The impact of perfectionism on the oral corrective feedback beliefs and practices of Iranian L2 teachers

Abstract Oral Corrective feedback (OCF) beliefs have been extensively researched in the field of teaching English as a second/foreign language. However, the way perfectionism as a personality trait impacts the beliefs and practices of the teachers regarding OCF has attracted little attention, if any. This study aims to explore the connection between teachers’ OCF beliefs and practices and their perfectionistic backgrounds in providing OCF. To this end, 13 teachers who were teaching in state and private language schools were recruited. The perfectionism inventory developed by Hill et al., (Hill et al., Journal of Personality Assessment, 2004) was used to identify teachers with higher levels of perfectionism. Classroom observations and semi-structured interviews were also used to elicit the relevant data. Data analysis suggested that conscientious and self-evaluative perfectionism appeared to influence teachers’ OCF beliefs and practices. Conscientious perfectionists tended to favor implicit OCF, while self-evaluative perfectionists seemed to prefer explicit OCF. The teachers with conscientious perfectionism tended to follow organized steps beliefs regarding OCF, and they tended to be more organized and follow a specific order in providing OCF. While self-evaluative teachers used more explicit OCF and revealed traces of inconsistency and doubt about their actions.