EFL instructors' and learners' perceptions on and preferences for oral corrective feedback: Do they overlap?

The purpose of this study was to investigate the EFL teachers' and students' perceptions on and preferences for Oral Corrective Feedback (OCF) with a comparative view as well as EFL instructors' conceptualization and practices of OCF. In this mixed method research, For the quantitative phase of the study, 30 EFL instructors working in the preparatory school of a private university in Ankara completed the teacher version the OCF questionnaire, and 247 preparatory school students with different proficiency levels filled out the student version of the OCF questionnaire. For the qualitative phase of the study, a semi-structured interview was conducted with EFL instructors purposefully selected among those who also filled out the questionnaire. The data obtained from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS through descriptive statistics and Chi-square analysis, and the qualitative data were analyzed by using Creswell's (2014) systematic content analysis framework. The results indicated that recast, hinting, elicitation, and repetition were expressed as the most used OCF techniques in the classroom by the EFL instructors. While hinting was identified as the most beneficial OCF techniques, explicit correction, clarification request, and recast are the least effective OCF techniques. The perceptions of EFL students on OCF showed that they preferred to be corrected by their instructors for grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation errors, and pragmatic failures. Another key finding of the study revealed there is a statistically significant difference between the OCF preferences of EFL instructors and students for grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation errors. On the other hand, their preferences for pragmatic failures showed more similarities. Both groups perceived that OCF should be provided for the spoken errors. The results of this study are believed to contribute to a deeper understanding of the OCF through the lenses of EFL instructors and students as well as to more effective and personalized and localized applications of OCF according to the educational culture and needs of the learners.