THE COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF PEER METALINGUISTIC CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK ON ELEMENTARY AND INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERSʹʹ SPEAKING ABILITY

The present study was an attempt to compare the effect ofpeer metalinguistic corrective feedback on elementary and intermediate EFL learnersʹ speaking ability to find out which level benefits more from this type of feedback. To this end, 117 female EFL learners at Grade 3, Al-zahra High School in Kermanshah, Iran were non-randomly chosen. The homogeneity of the participants was attained through a piloted Preliminary English Test (PET). Then, based on their scores, two groups with different levels of language proficiency (35 elementary and 32 intermediate students) were chosen as the target groups of the study. The participantsʹ performance on the speaking part of the PET test was considered as the pre-test scores. The students were given the routine instructions while peer metalinguistic corrective feedback was practiced in the two classes . After the instructional period that lasted for a semester, the researchers used another PET speaking test as the post-test. The scores of both groups were rated based on the speaking rating scale of PET which was used for the pre-test, too. The analyzed results through an ANCOVA test showed that intermediate learners benefited more significantly from the treatment than the elementary group. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected.