Teachers’ Perceptions on Corrective Feedback in Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) Contexts in Bangladesh*
Md. Asif Kamal 1 , Prodhan Mahbub Ibna Seraj 1  & Fatema Begum 2 
American International University-Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Daffodil International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Contact:  asifkamal@aiub.edu, mahbub.seraj@aiub.edu, fatema@daffodilvarsity.edu.bd
* This is a refereed article.
Received: 17 May, 2022.
Accepted: 9 November, 2022.
Published: 8 February, 2024.
Correspondent: Prodhan Mahbub Ibna Seraj
DOI: 10.61871/mj.v48n1-8This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Abstract: The use of Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approaches in English as Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms has recently gained special attention. In the context of Bangladesh, English for Academic Purposes, a contextualized TBLT module prepared jointly by British Council and University Grant Commission Bangladesh, was piloted in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in private universities in Bangladesh. This study explores TBLT and CLIL teachers' perceptions regarding feedback and how the success of TBLT and CLIL relates to providing feedback to the students of a large English class at the tertiary level. A mixed-method research design was adopted, including a questionnaire(n=50) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) (n=10) as research instruments among the English teachers at different universities. The results indicated that the classroom teachers as research participants were positive about providing corrective feedback to learners’ tasks in TBLT and CLIL classes. The participating teachers suggest some feasible and plausible ways and strategies to provide effective feedback to the students of a large English class.

Keywords: corrective feedback, TBLT, CLIL, ESP, recast and metalinguistic feedback


Resumen: Recientemente, el uso de enfoques de enseñanza de idiomas basada en tareas (TBLT) y aprendizaje integrado de contenidos e idiomas (CLIL) en las aulas de inglés como lengua extranjera (EFL) ha ganado especial atención. En el contexto de Bangladesh, se puso a prueba Inglés para Fines Académicos, un módulo TBLT contextualizado preparado conjuntamente por el British Council y la University Grant Commission Bangladesh, en cursos de Inglés para Fines Específicos (ESP) en universidades privadas de Bangladesh. Este estudio explora las percepciones de los profesores de TBLT y CLIL con respecto a la retroalimentación y cómo el éxito de TBLT y CLIL se relaciona con brindar retroalimentación a los estudiantes de una clase numerosa de inglés en el nivel terciario. Se adoptó un diseño de investigación de métodos mixtos, que incluye un cuestionario (n=50) y discusiones en grupos focales (FGD) (n=10) como instrumentos de investigación entre profesores de inglés de diferentes universidades. Los resultados indicaron que los profesores de aula, como participantes de la investigación, se mostraron positivos a la hora de proporcionar retroalimentación correctiva a las tareas de los alumnos en las clases TBLT y CLIL. Los profesores participantes sugieren algunas formas y estrategias factibles y plausibles para proporcionar retroalimentación efectiva a los estudiantes de una clase de inglés numerosa.

Palabras Clave: retroalimentación correctiva, TBLT, CLIL, ESP, refundición y retroalimentación metalingüística


Introduction

Feedback refers to the “information given to learners which they can use to revise their inter-language” (Ellis, 1994, p. 702). Thus, feedback automatically entails reflection on the errors or mistakes and subsequent revision for better and more accurate expression for communication (Sáez & Segovia, 2013). English language teaching (ELT) practitioners and educators propose some methods or approaches of providing feedback, e.g., positive feedback, corrective feedback and non-corrective feedback over time. (Hussein & Ali, 2014; Karim & Ivy, 2011; Klimova, 2015). Corrective feedback refers to the implicit provision of target language forms (i.e., recast), techniques for self- correction (i.e., clarification request, metalinguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition), and explicit error correction techniques (Li et al., 2019).

However, identifying the error separately and providing corrective feedback may support the success of Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and so, feedback seems to be crucial in making TBLT and CLIL successful in English as Second Language (ESL) learning contexts. On this note, what are the position, experience, and attitude of Bangladeshi English language teachers towards the concept of providing corrective feedback to learners’ tasks or activities? Furthermore, what are the effective feedback techniques for Bangladesh's undergraduate English classroom contexts? This study seeks to extract answers to these research questions. However, before moving to the issue of choosing effective corrective feedback to TBLT and CLIL tasks, a description of the situation of the practice of these concepts in Bangladesh requires attention. TBLT and CLIL approaches in ESL classrooms have recently gained special attention in Bangladesh. Recently, a contextualized TBLT module titled English for Academic Purposes prepared jointly by British Council and University Grant Commission Bangladesh (UGC) was piloted in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in a private university in Bangladesh. A CLIL approach, an advanced task-based approach, has also been used in other English classes by the same teachers who are the research participants. During the use of these TBLT and CLIL materials, some emerging issues regarding the success of these materials are explored. After completing language learning tasks or activities in English language classrooms, providing corrective feedback to the users of TBLT and CLIL materials emerges as a key concern since along with other factors such as students, technology, culture, etc., providing (effective) feedback too seems to depend on the teachers’ conception and perspectives towards it.

Therefore, the objective of this research article is to identify Bangladeshi ESL teachers’ perspectives on corrective feedback to TBLT and CLIL classes, discover if providing corrective feedback in large classes in private universities of Bangladesh could be one of the most significant issues for the success of these approaches, and find the dominant corrective feedback techniques found effective by the teachers in the context of Bangladeshi ESL classrooms. At the same time, this paper also aims at eliciting some suggestions from teachers regarding how to provide corrective feedback successfully to a large number of students in classrooms with multimedia projector and computers with internet connectivity.

The study addressed three research questions as below:

  1. What are the teachers’ perspectives and beliefs about providing corrective feedback, frequency of providing feedback, and class time allocation for the feedback in TBLT and CLIL classes? (RQ# 1)
  2. What are the dominant corrective feedback practices found to be effective by the teachers in the context of Bangladeshi to TBLT and CLIL classes? (RQ# 2)
  3. What are the teachers’ suggestions and preference for providing different corrective feedback successfully to a large number of students in a Bangladeshi classroom with full facilities of multimedia projector and computers with internet connectivity? (RQ# 3)

Literature Review

Both Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) are based on performing simulated tasks in pair- or group-work by exploiting the L2 in a genuine context (Dalton-Puffer, 2007). As “during interaction (in task-based language class), learners receive feedback on their language production, potentially helping to draw attention to linguistic problems and leading them to notice the gaps between the features of their interlanguage and the target language” (Sáez & Segovia, 2013, p. 22). In both TBLT and CLIL approaches corrective feedback is considered an inseparable part of this process of language teaching and learning (De Graaff et al., 2007). With this view, Indonesian teachers said that TBLT encourages natural learning, fosters student motivation from within, and supports language skill development that might help students acquire communicative competence more rapidly (Maulana, 2021; Prianty et al., 2021). In the Chinese context, the ELT teachers had favorable opinions about the use of TBLT and reported utilizing it frequently (Liu et al., 2021). However, in order to implement TBLT in Vietnam, ELT teachers had to deal with a number of external factors, including time constraints, testing, students' motivation and English proficiency, textbooks, as well as internal factors, including teachers' experience, knowledge of TBLT, English proficiency, and technological prowess. (Le, 2014).

The scholars identified and examined discrete point presentation and feedback on error as two common characteristics of all second language teaching methods (Krashen & Seliger, 1975) Therefore, identifying the errors separately and providing feedback to each of them appears to be some significant moves in making Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) or Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) successful in English as Second Language (ESL) learning. There are many successful tested ways or types of corrective feedback which has a close relationship with second language learning in face-to-face interaction (Hussein & Ali, 2014; Ammar & Spada 2006; Carroll, 2001; Ellis et al., 2006; Karim & Ivy, 2011; Klimova, 2015; Loewen & Nabei, 2007; Lyster, 2004; McDonough, 2005). Hence, the following different feedback techniques, such as (1) explicit correction, (2) recast, (3) metalinguistic clues, (4) elicitation, (5) repetition (Tedick & Gortari, 1998), provided by ELT scholars to apply in TBLT and CLIL classes may be of important concern to this research in context. These five different techniques that function on different dimensions are presented in Table 1:

Table 1: Different types of feedback and their description

Sometimes, the teacher provides the correct form by specifically indicating the errors (explicit correction). On the other hand, the teacher may implicitly reformulate the learner's error without directly specifying the errors (recast). Moreover, the teacher may ask questions or comment based on the learner's erroneous utterances (metalinguistic clues). The teacher can also directly provoke learners to produce the correct form by asking WH questions that require descriptive answers (elicitation or repeat the learner's error by emphasizing the error to draw the learner's attention (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). There is debate about the type of corrective feedback which is deemed the most effective (Ammar & Spada, 2006; Vásquez & Harvey, 2010). There is also a suggestion that different cognitive mechanisms need to be activated to correct the errors (Egi, 2010). Much has been discussed and researched on the necessity and nature of effective feedback worldwide. However, little is known about the experience, attitude, and perception of undergraduate language teachers using TBLT and CLIL approaches in private university contexts of Bangladesh.

Issues about providing corrective feedback for the language learning tasks of foreign language learners seem to be one of the most important challenges in implementing TBLT and CLIL in a large class of EFL courses in tertiary level of education in Bangladesh (Kamal & Haque, 2015). Harmer (2000) asserted that “big classes can be quite intimidating for inexperienced teachers” (p. 177), and as a result, "providing positive feedback also fails due to a huge number of pupils" (Ara & Hossain, 2016, p. 294). Thus, even with all the success stories of TBLT and CLIL around the world, teachers in Bangladesh reported that the learners' language skills in some classes in a private university in Bangladesh appeared not to improve significantly even after completion of two/three consecutive English language courses of more than 72 contact hours in total. Though TBLT and CLIL have been endorsed as successful language learning approaches in English as a foreign language learning context in Bangladesh, competing with the TBLT or CLIL tasks and providing corrective feedback to them emerged as an important challenge. Moreover, "monitoring whether all the students are doing activities in the right manner requires much movement and vigilance from the teacher. Monitoring a class of 40 becomes quite challenging. Sometimes, insufficient space for the teacher's and the students' movements in the classroom add extra challenge in implementing TBLT in the Bangladeshi classroom environment" (Kamal & Haque, 2015, p. 95). On the other hand, “teachers find it challenging to organize activities … (and) difficult to pay attention to individual students, especially who sit at the back” (Ara & Hossain, 2016).

Moreover, large classes have issues of inefficient learning (Almulla, 2015). Besides these issues, anxiety is common in a large class and individual ' differences in competence are ignored. There is also a lack of practice in the target language due to a large number of students (Yu, 2004). Therefore, it is important to carry out a thorough investigation of Bangladeshi English language teachers' attitudes toward providing corrective feedback to the students’ tasks in large TBLT and CLIL classes.

Moreover, according to Rukanuddin et al. (2021), the unusual workload of teachers, absence of institutional guidelines, inadequate preparation of teachers in feedback-related pedagogy, and negligence of teachers' responsibilities were the major factors in implementing feedback in educational institutions in Bangladeshi context. Thus, this study investigates English teachers’ perceptions on providing feedback to the students in TBLT and CLIL English classes at the tertiary level.

Methodology

Research design

For this investigation a concurrent mixed-method design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018) was employed. A survey questionnaire and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were utilized. The survey questionnaire was distributed using Google Forms to teachers (N=65) who taught an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses entitled English Writing Skills and Communication and English Reading Skills and Public Speaking using TBLT and CLIL approaches. The teachers used in class the EAP materials (Appendix 1) prepared under the patronage of University Grant Commission (UGC) Bangladesh and British Council, Bangladesh, and some other CLIL materials (Appendix 2) prepared by the teachers themselves.

Participants

The population for this study was the English language teachers teaching compulsory English language courses in different undergraduate programs (BA, BBA, BSS, BSc. etc.) at two leading private universities in metropolitan Dhaka, Bangladesh. Of 65 English teachers of these two universities, 50 teachers participated voluntarily in this study (n=50) through responding to the questionnaire. Of the 50 teachers, ten who showed interest voluntarily, participated in the FGD from one university. The researchers used purposive sampling technique in this study to elicit the perceptions of the teachers who were using TBLT and CLIL in their classrooms. As the purposive sampling is a kind of judgmental, selective, or subjective sampling, it is used to get an in-depth understanding of the data for this study (Subramaniam et al., 2020). The demographic information is presented in Table 2:

Table 2: Demographic Information of the participants

Of 50 participants, there were slightly more females (52%) than males (48%). The largest number of participants were assistant professors (65%) and had 6-10 years’ experience (43%).

Development of the instruments

The instruments used in this study were a survey questionnaire and FGD to elicit teachers’ perceptions on corrective feedback in Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) contexts. The survey questionnaire was adapted from Raza (2019), Black and Nanni (2016). From these studies, some items were not fit for this study and were not included while others were modified. The survey questionnaire was divided into five categories: (1) teachers' frequency in providing feedback, (2) teacher’s beliefs about providing corrective feedback, (3) teachers’ method of providing feedback, (d) class time allocated for corrective feedback, and (5) teachers' preference of different corrective feedback types. For the items about teacher’s beliefs about providing corrective feedback (2), and their preference about different corrective feedback types, the researchers used a Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree (1 to 5). Appendix 3 and 4 present details about the data collection instruments.

To check the validity of the questionnaire items, a language expert checked the contents and a participant the comprehensibility level. After getting the feedback, the researchers finalized the questionnaire items. A reliability scale test was conducted with SPSS version 25. The Cronbach's alpha value of teachers' perception was 0.621. According to Hair et al. (2010), the acceptable level of the value of Cronbach's alpha is between .60 to .70. Thus, the adapted items were reliable and valid for collecting data. On the basis of the survey questionnaires, the researchers prepared the interview questions for FGD (Appendix 4). The questions were developed to strengthen the quantitative findings.

Data collection procedure

The participants were provided with a consent form before participating into this study. They agreed to participate voluntarily, and the researchers were committed to keep the privacy of their identity. The Google form was created to collect data from respondents. Then through FGD, further clarification was sought to understand the participants’ opinions. There were two FGD groups with five members each. Each group was scheduled for two different FGD sessions which were tape-recorded, and later prepared for data analysis.

Data Analysis Procedure

A descriptive analysis was utilized for the quantitative data, identifying teachers’ perceptions on factors related to the issues concerning learners and the instructors, and presenting them through tables and figures. The thematic analysis was conducted for the data of FGD using NVIVO-12 version for coding, sub coding, and categorizing for building themes to incorporate with the responses of the questionnaire (Ibna Seraj et al., 2021).

Findings

Survey findings

The classroom teachers as research participants were much more positive about providing corrective feedback to learners’ tasks in TBLT and CLIL classes as it is found that 43% of the respondents always give corrective feedback to learners’ tasks while 39% did this most of the times (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Teachers' frequency in providing feedback to the students’ tasks in a TBLT class

The questionnaire predictably discovered that 100% of the participants agreed or strongly agreed that providing feedback to the tasks done by the students in TBLT is as important as the lesson itself (Table 3).

Table 3: Teachers’ belief about providing corrective feedback to students’ tasks

The majority of the respondents (39%) agreed and 33% of them remained neutral to the statement that "Providing feedback to the students’ tasks by going close to the group/ individual student deprives other students in the class from the feedback for that task” (Table 3). The participants of this study seem to perceive “going close to the group/individual student” as giving too much feedback. Hence, they think that excessive feedback may affect the class time and also deprive many students for getting feedback. Thus, this claim supports the idea that the use of corrective feedback should be limited, contextual, judicious and appropriate because excessive corrective feedback can lead to the learners’ irritation (Naami & Zadeh, 2016).

Some practical ways of providing feedback were also discovered from the survey among the teachers using TBLT for language teaching. The majority of the respondents (66%) agreed or strongly agreed that “Displaying answers as feedback on multimedia or writing on a whiteboard is more effective than verbally telling the answer” (Table 3). The respondents were almost equally divided on the idea that "feedback should be provided individually for pre-, during-, and post-task works" as 35% agreed, 30% disagreed, and 35 % remained neutral. The survey also found that around 83% of respondents believe that "only providing feedback is not enough unless students are made to revise the task according to the feedback” (Table 3).

Around 44% of the respondents disagreed that the success of TBLT (i.e., the improvement of learners' English skills) depends only on providing feedback (Table 3). Therefore, along with corrective feedback, some other factors may also have been involved in the success of TBLT.

Sometimes, it is observed that in the TBLT and CLIL approaches students are made to do both individual and group tasks in class, but are not always provided with corrective feedback on the completed tasks of each individual student. Based on this information, the research participants were asked whether they individually believed that "even if the feedback is not provided, students can automatically improve themselves by just doing a lot of tasks/activities in TBLT classes”. Forty four percent of the respondents did not agree with this statement, and 50% were neutral. Only 6% of the respondents agreed (Table 3). They even agreed that “without providing feedback, only activity completion in class is useless” (Table 3).

In response to the preference of providing corrective feedback, most of the teachers (67%) preferred to spend 20-30% of total class time, while 40-50% of total class time was the least popular reported by 11% of the participants. Figure 2 shows that most of the teachers reported they spent the least time for providing corrective feedback in large TBLT and CLILL classes.

Figure 2: Class time allocation for corrective feedback

Most of the teachers were in the practice of providing feedback in three different ways: a) in class immediately after task completions, b) later after the task was completed to be checked later and returned during the next class, and c) checked later with feedback given during the counseling hour (Table 4).

Table 4: Teachers’ practice of providing feedback

Instant feedback after completion of tasks was at the top by 46%, whereas checking during the counseling hour was the least by 24%.

Through this survey, several options also surfaced for providing feedback to large classes of 40 students. The majority of the respondents used the following options of effective feedback in a large class (see Appendix 3):

  1. Provide feedback to students in groups.
  2. Provide common feedback on the whiteboard/ projector.
  3. Provide corrective feedback to the tasks done by individual students.
  4. Ask students to share their answers and identify the best one in the class using it as sample of corrective feedback.
  5. Exchange answers with each other following peer evaluation techniques.

As suggested in the survey (Figures 3 & 4), a combination of several feedback options for providing corrective feedback were more effective than just following any single one.

Hence, there was a bit of contradiction between their belief and practice on providing corrective feedback to students’ tasks. This situation has rightfully endorsed Truscott’s (2007) argument about the theoretical problems of providing corrective feedback and the teachers’ capability to do so. After further investigation it was revealed that though some teachers made students do tasks, they could not provide feedback to the tasks because of a shortage of class time. The teachers even could not complete all the topics from the syllabus of the course, let alone giving feedback.

Apart from providing feedback, the respondents of the survey believed that some other variables are also important for the success of TBLT and CLIL. Three other variables were included in the survey:

  1. Teachers’ capability in explaining and subsequently dealing with the task-based items interestingly.
  2. Students’ basic proficiency in other related issues, such as sentence construction skill, grammar, vocabulary, control over meaning, etc.
  3. The cultural relevance of the items/texts used in the TBLT syllabus.

Among these three other variables mentioned above, the 66.66% of the respondents believed that the teachers’ capability in explaining and subsequently dealing with the task-based items is important to the success of TBLT and CLIL, whereas the 16.66% of them believed that students' basic proficiency in sentence construction skills, grammar, vocabulary, control over meaning, etc. developed during secondary level of education is important aspect for the success of TBLT and CLIL in undergraduate classes, and the rest 16.66% gave importance on the cultural relevance of the items/texts used in the TBLT syllabus.

However, in terms of teachers' (respondents') preference of the type of feedback, the choices were almost similar. The 23% of them preferred ‘Recast’ and 23% ‘Metalinguistic’ feedback. The other types of feedback such as, explicit correction, elicitation and repetition were preferred by them consecutively at the rate of 19%, 18% and 17% each (Figures 3 and 4).

Figure 3: Teachers' preference on different corrective feedback types

In the following Figure 4 teachers’ preference (only agree and strongly agree options) on using five different corrective feedback types are shown in a pie chart to demonstrate the percentage and draw a comparison among these types of corrective feedback.

Figure 4: Comparision of positive responses of teachers' preferences

Figure 4 reveals that among the teachers, there is an almost equal percentage of preference between Recast and Metalinguistic feedback, which is 23% for each (figure 4). Explicit correction ranked second (19%), where Elicitation (18%) and Repetition (17%) secured the third and fourth positions, respectively

Focus Group Findings

The FGD results were similar to the survey data presented above. Almost all the participants were positive about the corrective feedback in TBLT, and CLIL classes. As one of the participants commented, "students expect that teacher will give feedback; otherwise, they will lose motivation" (Participant# 4). The only obstacle they were concerned about was large classes and limited time allocation for each student-teacher interaction session during the implementation of TBLT and CLIL lessons in class. One of the participants' said:

The class size is shorter in terms of language teaching, the better. It (40 students in the class) is still manageable… But, when individual tasks are given, checking and giving feedback individually, that sort of thing becomes difficult. … In that case, I form groups. For example, recently I gave students task of writing cover letters and checking and giving feedback was difficult…I asked five or six students sit together and checked one or two tasks in front of all of them … I could not check all of their tasks…I showed it to others to see what errors they normally make... multimedia can also be helpful in providing feedback. (Participant #1)

They unanimously agreed that since in TBLT and CLIL classes students are supposed to perform language learning tasks, feedback to the completed task is vital; and for providing corrective feedback to the completed tasks of each individual student, more class time is required:

In the context of the Bangladeshi classroom, every teacher has to supervise 200 students; it is a huge task. Also, we have continuous quizzes and two major exams. With this workload, is it possible for a teacher to provide timely feedback to all the written work … We are supposed to give timely feedback to writing tasks. Sometimes it is difficult to give timely feedback…what I have to do is sampling…I have to pick up ten assignments, discuss types of mistakes they make as samples, and show them in the PowerPoint slides… and I give guidance to correct this way… It is possible to provide feedback to small tasks in class, but other big tasks are not manageable. (Participant #2)

This teacher could not provide the corrective feedback to every student’s task though he believed providing corrective feedback was very necessary. Because of the shortage of class time and a large number of students in class, the teacher had to use sampling the tasks to provide feedback. Teachers also raised their concerns regarding the class size and course load. They expressed that providing individual corrective feedback was compulsory to proper learning:

It would be better if I could give feedback to every student…Ideal class size should be 25 students in a language class and only two courses of load for a teacher…This is a management issue…It depends on how much quality do we want to ensure. (Participant #2)

With the given infrastructure, class time, and class size, teachers had to manipulate different techniques and provide feedback in groups instead of individual feedback. This signals a compromise and adjustment from the part of the teacher as another teacher commented:

We divide the class into smaller groups of students…usually I ask students to do activities in groups…they do task and I ask students to answer [in] group, and first, I take feedback from the students, then I provide feedback in group…Technically, I am not providing feedback to individual students' tasks…sometimes language barrier is an issue; some students do not understand, and some understand.. so heterogeneity is an issue…Sometime I write down the answer on a whiteboard or ask certain students to come forward and write answer, but it is time consuming…class duration is a challenge…Showing prepared answers on screen is not much effective as students don’t find it engaging. (Participant #3)

Sometimes teachers even choose students with “poorer language skills” (Participant# 6) to provide feedback because they deserve more attention than those who have better language skills. This teacher also failed to provide feedback to individual student’s tasks; and another participant has to be faster in class while providing feedbacks:

I have to be very quick to give feedback…I give oral and written feedback…but during the class giving feedback is not possible…I give feedback during counseling hour…during the class I don't give long feedback…I roughly give the feedback by opening the task…I can guess what the mistakes they have made are…Individual feedback is highly important otherwise, it will be superficial teaching…Teachers should have less burden of course…Course load should be reduced to three at least with 25 students in each class. (Participant #4)

Sometimes counseling time outside of the classroom was used to check students’ tasks to provide corrective feedback. In task-based language lessons, tasks are organized, maintaining task sequence, into pre-task, during-task and post-task activities; after completing a task and providing feedback, the learners proceed to the subsequent task completion.

Most of the FGD participants revealed that though they considered providing corrective feedback as inseparable from TBLT and CLIL approaches, they could not provide it to each student individually. They provided common feedback in groups of learners and felt the burden of excess workload which led them to suggest a reduction in the workload to three courses a semester. as well as a reduction of the class size to 25 students. These issues emerged as common themes of the findings.

Also, the survey and FGD revealed a few more relevant aspects which the participants considered to be equally important variables for the success of TBLT and CLIL. The participants’ observation and opinion about the other variables complementing corrective feedback for the success of TBLT and CLIL included:

 Leaners’ skills, attention, and motivation

  • Students’ active participation in activities and motivation
  • Students' proficiency level
  • Students’ giving instant response to the feedback during the class
  • Students' demography and interest which can help them be attentive to the lessons and feedbacks

 Instructors’ skills and performance

  • Proper task grading and task management through logical tasks to justify goals and objectives
  • Efficient ways of giving instructions
  • Careful selection of task by analysing the students' demography and interest
  • Proper time management
  • Adequate discussion and presentation of common errors
  • Appropriate design of tasks, arrangement of group members in a group, sufficient instructions before offering tasks, etc.

Peers and beyond classroom factors

  • Revision of tasks as homework according to the feedback
  • Group discussion which is not directly connected to the corrective feedback
  • Home activities and class activities which can give time to reflect on the task and correct if necessary
  • Students’ documentation or archiving the tasks with feedback in a portfolio
  • Student’s tendency to forget and the lack of progress for not documenting the tasks and feedback
  • Real life language learning with practical use which may not require corrective feedback

Discussion

Teachers’ perspectives and beliefs on corrective feedback (RQ # 1)

The majority of the teachers practiced and believed that providing corrective feedback to the tasks done by the students was as important as the lesson itself (Table 1). Hence providing feedback appears to be a constituent part of the TBLT or CLIL class lessons in second or foreign language learning contexts. Instead of providing the full answers to the task, scaffolding, and then providing the partial answer to then elicit the complete answer was an important corrective feedback strategy to make TBLT and CLIL successful. Teachers’ experiences implied that students could not automatically improve their English skills by only doing tasks or activities in TBLT and CLIL classes. There was also a very close relationship between providing corrective feedback and second language learning in face-to-face interaction (Ali, 2014; Ammar & Spada 2006; Carroll, 2001; Ellis, Loewen & Erlam, 2006; Karim & Ivy, 2011; Klimova, 2015). According to the teachers’ perception, it appears that activity completion in class was useless (Table 3) since it did not help improve language skills for three reasons: corrective feedback was an inseparable part of language teaching and learning (De Graaff et al., 2007); providing corrective feedback could improve L2 learners’ performance (Ferris, 2003, and providing feedback was not enough unless students were made to revise the task according to the feedback (Table 3).

Dominant corrective feedback practice (RQ# 2)

Now the question regarding how to provide feedback. Although it was not always possible to provide feedback instantly due to insufficient class time and large class size (Ara & Hossain, 2016), teachers believed that feedback should be provided individually for pre-, during-, and post-task works. In this case, displaying answers as feedback on multimedia or writing on a whiteboard or written feedback was considered more effective than verbally answering (Table 3). Instead of providing the full answers to the task, scaffolding and then providing the partial answer to elicit the complete answer can be a useful strategy to make learners internalize the correct utterances. Scaffolding helps improve answers as Amirghassemi et al. (2013) determined in their research showing that the scaffolded corrective feedback group of their research participants was significantly more successful l at least in certain linguistic categories such as in using the past tenses.

Three important patterns of providing feedback to the written tasks were identified as common practice; they are (1) providing feedback instantly inside a class, (2) taking the completed task away, checking it later, and returning it at the next class and (3) checking later and providing the feedback during a counseling hour. These findings are aligned with the study of Tedick and Gortari (1998). Of these three practices, the first one relates more to the feedback strategies for task-based language teaching. However, the current study also reported some feedback types that were supported by the previous studies, namely (a) providing group feedback, that is, one feedback for each group activity; (b) providing common feedback on the whiteboard; (c) providing feedback to each individual student; (d) choosing the best students to share their answers to others; (e) using the best student's answers as feedback; (f) exchanging answers among students to evaluate each other (Ammar & Spada 2006; Carroll, 2001; Ellis et al., 2006; Loewen & Nabei, 2007; Lyster, 2004; McDonough, 2005).

Teachers’ suggestions and preference for providing different corrective feedback (RQ# 3)

Since the respondents were teaching TBLT and CLIL in a large class of 40-45 students, they preferred providing feedback more to group tasks or feedback provided on a whiteboard. Randolph (2007) wrote about the effectiveness of using mini whiteboard for providing effective feedback. Respondents believed that in a TBLT and CLIL class, apart from providing feedback, teachers' abilities in explaining and dealing with the task-based items (Van den Branden, , 2016) were important. Some of these included students' basic proficiency in other related issues, such as sentence construction skills, grammar, vocabulary, control over meaning, etc., as well as the authenticity and contextuality of the texts (Mishan, 2004) used in TBLT syllabus (Table 3). Also, to make language learning effective and available to all, the class needed to be strictly controlled so that the stronger students would not monopolize the class while responding, and the weaker students could get an opportunity to participate in class activities (Rodriguez, 2009).

However, most of the teachers preferred either recast or metalinguistic clues as effective feedback techniques (Figure 3). The respondents also used explicit correction, elicitation, and repetition but recast and metalinguistic feedback are found to be the most popular choices among teachers (Lyster & Ranta, 1997). Also, many other options emerged through this research; only the most suitable option or a combination of two or three options were to be chosen to provide feedback in a large class since single option for corrective feedback seem not to be usually successful in a large class. So, the teachers tended to prefer the combination of multiple feedbacks that they consider the most effective way to make TBLT and CLIL tasks successful in improving learners' L2 skills.

And it was also observed that without providing feedback, L2 learners could not significantly improve their English skills and kept on making the same mistakes which is one of "the major impediments to quality teaching in the large classes of Bangladesh" (Ara & Hossain, 2016, p. 295). It can also be substantiated from the findings of this research that around 44% of the respondents of this study disagreed, and only 6% respondents agreed to the statement that without corrective feedback, students can automatically improve their language skills. The remaining 50% were not sure if the feedback is not provided, students can automatically improve themselves by just doing a lot of tasks/activities in TBLT classes (Table 3). If we ignore the portion of respondents who remained neutral (50%), from the rest of the respondents, it can be deduced that a greater number of respondents disagreed to the statement.

Time management and suggestion on providing corrective feedback in large class (RQ# 3)

To properly manage time for completing tasks and providing feedback to students’ tasks in a large class, teachers can divide long tasks into chunks and distribute each part among groups of students and provide feedback by taking their answers by turn. Providing feedback to students in a group is an effective technique practiced in Bangladeshi classrooms. Some reflective tasks are given as homework and portfolio tasks, which learners submit to the instructors and the instructors provide corrective feedback later. Portfolio-based writing instruction as a venue to provide corrective feedback on EFL learners’ writing performance was also suggested by Meihami et al. (2018) as an effective technique for making language teaching successful. Although the majority (67%) of the TBLT and CLIL teachers believed that 20-30% of a 90-minute class should be allocated for providing feedback (Figure 1), the problem surfaced regarding the feasibility and time management in the context of a large class. Providing feedback to all the students’ tasks in a large class may have a frightening, overawing, or threatening effect (Harmer, 2000) on the teachers. Hence, time management is a crucial aspect for providing corrective feedback in a large class. As there is a lack of sufficient class time for a large class, there is a lack of practice and insufficient learning (Yu, 2004). Therefore, implementing TBLT approach appeared as a challenge because of the large number of students (40-50 students on an average) in a language class which is, sometimes, taxing for the instructor to monitor task performance and provide corrective feedback to every student in the class (Ara & Hossain, 2016). That is why teachers employed a mix of strategies to provide feedback. A considerable number of the teachers preferred to take away the completed task, check later and return in the next class or check later and provide the feedback during counseling hour. These are the ways how providing corrective feedback in large TBLT and CLIL classes in private universities of Bangladesh are the significant means for making these approaches successful.

Limitation and Further Scope of the Study

This study only gives the data of teachers’ attitudes and perspectives regarding providing corrective feedback to TBLT and CLIL tasks. The questionnaire and FGD only reveal the partial understanding of teachers regarding the feedback and the success of TBLT and CLIL since only the teachers’ attitudes and feelings about providing feedback for the success of TBLT and CLIL were recorded. Therefore, the study requires further investigation on the evidence of language performance after providing feedback to an experimental group of students, comparing the result with a control group of students to whom no feedback will be provided to the TBLT and CLIL tasks done after the instructions.

Conclusion

This study has tried exploring TBLT and CLIL teachers' perceptions, beliefs and practice regarding feedback and how the success these relates to providing feedback to the students of a large English class at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh. The results indicated that the classroom teachers as research participants were positive about providing corrective feedback to learners’ tasks in TBLT and CLIL classes. The success of TBLT and CLIL relates to providing feedback and applying the feasible and plausible ways and strategies to provide effective feedback to the students of a large English class.

Whether it is the TBLT or CLIL approach, the purpose of neither of them will be successful unless active and effective feedback to the students’ tasks is provided. Therefore, the TBLT and CLIL teachers of undergraduate language classes in Bangladesh prefer providing corrective feedback. However, in most cases, they fail to provide and struggle to manage time for providing individual feedback to the tasks done by 40-45 students of a class within the stipulated time of 90 minutes. Therefore, this research also recommends that the class size of a language course should be reduced to 25, and teachers should not be loaded more than three courses a semester. However, it depends on policymakers' decisions. Only then will it be possible to provide the corrective feedback to each student's task on which he/she can reflect and produce better and correct utterances in English.

References

Almulla, M. (2015). An investigation of teachers' perceptions of the effects of class size on teaching. International Education Studies, 8(12), 33-42. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v8n12p33

Amirghassemi, A., Azabdaftari, B., & Saeidi, M. (2013). The effect of scaffolded vs. non-scaffolded written corrective feedback on EFL learners‟ written accuracy. World Applied Sciences Journal, 22(2), 256-263. https://idosi.org/wasj/wasj22(2)13/16.pdf

Ammar, A., & Spada, N. (2006). One size fits all?: Recasts, Prompts, and L2 Learning. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28(4), 543–574. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263106060268

Ara, A., & Hossain, K. A. (2016). Meeting the challenges of teaching large classes in context of Bangladesh. Research Journal of English Language and Literature, 4(4), 294-301. http://www.rjelal.com/4.4b.2016/294-301%20KAZI%20AMZAD%20HOSSAIN.pdf

Black, D. A., & Nanni, A. (2016). Written corrective feedback: preferences and justifications of teachers and students in a Thai context. GEMA Online: Journal of Language Studies, 16(3), 99-114. http://doi.org/10.17576/gema-2016-1603-07

Carroll, S. E. (2001). Input and evidence: The raw material of second language acquisition. John Benjamins.

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage.

Dalton-Puffer, C. (2007). Discourse in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms. John Benjamins.

de Graaff, R., Koopman, G. J., & Westhoff, G. (2007). Identifying effective L2 pedagogy in content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Vienna English Working Papers, 16(3), 12-19.

Egi, T. (2010). Uptake, modified output, and learner perceptions of recasts: Learner responses as language awareness. The Modern Language Journal, 94(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2009.00980.x

Ellis, R. (1994). The study of second language acquisition. Oxford University Press.

Ellis, R., Loewen, S., & Erlam, R. (2006). Implicit and explicit corrective feedback and the acquisition of L2 grammar. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28(2), 339-368.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263106060141

Erlam, R., & Loewen, S. (2010). Implicit and explicit recasts in L2 oral French interaction. Canadian Modern Language Review, 66(6), 877-905. https://doi.org/10.3138/cmlr.66.6.877

Ferris, D. R. (2003). Response to student writing: Implications for second language students. Routledge.

Hair, J. F., Anderson, R. E., Babin, B. J., & Black, W. C. (2010). Multivariate data analysis: A global perspective. Pearson.

Harmer, J. (2000). How to teach English foreign language. Teaching and Research Press.

Hussein, B. A. E., & Ali, H. I. H. (2014). Rationalizing oral corrective feedback in Sudanese EFL classrooms. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 3(3), 217-231. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.3n.3p.217

Ibna Seraj, P. M., Habil, H., Hasan, M. K., & Sharmin, F. (2021). Exploring EFL teachers' perception on readiness to use smartphones for teaching oral English communication skills at tertiary level. MEXTESOL Journal, 45(4). https://www.mextesol.net/journal/index.php?page=journal&id_article=25319

Kamal, A., & Haque, M. H. (2015). Implementing task-based English teaching: Experience from large classes. Stamford Journal of English,9.

Karim, M. Z., & Ivy, T. I. (2011). The nature of teacher feedback in second language (L2) writing classrooms: A study on some private universities in Bangladesh. Journal of the Bangladesh Association of Young Researchers, 1(1), 31-48. https://doi.org/10.3329/jbayr.v1i1.6837

Klimova, B. (2015). The role of feedback in EFL classes. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 199, 172-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.502

Krashen, S. D., & Seliger, H. W. (1975). The essential contributions of formal instruction in adult second language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 9(2), 173-183. https://doi.org/10.2307/3585484

Li, G., Sun, Z., & Jee, Y. (2019). The more technology the better? A comparison of teacher-student interaction in high and low technology use elementary EFL classrooms in China. System, 84, 24–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2019.05.003

Liu, Y., Mishan, F., & Chambers, A. (2021). Investigating EFL teachers’ perceptions of task-based language teaching in higher education in China. Language Learning Journal, 49(2), 131–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2018.1465110

Loewen, S., & Nabei, T. (2007). The effect of oral corrective feedback on implicit and explicit L2 knowledge. In A. Mackey (Ed.), Conversational interaction and second language acquisition: A series of empirical studies (pp. 361-378). Oxford University Press.

Lyster, R. (2004). Differential effects of prompts and recasts in form-focused instruction. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 26(3), 399-432. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263104263021

Lyster, R., & Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner uptake: Negotiation of form in communicative classrooms. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 37-66 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263197001034

Maulana, M. I. (2021). Task-based language teaching; potential benefits and possible criticisms in Indonesian contexts. Journal of English Teaching and Learning Issues, 4(2), 69-98. https://doi.org/10.21043/jetli.v4i2.12183

McDonough, K. (2005). Identifying the impact of negative feedback and learners' responses on ESL question development. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 27(1), 79-103. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263105050047

Meihami, H., Husseini, F., & Sahragard, R. (2018). Portfolio-based writing instruction as a venue to provide corrective feedback on EFL learners' writing performance. Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies. 5. 119-136. https://doi.org/10.30479/jmrels.2019.10657.1333

Mishan, F. (2004). Designing authenticity into language learning materials. Intellect.

Naami, L., & Zadeh, H. N. (2016). Teacher's feedback in task-based language teaching classes among intermediate Iranian EFL students vs. non-task-based classes. Elixir Language & Testing, 90. https://www.elixirpublishers.com/articles/1677663253_201601034.pdf

Prianty, T., Ngadiso, N., & Wijayanto, A. (2021). Indonesian EFL teachers’ perceptions of task-based language teaching approach. Pedagogy: Journal of English Language Teaching, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.32332/joelt.v9i1.2194

Randolph, J. J. (2007). Meta-analysis of the research on response cards: effects on test achievement, quiz achievement, participation, and off-task behavior. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 9(2), 113-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/10983007070090020201

Raza, K. (2019). Learner preferences for teacher corrective feedback: a survey study of Arab students from Qatar. Language Teaching Research Quarterly, 11, 43-53. https://doi.org/10.32038/ltrq.2019.11.05

Rodriguez, L. (2009). Classroom management. Foreign language teaching methods. University of Texas.

Rukanuddin, M., Rahman, K. A., Ibna Seraj, P. M., & Hafiz, K. D. (2021). Feedback to student-works : Lifeline of learning. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 17(1), 565–574. https://doi.org/10.52462/jlls.38

Sáez, N. & Segovia, R. (2013). Input, interaction, and corrective feedback in L2 learning. Salt, 13(1), 49-51.https://doi.org/10.7916/salt.v13i1.1353

Subramaniam, T. S., Md. Yunus, M., Mohd Ayub, A. F., Rosli, M. S., Maaruf, S. Z., Nawi, A., & Palpanadan, S. T. (2020). Important elements for a framework in designing a mobile learning for English language listening and speaking skills. Journal of Critical Reviews, 7(6), 312–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/03067319.2020.1717477

Tedick, D. & Gortari, B. (1998). Research on error correction and implications for classroom teaching. The Bridge: From Research to Practice, May. https://carla.umn.edu/immersion/acie/vol1/Bridge1.3.pdf

Truscott, J. (2007). The effect of error correction on learners' ability to write accurately. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16(4), 255-272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2007.06.003

Van den Branden K. (2016). The role of teachers in Task-Based Language Education. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. 36, 164-181. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190515000070

Vásquez, C., & Harvey, J. (2010). Raising teachers’ awareness about corrective feedback through research replication. Language Teaching Research, 14(4), 421-443. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168810375365

Yu, J. (2004). Problems and strategies of teaching English in large college classes. Journal of Chongquing University of Post and Telecommunication (Social Science), 3(1), 139-140. http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/elt.v6n11p49


Contact us

mextesoljournal@gmail.com
We Are Social On

Login »
MEXTESOL A.C.

MEXTESOL Journal, vol. 48, no. 1, 2024, es una publicación cuadrimestral editada por la Asociación Mexicana de Maestros de Inglés, MEXTESOL, A.C., Versalles 15, Int. 301, Col. Juárez, Alcadía Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06600, Ciudad de México, México, Tel. (55) 55 66 87 49, mextesoljournal@gmail.com. Editor responsable: Jo Ann Miller Jabbusch. Reserva de Derechos al uso Exclusivo No. 04-2015-092112295900-203, ISSN: 2395-9908, ambos otorgados por el Instituto Nacional de Derecho del Autor. Responsible de la última actualización de este número: Jo Ann Miller, Asociación Mexicana de Maestros de Inglés, MEXTESOL, A.C., Versalles 15, Int. 301, Col. Juárez, Alcadía Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06600, Ciudad de México, México. Fecha de la última modificación: 31/08/2015. Las opiniones expresadas por los autores no necesariamente reflejan la postura del editor de la publicación. Se autoriza la reproducción total o parcial de los textos aquī publicados siempre y cuando se cite la fuente completa y la dirección electrónica de la publicación.

License

MEXTESOL Journal applies the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license to everything we publish.