Explicitness of Recasts and Developmental Readiness in L2 Development of Korean Relative Clauses

Among the various types of corrective feedback provided during interaction, recasts have remained a focal interest among SLA researchers. Interesting claims have been made with regard to the efficacy of recasts. First, as they are an implicit type of feedback, the absence of learners’ immediate uptake following recasts may limit their effectiveness (Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006; Lyster, 2004). Second, among the many operational definitions of recasts utilized in previous studies, the more explicit ones may be more effective than the more implicit ones (Ellis & Sheen, 2006; Nicholas, Lightbown, & Spada, 2001). In addition, despite decades of recasts research, the field still lacks sufficient knowledge regarding to what degree learners’ developmental readiness mediates the efficacy of recasts or corrective feedback and interaction in general. In this talk, I will address these issues in the L2 Korean language instruction setting, which has received little attention in the field to date. I will present an experimental study investigating the relative impacts of explicit and implicit recasts on various learner responses in the discourse as well as subsequent L2 development of Korean relative clauses. Based on the findings, I will argue that both explicit and implicit recasts can contribute to SLA, possibly through different routes, as Goo and Mackey (2013) suggested, and that learners who are developmentally ready can also benefit from task-based interaction, containing sufficient positive evidence, even without the provision of recasts during interaction.