This thesis investigates corrective-feedback episodes and learners?? private speech in Japanese language classrooms at a university to examine both overt and covert speech of the adult learners in relation to their target language learning. Corrective-feedback episodes between teachers and learners in language classrooms have been focused on as typical interactions in the classrooms and a factor that contributes to learning of target languages. Ohta (2001) found that learners noticed their teachers?? corrective feedback to the other learners and responded to the feedback in their private speech, and that they also repeated others or manipulated sounds or forms by using their private speech. As learners notice a gap between what they actually can produce and what they want to say, when they produce target languages, even without feedback (Swain, 1985; Swain and Lapkin, 1995), learners?? private speech should be examined as well as their corrective-feedback episodes in classrooms. The data were collected from six learners and two teachers at a Level 2 (upper beginning) Japanese course for two semesters (throughout a year). The data are composed of classroom observations, audio and video-recordings of the classrooms, and stimulated recall interviews with both the teachers and the learners following the classroom recordings. All corrective-feedback episodes and the learners?? private speech were transcribed and coded according to error type, corrective-feedback type, types of response to the feedback, and types of the learners?? private speech. The teachers tended to use recasts often because of the time limitation of the classroom teaching and their teaching policy. However, all the learners preferred to be given opportunities to self-correct their own errors before being provided with correct answers by recasts. Private speech had functions of cognitive/metacognitive, affective/social, and self-regulation, which overlapped with each other. The learners were aware of their use of private speech in the classrooms. The teachers sometimes noticed their learners?? use of private speech in the classes. The learners used both Japanese and English as cognitive tools as well as communicative tools. The learners used every opportunity for their learning, by overtly and covertly participating, in the class.

This thesis investigates corrective-feedback episodes and learners?? private speech in Japanese language classrooms at a university to examine both overt and covert speech of the adult learners in relation to their target language learning. Corrective-feedback episodes between teachers and learners in language classrooms have been focused on as typical interactions in the classrooms and a factor that contributes to learning of target languages. Ohta (2001) found that learners noticed their teachers?? corrective feedback to the other learners and responded to the feedback in their private speech, and that they also repeated others or manipulated sounds or forms by using their private speech. As learners notice a gap between what they actually can produce and what they want to say, when they produce target languages, even without feedback (Swain, 1985; Swain and Lapkin, 1995), learners?? private speech should be examined as well as their corrective-feedback episodes in classrooms. The data were collected from six learners and two teachers at a Level 2 (upper beginning) Japanese course for two semesters (throughout a year). The data are composed of classroom observations, audio and video-recordings of the classrooms, and stimulated recall interviews with both the teachers and the learners following the classroom recordings. All corrective-feedback episodes and the learners?? private speech were transcribed and coded according to error type, corrective-feedback type, types of response to the feedback, and types of the learners?? private speech. The teachers tended to use recasts often because of the time limitation of the classroom teaching and their teaching policy. However, all the learners preferred to be given opportunities to self-correct their own errors before being provided with correct answers by recasts. Private speech had functions of cognitive/metacognitive, affective/social, and self-regulation, which overlapped with each other. The learners were aware of their use of private speech in the classrooms. The teachers sometimes noticed their learners?? use of private speech in the classes. The learners used both Japanese and English as cognitive tools as well as communicative tools. The learners used every opportunity for their learning, by overtly and covertly participating, in the class.