Quite different from the previous research on corrective feedback (CF), this paper is to explore learner cognitive psychology of CF in attention, uptake, memory and affect during the process of second language acquisition (SLA). An anonymous questionnaire survey of 1773 learners in four universities of Anhui province in China and 15 interviews with the participants in the survey in Anhui University of Finance and Economics (AUFE) reveal that the CF types most attracting a learner attention are elicitation and repetition in oral CF and collective CF in class and underlining the errors in written CF; that the combination of the target language and the mother tongue is the most conducive to CF uptake and memory; that learners can understand the CF once they notice and are aware of it; looking the CF over several times contributes to memory; that most learners have initiatives of learning, and euphemistic CF and correcting alone after class are the least harmful to learner affect; that a learner cognitive psychology of CF is influenced by the thinking ways and values of his or her culture; that the individual differences in learner attention, uptake, memory and affect of CF and the different levels of second language proficiency are also the key factors that have to be considered when providing CF. These findings have implications for teachers to catch learners’ attention, make them understand, memorize and deploy CF correctly in L2 learning without hurting their affect.
KeywordsAttentionUptakeMemoryAffectCF
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