Proposing a syllabus design for oral communicative classes regarding teachers' and students' perceptions of modified output

The primary concern of this thesis was to explore modified output perception of teachers and students at Gaziantep University -Higher School of Foreign Languages in their oral communicative classes. The sample of the research consisted of 48 instructors and 280 preparatory students at Gaziantep University –Higher School of Foreign Languages. The participants were administered the Modified Output Questionnaire for Teachers and Modified Output Questionnaire for Students in order to conceive their perception of corrective feedback in oral communicative classes. Both the questionnaires consisted of six sections, namely (1) the necessity of error correction, (2) frequency of error treatment, (3) timing of modification, (4) types of errors need to be treated, (5) methods of correction and (6) delivering agents of corrective feedback. These six divisions were also analyzed based on classroom recordings and a semi-structure interview held with thirty students to explore teachers' and students' perception of modified output. In terms of data collection techniques, a triangulated inquiry using a variety of techniques such as questionnaires, audio recordings, and interviews have been conducted. In that sense, collected data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The study also aimed to present a communicative syllabus design based on teachers' and students' perception of modification in their speaking classes as final outcome. As a result of an exploratory factor analysis, the findings showed that both the teachers and students were well aware of the importance of the error treatment in oral communicative classes but students desired more correction than their teachers thought. Furthermore, one of the similarities found between the teachers and students was their regarding the timing of error correction. They both believed that error treatment after students finish speaking was effective. While both the teachers and students believed that serious and frequent errors should be treated; surprisingly, the students wanted to receive more error treatment. In addition, it can be concluded from the study that repetition, implicit feedback, and elicitation were the three most favored types of feedback among the teachers; whereas repetition, elicitation and interestingly, metalinguistic feedback were the most favored types of corrective feedback among the students. In terms of the source of modification, teachers were regarded as the most popular source of feedback for both the teachers and students. To sum up, the output hypothesis was originally framed in terms of the relationship between output and grammatical accuracy; the findings of the current study suggest that production of modified output may facilitate the progress of interlanguage development. Therefore, the present study lends a significant support to the claim of the output hypothesis.