Fixes: Recasts, the Quiet Correction (and When It Fails)

A recast is a correction tucked inside a reply: your partner says your sentence back with the error fixed, then the conversation keeps going. There's no "that's wrong" and no grammar rule. Recasts are the most common correction in language classrooms, and they work best when the fix is short, stressed and the only change.

The Edgewise coach calls this move Fixes. These are learning strategies borrowed from speech therapy, not therapy. Learning a language is not a disorder, and neither is an accent.

What is a recast?

A recast keeps what you meant and changes how you said it. Say you're retelling The Three Little Pigs in Spanish:

• You: La casa es rota. (The house is broken.)
• Coach: Ah… la casa ESTÁ rota. (Ah… the house IS broken.)

Capital letters mark the word the coach stresses. Nothing else changes. The coach doesn't stop the story, explain ser and estar or ask you to repeat.

You hear your sentence and the fixed one back to back, and the story moves on.

SLPs use recasts with children, too: in child language intervention, a meta-analysis found average effects of roughly 0.75 to 1 standard deviation. Study quality varied substantially (Cleave et al., 2015). The adult evidence comes mainly from second language research, below.

How common are recasts?

Very. In French immersion classrooms, researchers coded 18.3 hours of lessons. Recasts made up 55% of teacher feedback.

They also rarely led students to repair their own errors. Elicitation, metalinguistic clues, clarification requests and repetition did better (Lyster & Ranta, 1997).

The pattern holds elsewhere. Recasts were 83% of feedback in Korean EFL classes (Sheen, 2004). A meta-analysis put them at 57% of classroom feedback overall (Brown, 2016).

In one adult ESL class, the teacher relied so heavily on recasts and translation that learners had little chance to fix errors themselves (Panova & Lyster, 2002).

Do recasts work? The debate

Researchers have argued about this for decades. Here's the short version.

Goo and Mackey put it bluntly: "Making a case against recasts is neither convincing nor useful."

The fair reading: recasts help. In classrooms, prompts that make you produce the fix often help more, especially for lower-proficiency learners.

Adults talking one-on-one may be a different case. Most of this evidence comes from classrooms, and none of it tests an app coach.

One more finding matters for learners. In Mackey and Philp's study, learners rarely repeated the recast, yet the more advanced learners still improved. Not repeating it back doesn't mean it failed.

What makes a recast work?

Delivery matters. In 12 adult ESL classrooms with 118 learners, recasts helped learners at least half the time on later tests. Three features predicted successful uptake: stress on the fixed part, declarative intonation (said as a statement, not a question) and only one change (Loewen & Philp, 2006).

Context matters too. Uptake and repair after recasts were higher when recasts were short or partial, and when learners were already paying attention to form (Sheen, 2004).

Grammar is where recasts slip by. When learners replayed their sessions and reported their thoughts, they noticed word and pronunciation feedback fairly accurately. Grammar feedback was generally not perceived as correction (Mackey, Gass & McDonough, 2000).

That's why the Edgewise coach stresses the fixed word. More words won't fix it. One stressed word might.

Recast examples in Spanish and French

Each recast changes one thing, stresses it and keeps the story moving. No grammar talk.

Spanish

French

English glosses can't show these errors, so the capitals mark where the stress falls. Notice that each reply is a normal conversational turn. The learner can answer it, ignore it or reuse the fixed form in the next sentence.

Recasts and pronunciation

Recasts seem to suit pronunciation well. Among 65 Japanese learners of English, only the group that received recasts on English r improved significantly, including in spontaneous speech (Saito & Lyster, 2012). In immersion classrooms, pronunciation repairs came mostly from recasts.

Prompts did better for word and grammar errors, but not for pronunciation errors (Lyster, 1998).

Edgewise does not score pronunciation. For pronunciation practice, see how to practice pronunciation.

When recasts fail: switch to a prompt

A recast gives you the answer. A prompt makes you find it. In one study of 60 Thai EFL learners, the only significant predictor of question development was producing modified output with advanced forms after feedback (McDonough, 2005).

Signs that a coach should switch from a recast to a prompt:

• The same error keeps coming back after several recasts. You're hearing it but not changing it.
• It's a grammar ending. Grammar recasts are the ones learners most often miss.
• You're early in the language. Lower-proficiency learners gained more from prompts.
• The fix matters for meaning. A wrong form can leave the listener unsure what happened.

Then pick the lightest prompt that works:

Keep recasts for everything else. That way one or two targets get pushed, and the story still flows.

For teachers, tutors and SLPs

Recast one error at a time, stress the change and say it as a statement. Pick one or two targets for prompts, especially for lower-proficiency learners, and recast the rest. Don't read a missing repetition as failure; more advanced learners in Mackey and Philp's study improved without it.

FAQ

What is a recast in language learning? A recast is when a partner repeats your sentence with the error fixed, keeping your meaning and the conversation going. It corrects without stopping you or explaining a rule.

Do recasts actually work? Yes, with limits. Meta-analyses find that corrective feedback, recasts included, has lasting effects. Classroom studies often find prompts work better, especially for lower-proficiency learners.

Should I repeat the recast back? You can, but you don't have to. In one adult study, learners rarely repeated recasts, yet the more advanced learners still improved. Not repeating doesn't mean you missed it.

Why does the coach stress the fixed word? Stress helps you notice the change. In adult classrooms, stressed recasts with one change, said as a statement, were more likely to be taken up.

Why don't I notice when I'm being corrected? Grammar recasts are easy to miss. Learners in one study noticed word and pronunciation feedback fairly accurately but often didn't perceive grammar feedback as correction.

Your next step: Try a story retell in Edgewise. When you slip, the coach says it back right, stressing the fixed word, and the story keeps going. Your first retell sets your level. Edgewise scores story structure and sentence building, and every round ends with your next piece: one specific thing to add next time.

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Sources

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