Second Language Research on Recasts: A Critical Review in Response to an Ongoing Debate.

This paper reviews important second language research on recasts in response to a recent debate between Goo and Mackey (2013) and Lyster and Ranta (2013) in the journal Studies in Second Language Acquisition. It begins by clarifying the definition of recasts and then examines several controversial issues featuring prominently in the debate, including the theoretical underpinnings of existing research on recasts, mixed findings about their effectiveness in language acquisition, and methodological concerns in effectiveness research. The primary aim of this paper is to demarcate common ground and disagreement that are emerging in this debate and, based on a synthesis and critique of previous empirical studies, to identify directions for future research. It also explores pedagogical implications of recasts research for English-as-a-foreign-language contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]