Recasts
A recast is the implicit reformulation of a learner's erroneous utterance, preserving the intended meaning while correcting the form. It is the most frequently used and most extensively researched type of corrective feedback in L2 classrooms (Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Sheen, 2006).
Learner: "Yesterday I go to the market." Teacher: "Oh, you went to the market. What did you buy?"
The Effectiveness Debate
The central controversy: Lyster and Long represent two poles.
Long's position — Recasts are effective because they deliver positive and negative evidence simultaneously, in context, at the moment the learner is focused on meaning. They work through implicit mechanisms: the learner receives a target-like model juxtaposed with their own non-target output, creating conditions for noticing the gap (Long, 2007).
Lyster's position — Recasts generate the lowest rates of learner uptake and repair. Because they maintain the conversational flow, learners often interpret recasts as confirmations of meaning rather than corrections of form (Lyster, 1998). Prompts — feedback types that withhold the correct form and push self-repair — produce higher uptake and may lead to deeper processing (Lyster, 2004; Lyster & Saito, 2010).
Context Matters
Research has partially reconciled the debate: recasts are more effective in laboratory settings where the target structure and feedback are controlled, while prompts tend to outperform recasts in naturalistic classrooms where the corrective intent of a recast can be ambiguous (Li, 2010). Recast effectiveness also depends on explicitness — enhanced recasts (with stress, isolation, or shortened form) are more salient and more effective than conversational recasts.
References
- Lyster, R. & Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner uptake. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 19(1), 37–66.
- Long, M.H. (2007). Problems in SLA. Recasts in SLA: The story so far. Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Li, S. (2010). The effectiveness of corrective feedback in SLA. Language Learning, 60(2), 309–365.