The effects of a reflective training program on the awareness of Turkish pre-service EFL teachers' oral corrective feedback strategies

The provision of oral corrective feedback is one of the most complicated issues in language teaching and among the in-class decisions which cannot be planned beforehand and thus have to be made instantly. Although pre-service teacher education programs introduce oral corrective feedback strategies in some courses, the research shows that novice as well as experienced language teachers are not aware of those strategies due to the lack of reflective practices. Many studies have demonstrated the effects of reflective practices; however, there are only a few studies investigating the effects of reflection about oral corrective feedback strategies. Recently a research study in a Turkish context was carried out with pre-service EFL teachers who were provided with an online training program about oral corrective feedback strategies and reflected on them through peer observation. The current research study also aims to discover the effects of a reflective training program about oral corrective feedback strategies with face-to-face input sessions and peer observations. The data were collected from 123 pre-service EFL teachers through a pre-test, post-test, pre training semi-structured interviews, post training semi-strucured interviews, self- and peer reflection papers and reflective journals. The findings reveal that the majority of the participants' beliefs about oral corrective feedback strategies changed after the reflective training program. Despite a few limitations, the research proves to be significant as it demonstrates reflective practices could help pre-service EFL teachers become more aware of various oral corrective feedback strategies and use appropriate strategies for different situations.