Exploring and reshaping learners’ beliefs about the usefulness of corrective feedback

Abstract

A number of studies have shown that learners’ beliefs about the usefulness of corrective feedback for improving their L2 (a second or a foreign language) use influences the extent to which learners can utilize that same feedback. It seems, then, that changing some of these beliefs could benefit the L2 learning process. The present article reports on two small-scale studies, both drawing on a sociocultural perspective on the development of beliefs. Changes in learners’ beliefs about corrective feedback were observed both within a period of six months (Case study) and over the course of one research interview (Group study). The studies exemplify how the interplay of one’s own and other’s experience, others’ mediation, and authoritative voices facilitated these changes.