Exploring the Effects of Error Feedback Modalities on Iranian Pre-Intermediate English as Foreign Language (EFL) Learners’ Speaking

This study investigates the impact of teacher error feedback and peer inter- and intra-error feedback on the oral proficiency of the Iranian English as the foreign language (EFL) learners. 80 students were non-randomly divided in three experimental and one control groups, i.e., each included 20 participants. They were intra-error feedback (Intra-EF), inter-error feedback (Inter-EF), teacher error feedback (TEF) and the control group (CG). The participants took an oral pre-test as a planned interview, which was designed based on the topics related to the learners English textbooks, Interchange 2 (3rd Edition) , developed by Richards, Hull, and Proctor (2005). The researcher interviewed the participants based on Hughes’ (2003) checklist to arrive at the inter-rater reliability of scoring. These items were practiced in all groups with different modalities. After 13 sessions of treatment, the participants took a post-test of an oral interview based on the textbook topics with the same procedures in the pre-test. One-way ANOVA and Post-hoc Scheffe test were used to analyze data. Results revealed that TEF group performed significantly better than Intra-EF, Inter-EF groups, and CG. Implications of the study suggest that teachers feedback for error correction in a need, especially in EFL context like Iranian high schools.