Data collection from learners

Prior to data collection, learners were randomly assigned to the control group or the recast group. They attended the data collection session in pairs as the language tasks were designed for pair work. The data was collected in a quiet study room located within the Intensive English Program premises. First, learners were informed about the procedure and then they were given time to read the consent form and ask questions about the study. After signing of the consent form, learners were asked to complete the background survey that was created by using Qualtrics (2018). Learners completed the survey on a laptop computer provided by the researcher. When a learner did not understand a survey item, a brief explanation was provided. Before learners began carrying out the pre-task activities and communicative tasks, they were asked to set their mobile phones to flight mode in order to prevent possible electromagnetic interference on the recording equipment as well as to ensure disruption-free data collection sessions.

Next, the procedure shown in Figure 6.3 was followed. Learners were given the handout for the first sentence-completion activity, which required them to

complete open-ended sentences about language learning and language teachers. They were informed that there were no right or wrong answers and that they could draw from their personal experience when completing the sentences. They were also asked to limit their response for each item on the handout to a single sentence. When

explanation without modeling the pronunciation of the target word. It is important to note that the researcher received only a few questions about word meaning whether it was about the target vocabulary or any other word that appeared in the handouts. Learners completed the handout on their own and they did not interact with their partner at this stage.

After learners finished the first sentence-completion activity, they carried out the information exchange task. They took turns to read their sentences aloud to each other and commented on whether they agreed or disagreed with their partner’s opinion in the form of a brief discussion. Learners’ productions of the target words during this

interaction formed the pretest data.

The next activity was the interview task. Having discussed issues related to language teaching and language classrooms, learners played the role of a recruitment committee to interview the researcher, who pretended to have applied for a job at the Intensive English Program where learners were actually studying. Learners were given the handouts with the interview questions, which had the target words embedded in them. They took turns to ask their questions and they took brief notes while listening to the answers provided by the researcher. When learners in the intervention group produced a target word with a non-target-like stress pattern, the researcher provided a recast as explained in Chapter 6.5. Learners in the intervention group received a total of 199 recasts throughout the entire data collection period. Considering that the 36 learners produced a total of 360 tokens, they received recasts on 55% of the total number of target words that they produced.

After the interview task, learners were given the last handout, which was a sentence-completion activity that required learners to complete a set of sentences based on the responses given by the researcher during the interview. Learners

completed the handouts on their own. These handouts were then used to facilitate the post-interview discussion.

Finally, learners shared their interview notes with each other by taking turns to read them aloud. During this task, learners discussed whether they liked the responses given by the researcher during the interview. At the end, they decided whether they should offer the researcher a job to teach at the Intensive English Program. Learners’ production of the target words during this interaction formed the posttest data.

During the information exchange and interview tasks, learners wore a Shure WH20 XLR brand unidirectional microphone mounted on their head. As learners

carried out the activities in pairs, two headworn microphones were used. The

microphones were connected to a Roland Duo-Capture EX USB audio interface. The two microphones were connected to separate input channels, which allowed the speech data from each learner to be recorded separately. The microphones were positioned at about 30 degrees off-axis and about 3 cm away from learners’ mouth similar to the procedure that was followed by Kirkham (2017). The gain levels were kept constant through the entire data collection period. The recordings were saved onto an iPad Pro as 44,100 Hz 16 bit .wav files using a recording app called Recorder Plus HD.

Upon completion of the second information exchange and consensus task, learners completed the exit survey on a laptop computer. Completing the exit survey took learners around 10 minutes. Once again, learners were given an opportunity to ask questions when they did not understand a survey item or a particular word. At the end of the data collection, the researcher thanked learners and presented them with the voucher for free coffee and donut. Each data collection session lasted about one hour. The entire data was collected in two consecutive semesters. The first and bigger portion of the data was collected from 60 learners over a period of 1.5 months in Fall 2016. The second portion of the data was collected from 14 learners over a period of 3 weeks in Spring 2016. Although the data was collected in two different semesters, both groups of learners had similar language proficiency levels. They were also registered in the same Intensive English Program level, but in two different semesters. In other words, Spring 2016 learners were not continuing students; they were new intake.