Corrective Feedback in Efl Speaking Instruction: Balancing Fluency and Accuracy in the Oral Classroom

Corrective feedback is one of the most widely discussed yet inconsistently applied aspects of speaking instruction in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. This paper reviews five major types of oral corrective feedback — recast, explicit correction, elicitation, metalinguistic feedback, and repetition — and examines how each type relates to the development of spoken fluency and accuracy. The review draws on interactionist second language acquisition theory and considers how learner-level variables such as proficiency, anxiety, and motivation shape feedback outcomes. The paper concludes that no single strategy is universally effective and that principled pedagogical flexibility, grounded in task goals and learner awareness, produces the most consistent gains in oral performance. Practical implications for EFL classroom teaching are discussed.