The Impact of Corrective Feedback on the Acquisition of English Language Grammar in Middle School Students in Gjilan, Kosova

Linda Alidemaj

doi:10.5281/zenodo.14427120

Authors

Linda Alidemaj Department of Faculty of Philology national foreign languages University of Tetova Ilinden street no.1200 Tetovo, Republic of North Macedonia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14427120

Keywords:

efl, language schools, esl, world

Abstract

The English language is one of the most spoken lingua-franca in the world, hence it has become an extremely necessary language to know and speak. This phenomenon can be seen in the recent decades with the wide-spread opening of foreign private language schools and how English is now taught in public schools from either the third or sixth grade. As such, language learning is a highly dominant aspect. Considering this, it is also known how language learning proceeds and takes place, adding to learning processes, methods, and stages. One of these methods is corrective feedback. As all humans are in contact with feedback, whether at work, daily life, and most importantly at school. Feedback is given in various manners, through tests, writing exercises, problem solving, and most prominently in language learning. This thesis will consider the impact of corrective feedback when it comes to English language grammar acquisition in middle school students in Gjilan. It will consider qualitative and quantitative research methods, basing from language studies and theorists such as Chomsky, Krashen, and Jams, to then focusing on a questionnaire for quantitative analysis. Theories focus on SLA (second language acquisition), ESL (English as a second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language), sociocultural factors and age factors. Three research questions are raised in search of the effects of corrective feedback. The first hypothesis states that corrective feedback is largely preferred by students. The second hypothesis states that the manner and time when feedback is given does not really matter to the students and their learning. Finally, the third hypothesis states that considering the age of the students’, they are sensitive towards the teacher’s feedback. Additionally, the questionnaire is distributed to middle schools in Gjilan and 129 students in grades 6^th to 9^th are considered for this analysis, 50 males and 79 females. Unexpectedly, based on the students’ answers, all three of the hypotheses are proved positive and are not refuted. The responses are analyzed and run through the SPSS program for more accurate analysis, with tables including descriptive statistics, percentages, and frequencies of answers.

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