effect of audio recast on efl learners’ output modification and perception of recasts

Recast is a common corrective feedback in which the teacher just repeats the learners’ utterance minus the error without any explication. this study aimed to investigate the effect of technology-mediated audio feedback on efl learners’ output modification- whether learners ignore, acknowledge, or try to repair the error- and their perception of recast. a ‘fully-perceived’ corrective feedback is one in which the learner not only understands the teacher’s intention but also the source of the error. a ‘partially-perceived corrective feedback’ is one in which the learner understands the teacher’s intention without realizing the source of the error. otherwise, the feedback is said not to have been perceived. this study employed the quasi-experimental approach. the participants were 40 male and female efl learners at a private language learning institute in shiraz, iran. they were divided equally into two groups. the first group was provided with corrective recast via audio, and the second group received recast in a conventional face-to-face class. retrospective recall interviews were used to measure students’ perception of recasts. recordings were made to count and categorize students’ uptake -response to recasts- as ‘target-like modified output’, ‘non-target-like modified output’, and ‘uptake without modification’. it was found that technology-mediated audio and face-to-face recasts were equally effective in triggering ‘output modification’. yet, there was a significant difference among learners perception of recasts in the two groups.