote and some learners prefer (Lasagabaster &
Sierra, 2005) selective correction (e.g., Harmer, 2007), suggesting that
only errors that are prevalent and impede the message transmission
should be treated. Regarding learner preferences for specific CF tech-
niques, the research is scarce, with studies showing that lower profi-
ciency learners favor prompts over recasts (Mohamed, 2011; Yoshida,
2008), but that more advanced-proficiency learners prefer recasts to
prompts (Brown, 2009). Similarly, little is known about learners’ prefer-
ences for who should correct—the teacher or the students. Whereas
Hendrickson (1980) argues for learners’ involvement in correcting
their own errors, Hedge (2000) claims that this might not always be pos-
sible due to the learners’ inability or unwillingness to effect correction.

Noticing. Immediate recall (administered during class activities)

and lesson reflection sheets (completed at the end of each session)
were used to measure the noticeability of the supplied feedback. The
immediate recall consisted of the first author lifting a red card follow-
ing some CF instances, prompting each learner to write down (in
English or French) their thoughts about what was happening in the
class. The exact instructions for the task were as follows: “Each time
you see the red card, write what you are thinking in relation to the les-
son.” Examples of the immediate recall corrective episodes are pre-
sented in Table 2, and the breakdown of the number of episodes
across the three groups is shown in Table 3. To ensure a comparable
distribution of errors corrected with recasts and prompts, the total
number of episodes and distractors was increased for the Mixed
group. The distractors were used to divert the participants’ attention
and were limited to disciplinary comments and task instructions.
Whereas the immediate recall protocols were analyzed for the types of
noticing reported and to calculate learner average noticing scores, the

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 93

TABLE 2
Immediate Recall Corrective Episodes

CF type Past tense Questions

Recast “WE WENT TO THE AIRPORT” “DID SHE TALK WITH YOU?”
S1: What did you do when you woke up? T: Where did you meet Britney
Spears?
S2: Ahh, we don’t do anything special. T: Shopping?
T: You did not do anything special? S1: Yeah . . . [laughter] . . . at the
hotel,
it was one star but . . . at the beach . . .
S2: No. T: Really?
S2: And after, we go to the airport. S1: Yeah. She was performing at the
beach.
T: You went to the airport? S2: She talk with you?
S2: No, we go to the airport . . . S1: No.
[looks at the teacher confused] . . . Yes.
T: You went to the airport? T: Did she talk with you?
S2: Yes. S1: No.
Prompt “WE TOOK THE AIRPLANE” “WHAT DID YOU DO?”
T: In the airplane you ate McDo? T: Questions!
[Class laughs.]
S3: We bought the food and after S1: What do you eat at McDonald’s?
that we take airplane.
T: After that we . . . (pauses, then gestures T: What (gestures the need for the
the need for the past tense) . . . “take” in past tense) . . .
the past tense.
S3: Took. S1: What did you eat?
T: Good.

TABLE 3
CF Immediate Recall Instances Across Groups

CF type Past tense Questions Distractors

Recast 13 12 3
Prompt 12 12 3
Mixed: recast 10 8 7
Mixed: prompt 8 7
Total 43 39 13

lesson reflection sheets, adapted from Mackey (2006), were analyzed

qualitatively to provide additional evidence of noticing. To ensure that
the coding was representative, an independent rater analyzed and cate-
gorized part of the data; inter-rater reliability was 93% based on simple
agreement.

Learning. To measure learning outcomes, all groups completed

two tasks (one per target) before and immediately after the

94 TESOL QUARTERLY
intervention. In the spot-the-differences task, used to elicit questions
in the past tense, student pairs received separate accounts of a fic-
tional character’s written biography, which differed in 10 ways. The
students were instructed to ask each other a minimum of 10 questions
to identify the differences. The questions were written down by both
partners, and the conversations were audio-recorded. To elicit past
tense usage, the participants were asked to write a narrative of what
happened in a cartoon strip at a specified point in the past (yesterday,
last week). To ensure linguistic uniformity, the learners had to incor-
porate the supplied context-appropriate verbs (10 per strip) in their
stories at least once. Of the 20 verbs, 4 reoccurred across the tests
(enter, tell, leave, and go), 9 called for the regular past forms (enter,
point, demand, park, deposit, climb, cross, walk, and stop), and 7 called for
the irregular forms (tell, leave, go, put, drive, meet, and come). All the
verbs were telic and depicted accomplishment and achievement verb
categories that require the use of the past tense (Bardovi-Harlig, 1998;
Collins, 2007). Two versions of the tasks were developed to counter
the test-retest effect.

Data analysis. To examine common themes in the participants’

beliefs as a group, the responses on Part 2 of the questionnaire were
subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. The suitability of the data
was confirmed by the Kaiser-Meyer-Oklin value of .82 and the statisti-
cally significant Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity (v2 = 2968.542, p < .001).
Cronbach’s alpha for the 40-item scale was .84, indicating internal
item consistency. To determine to what extent the confirmed factors
distinguished among the learners in all conditions, average scores for
each learner were generated to represent values for the identified
beliefs and to use in subsequent analyses investigating possible
relationships between beliefs and learning and between beliefs and
noticing.
Pearson analyses of the correlation between each learner’s beliefs
score and noticing score were conducted; the same was done for the
beliefs and learning relationship. The noticing scores were calculated
by dividing the total number of times a learner reported noticing by
the total number of recall instances provided, which were then con-
verted into percentages. This analysis was carried out for each target
and feedback condition. The scores were used to determine the differ-
ential noticing of recasts, prompts, and the mixture of the two. Simi-
larly, percentage accuracy scores were computed for each target across
test times. For the past tense, the total number of verbs accurately sup-
plied in the obligatory contexts was divided by the maximum score of
10 and then multiplied by 100. If the same verb was used more than
once, only its initial use was counted to offset overuse. To account for

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 95

the different number of questions produced by each learner, the num-
ber of correctly formed questions was divided by the total number of
questions supplied and then multiplied by 100.

RESULTS

Learner Beliefs
The factor analysis revealed five components, explaining a total of
44.3% of the variance. Interpretation of the components proved diffi-
cult because the output indicated that although the participants saw
CF as important and expected it in the L2 classroom, they appeared
confused as to how, when, and by whom they preferred to be cor-
rected (a detailed description is available from the authors of this arti-
cle). Hence, it was decided to run another analysis on only those
items (n = 26) that dealt with the expectation for and importance of
CF as well as the two CF techniques of interest (recasts and prompts).
The resulting factor analysis (.85 Kaiser-Meyer-Oklin value and statisti-
cally significant Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity value, v2 = 1821.755,
p < .001, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha .855) produced a three-
component solution, explaining a total of 43% of the variance, with
Component 1 contributing 26.72%, Component 2 contributing 9.13%,
and Component 3 contributing 7.15%. Oblimin rotation helped in
interpreting the resulting factors, which were named using the highest
loading items on each component (Pallant, 2007). Because the 16
items that loaded on Factor 1 were concerned with the expectation of
CF (Questions 7, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, and 32) and with
recasts as the technique of choice (Questions 6, 11, 12, 14, 18, and
40), this factor was labelled “Expectation of CF and Recasts as CF
Method.” Among the 6 items that loaded on Factor 2, 5 items (Ques-
tions 3, 15, 33, 34, and 39) represented the belief that the best way to
provide CF is through prompts; 1 item (Question 36), with the lowest
loading score, attributed the importance to recasts. Because the major-
ity of the items with high loadings spoke of prompts as the corrective
technique of choice, this factor was named “Prompts as CF Method.”
Finally, because the 2 items (Questions 2 and 35) that loaded on Fac-
tor 3 pertained to the negative consequences that CF may yield, this
factor was labelled “Negative Consequences of CF.” Table 4 shows the
resulting factor loadings for the 26-item analysis. It is important to
note that 2 items (Questions 8 and 19) did not load onto any of the
three factors.
Calculation of average scores per factor for each learner proved dif-
ficult because both Factor 1 and Factor 2 were composed of diverging

96 TESOL QUARTERLY
TABLE 4
Rotated Factor Loadings for Learner Beliefs About CF (26 Items, N = 197)

Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

I. Expectation of CF and recasts as CF method (26.72% of variance)
6. Provision of the correct form is .512
helpful for the beginner students.
(Fournir la forme correcte est b
e n
e fique
pour les e
tudiants de niveau d
e butant.)
7. The correction of speaking errors .528
is necessary in an English class.
(La correction des erreurs orales est
indispensable en classe d’anglais.)
11. Provision of the correct form is .575 .402
the best technique to correct
vocabulary errors in English.
(Fournir la forme correcte est la
meilleure technique pour corriger les
erreurs de vocabulaire en anglais.)
12. Provision of the correct form is .567
the best technique to correct
grammatical errors in English.
(Fournir la forme correcte est la
meilleure technique pour corriger
les erreurs grammaticales en anglais.)
14. In light of my oral errors in .536
English, I prefer that my teacher
explicitly lets me know that my
utterance is incorrect and that he
or she supplies the correct form.
(Face a mes erreurs orales en anglais,
je pr
e f
e re que mon professeur
m’indique de facßon explicite que mon
e
nonc
e n’est pas acceptable et qu’il me
fournisse la forme correcte.)
16. If my English teacher does not .636
correct my speaking errors, my
determination to learn English
will diminish.
(Si le professeur d’anglais ne corrige
pas mes erreurs orales, ma
d
e termination d’apprendre l’anglais
diminuera.)
17. The English teacher must inform .654
the student of the aspects that he
or she must improve so that the
student acquires them.
(Le professeur d’anglais doit informer
l’
e tudiant des aspects qu’il doit
am
e liorer pour que ce dernier arrive a
les ma^ı triser.)
18. Provision of the correct form is .683
the best technique to correct
pronunciation errors in English.

(Continued)

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 97

Table 4 (Continued)
Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3
Fournir la forme correcte est la meilleure
technique pour corriger les erreurs de
prononciation en anglais.
20. I expect my teacher to correct my .710
vocabulary errors in English.
(Je m’attends a ce que mon professeur
corrige mes erreurs de vocabulaire en
anglais.)
21. If the teacher lets students make .521
errors from the start, it will be
difficult to remedy them later on.
(Si le professeur laisse les e
tudiants
faire des erreurs au d
e part, il sera
difficile de les en d
e barrasser plus tard.)
22. I like it when the teacher corrects .577 .454
me in an English class.
(J’aime que le professeur me corrige en
classe d’anglais.)
23. I expect my teacher to correct my .734
grammatical errors in English.
(Je m’attends a ce que mon professeur
corrige mes erreurs de grammaire en
anglais.)
25. I expect my teacher to correct my .723
pronunciation errors in English.
(Je m’attends a ce que mon professeur
corrige mes erreurs de prononciation
en anglais.)
26. Correction of speaking errors in .546
English reinforces the student’s
oral production.
(La correction des erreurs orales en
anglais est un moyen privil
e gi

e pour
renforcer la production des e
tudiants.)
32. Correction of oral errors in English .402
attracts my attention to the correct
form given by my teacher.
(La correction des erreurs orales en
anglais attire mon attention sur la forme
correcte donn
e e par mon enseignant.)
40. Provision of the correct form is .484
the best technique to correct
speaking errors in English.
(Fournir la forme correcte est la
meilleure technique de correction des
erreurs a l’oral en anglais.)
II. Prompts as CF method (9.13% of variance)
3. Encouraging learners to self-correct .690
is helpful for students at the
beginner level.
(Inciter les e
l
e ves a se corriger par
eux-m^ e mes est b
e n

e fique pour les
e
tudiants de niveau d
e butant.)

(Continued)

98 TESOL QUARTERLY
Table 4 (Continued)
Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3
15. Pushing learners to correct their .699
own errors helps them to acquire
English.
(Pousser les e
tudiants a corriger leurs
propres erreurs les aide a acqu
e rir
l’anglais.)
33. Encouraging learners to self- .640
correct is helpful for students at
the advanced level.
(Inciter les e
le ves a se corriger par
eux-m^ e mes est b
e n

e fique pour les
e
tudiants de niveau avanc
e .)
34. I prefer it when my English .800
teacher encourages me to correct
myself on my own.
(Je pr

e f
e re que mon professeur
d’anglais m’incite a me corriger
moi-m^ e me.)
36. Provision of the correct form is .446
helpful for advanced students.
(Fournir la forme correcte est b
e n
e fique
pour les e
tudiants de niveau avanc
e .)
39. My teacher always provides a .485
comment or linguistic information
to help me correct myself on
my own.
(Mon professeur fournit toujours un
commentaire ou un renseignement
linguistique pour m’aider a me
corriger moi-m^ e me.)
III. Negative consequences of CF (7.15% of variance)
2. The correction of speaking errors .682
in English makes me anxious.
(La correction des erreurs orales en
anglais me rend anxieux.)
35. The correction of speaking errors .539
in an English class leads to a negative
attitude towards the study of English.
(La pratique de la correction des erreurs
orales en classe d’anglais m e ne a une
attitude n
e gative envers l’apprentissage
d’anglais.)

items. Factor 1 contained items that spoke to the importance/expecta-

tion of CF and to recasts as the method of treating errors. Similarly,
although the majority of the items in Factor 2 centered on prompts as
the desired CF technique, one item spoke of recasts. It was decided to
separate the loaded items according to the concept they represented.
Factor 1 was split into two sets of beliefs: (1) importance and expecta-
tion of CF (Questions 7, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, and 32) and (2)
recasts as a CF technique (Questions 6, 11, 12, 14, 18, and 40). Factor

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 99

2 spoke to prompts as a CF technique (Questions 3, 15, 33, 34, and
39). The internal consistency of the new beliefs was assured with a
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, which is considered acceptable above .7
(DeVellis, 2003), though the preferred value is above .8 (Pallant,
2007). The Cronbach’s alpha was .83 for Belief 1 and .79 for Belief 2,
suggesting very good internal consistency and reliability for the scale
with this sample. The reliability coefficient for Belief 3 was deemed sat-
isfactory at .73. In light of this, each learner’s average score for each
belief item was calculated and compiled in terms of group means,
which are presented in Table 5.

Learner Beliefs and Noticing

Correlation analyses were performed to determine (1) whether

there is a relationship between the learners’ beliefs about Belief 1
(Importance of CF), Belief 2 (Recasts), Belief 3 (Prompts), and Belief
4 (Negative Consequences of CF) and their overall noticing scores,
and (2) whether such a relationship exists across the two grammatical
targets.
The relationship between the overall noticing scores and the four
beliefs was investigated using the Pearson correlation coefficient
(Table 6). Preliminary analyses ensured no violation of the assump-
tions of normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity (Pallant, 2007).
There was a weak, positive correlation between overall noticing and

TABLE 5
Group Mean Belief Scores (Maximum Score: 5.0)

Affective
Importance of Recasts (Belief Prompts consequences
CF (Belief 1) 2) (Belief 3) (Belief 4)

Group M SD M SD M SD M SD
Recast 3.90 0.46 4.05 0.56 3.50 0.63 4.25 1.36
Prompt 3.83 0.77 4.06 0.83 3.47 0.92 3.70 1.37
Mixed 4.04 0.84 4.13 0.84 3.43 0.96 3.88 1.51
Control 3.99 0.53 4.23 0.49 3.62 0.74 4.05 1.35
Total 3.93 0.65 4.11 0.68 3.50 0.79 4.00 1.40

TABLE 6
Pearson Correlations Between Noticing and Beliefs (n = 79)

Beliefs 1 2 3 4
Noticing .221* .255* .063 .157

*p < .05 (2-tailed).

100 TESOL QUARTERLY

Belief 1 (Importance of CF), r = .221, n = 79, p < .05. Belief 1 helps to
explain nearly 5% of the variance in the respondents’ noticing scores,
suggesting that the more students believe in the importance of CF,
the more likely they are to notice its corrective intent. There was a
weak, positive relationship between the overall noticing scores and
Belief 2 (Recasts as CF), r = .255, n = 79, p < .05. Belief 2 helps to
explain 6.5% of the variance in the respondents’ noticing scores,
suggesting that the more students believe in the effectiveness of recasts
as a feedback technique, the more likely they are to notice their
corrective intent. No significant correlation was found for Belief 3
(Prompts as CF), r = .063, or Belief 4 (Negative Consequences of CF),
r = .157, suggesting that noticing appears to be independent from
beliefs about prompts and negative consequences of feedback.
No significant correlations between group beliefs and noticing
across the two target types were found (Table 7), implying that, for
these learners, noticeability of feedback delivered in response to errors
in questions and/or the past tense does not seem to be informed by
beliefs about CF.

Learner Beliefs and Learning

Correlation analyses were performed to determine (1) whether

there is an overall relationship between the learners’ beliefs about
Belief 1 (Importance of CF), Belief 2 (Recasts), Belief 3 (Prompts),
and Belief 4 (Negative Consequences of CF) and their posttest scores,
and (2) whether such a relationship exists on a group level.
The relationship between the four beliefs and the test scores was
investigated using the Pearson correlation coefficient, the results of
which are presented in Table 8. No significant correlations were
found, suggesting that improvement from pretest to posttest for these
learners was independent from the four beliefs investigated. Similarly,
no significant correlations were found between the beliefs and the test
outcomes across the groups (Table 9), implying that, for this sample,

TABLE 7
Pearson Correlations Between Group Beliefs and Noticing Across the Two Targets (n = 79)

Past tense Questions

Group Belief 1 2 3 4 Belief 1 2 3 4

Recast .197 .268 .201 .134 .047 .080 .022 .150
Prompt .087 .080 .149 .330 .185 .157 .029 .161
Mixed .051 .053 .064 .100 .111 .203 .199 .056

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 101

TABLE 8
Pearson Correlations Between Test Scores and Beliefs (n = 99)

Beliefs 1 2 3 4
Simple past .060 .052 .083 .135
Questions .003 .002 .083 .080

TABLE 9
Pearson Correlations Between Group Beliefs and Test Scores Across the Two Targets
(n = 79)

Past tense Questions

Group Belief 1 2 3 4 Belief 1 2 3 4

Recast .041 .249 .127 .014 .271 .233 .143 .034
Prompt .087 .080 .149 .330 .185 .157 .029 .161
Mixed .051 .053 .064 .100 .111 .203 .199 .056

improvement on the two morphosyntactic features appears to be inde-

pendent from beliefs.
To summarize, learner beliefs were composed of three underlying
factors: (1) the importance of CF and recasts as the CF technique, (2)
prompts as a CF technique, and (3) negative consequences of CF. Spe-
cifically, the participants believed in the importance of oral CF overall
and expected the teacher to use recasts in response to errors. They
also saw a positive role for self-correction (facilitated by prompts) and
were aware of the negative effects that CF can invoke. The correlation
analyses between the learners’ reports of noticing and their beliefs
about CF revealed a positive relationship between overall noticing and
the belief in the importance of CF as well as noticing and the belief in
recasts as an effective feedback technique. There were, however, no
significant correlations between beliefs and the noticing of either
grammatical target across the three groups. Finally, no significant rela-
tionship was found between beliefs and the test scores across the
groups.

DISCUSSION

The goal of this study was to determine whether learner beliefs

about CF mediate the noticeability and effectiveness of feedback deliv-
ered in the classroom. Beliefs appear to have affected the noticeability
of feedback in general and of recasts in particular, but did not medi-
ate the relationship between beliefs and learning. The beliefs–noticing
relationship found here echoes the general agreement among SLA

102 TESOL QUARTERLY

researchers that learner beliefs may affect how learners view and per-
form language tasks (Horwitz, 1988; Kern, 1995) and that learners
generally favour feedback on errors in the classroom (Cathcart &
Olsen, 1976; Chenoweth et al., 1983; Mohamed, 2011; Schulz, 1996,
2001). The learners’ beliefs about the importance and effectiveness of
feedback in this study seemed to have positively affected their ability
to notice the supplied corrections, paving the way for a more produc-
tive and longer lasting learning experience (Mantle-Bromley, 1995).
However, the lack of a statistically significant relationship between
beliefs and noticing across the two grammatical targets may be seen as
contrary to the previous research (Kern, 1995; Peacock, 1999; Schulz,
1996, 2001) that associated higher concerns for grammatical accuracy
and CF with learners rather than teachers. In those studies, the learn-
ers enjoyed grammar instruction and CF more than their teachers
(Peacock, 1999), who appeared less concerned about the value of
grammar teaching than did their students (Schulz, 1996). In Kern’s
(1995) study, the learners, more than their teachers, were concerned
about the effect of fossilization in the case of no CF and agreed with
the need for grammar rules. So if grammar is important and feedback
is a gateway to accuracy, then why was there no association between
beliefs about CF and the noticing scores for either grammatical fea-
ture? One of the reasons may be because there were no direct ques-
tions regarding the role of grammar instruction in the beliefs
questionnaire, thus preventing an evaluation of learner preference in
this regard. Another reason may be that “students may not be univer-
sally motivated to be accurate, generally, or grammatically accurate,
specifically” (Chavez, 2007, p. 555). Chavez’s (2007) study revealed
that first-, second-, and third-year learners of German, as well as their
teachers, perceived grammatical accuracy as having a stronger empha-
sis than they felt it needed. That is, although they recognized its
importance, the learners appeared to show a strong concern for accu-
racy only because they wanted to receive a good grade or because they
felt that this concern would be in line with their teacher’s expecta-
tions. The teachers, in turn, might have overestimated the course
requirements and the role of grammatical practice in them. In the cur-
rent study, because the participants were surveyed during the first class
of the term, it may be argued that they were not concerned with or
did not have the time necessary to form opinions about the course
requirements, the teacher’s expectations for accuracy, or the evalua-
tion criteria.
The lack of a relationship between beliefs and L2 development is in
line with previous research (Ellis, 2008; Mori, 1999; Tanaka, 2004) in
that the amount of learning students engage in depends, for the most
part, on the actions they take to improve their language knowledge,

EFFECTS OF LEARNER BELIEFS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 103

not on their perceptions of what constitutes language learning. This
speaks to the limitation of the instrument used to measure beliefs in
this study. Specifically, the fact that the topic and phrasing of the Lik-
ert-style questionnaire items were identified by the researcher, and the
participants were simply asked to respond to these “ready-made”
constructs, raises questions about the extent to which “a construct as
intellectually and affectively complex and rich as is one’s personal
belief system . . . [can] be fully captured by people’s responses to a set
of normative statements” (Bernat & Gvozdenko, 2005, p. 7). The use
of such a questionnaire, however, allowed for a large number of
respondents and ensured a statistically reliable instrument that helped
to uncover an emergent picture of learner beliefs regarding feedback.
Another reason why there was no association between beliefs and
test scores might have to do with the length of the intervention and
the fact that no delayed posttest was used. Because the process of lan-
guage learning takes time and effort on the part of the student, it is
unlikely that the learning measured after a 4-hour intervention would
show a relationship with beliefs; more time may be necessary for
beliefs to affect learning outcomes (Ammar & Spada, 2006; Mackey &
Goo, 2007). The comparison of the results on a delayed posttest with
belief scores might have yielded a connection between beliefs and the
test scores. More research is needed in this area to determine to what
extent beliefs can influence learning.
Finally, this result may be rooted in the participants’ dependence on
their teachers. Having been exposed for much of their academic life to
the traditional model of teaching, where the instructor is in charge of
the classroom, the learners may rely on the teacher not only for CF in
response to their errors, but also for information on their learning pro-
gress. The activities used in this study gave the learners opportunities to
create and express content, ask questions, and interact with peers. This
new instructional context, though brief, may have given the participants
a reason to start seeing the teacher more as a facilitator than as an
authority figure in the classroom (Cotterall, 1995)—an idea that could,
in the long run, prompt them to view learning “as a learner-centered
and self-regulated process in which proactive participation and initia-
tives are important” (Amuzie & Winke, 2009, p. 376). This, of course,
will remain a speculation until empirically observed.

CONCLUSION
This study suggests that learners’ positive attitudes towards CF
can positively affect the noticing of CF in the classroom. Specifically,
the more learners believe in the importance of feedback, the more

104 TESOL QUARTERLY

likely they are to notice its corrective intent, especially if the CF is
in the form of a recast. A major concern with this finding, however,
is that although it represents the opinions of all the participants in
the study, it is not clear what the results would have been had the
learners assigned to the control group been given a chance to
receive CF. On the other hand, no relationship was found between
beliefs and test scores, suggesting that the test results were not med-
iated by the learners’ beliefs about CF. Conversely, the lack of such
a connection may be due to the absence of delayed posttests,
because it might be possible that, in order for beliefs to affect test
outcomes, more than 4 hours of instruction is necessary. As such,
future investigations into the relationship between beliefs and the
noticing of CF as well as beliefs and learning need to take into
account the effect of the length of instruction. Still, these findings
point to the influential role that beliefs about CF play in the learn-
ing of an L2 and, as such, are of value to language teachers. Sup-
plementary research is necessary to bring the field closer to
untangling the complex relationship of noticing and learning and
the many factors that may influence the effect that CF has on lan-
guage development.

THE AUTHORS

Eva Kartchava has a PhD in applied linguistics (didactics) from Universit
e de Mon-
tr
eal. This article is based on her doctoral thesis. Her research interests include
the relationship between corrective feedback and L2 learning, noticeability of
feedback, and individual differences. Eva has been appointed as an Assistant Pro-
fessor (Applied Linguistics and Discourse Studies) in the School of Linguistics
and Language Studies at Carleton University, Canada.

Ahlem Ammar is associate professor of didactics at the Universit
e de Montr
eal.

She does research on metalinguistic awareness in L2, corrective feedback, and its
role in promoting second language acquisition.

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