Corrective feedback on the part of the teacher is a reactive pedagogical strategy that emerges when the teacher identities an error. This article embraces two types of corrective feedback (CF) on the acquisition of definite article-the in a classroom-based context. Fifty-eight Chinese university students, who are randomly assigned to two experimental groups: one group receives implicit CF with implicit recast and the other group receives explicit CF with a combination of explicit recast and repetition. The research design of pre-test, post-test, delayed post-test consisting of 3 fill-gap tests and a follow-up interview held with some participants after the treatment to elicit their attitudes towards the feedback and their feedback preferences. Analyses of results show that there is statistically difference between implicit CF and explicit CF in facilitating learners’ acquisition of the target form. These findings are discussed with implications for classroom practices and future research.
 

implicit corrective feedback; explicit corrective feedback; definite article;