teachers and students attitudes toward error correction in l2 writing

Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes Toward

Error Correction in L2 Writing

Published in:

THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol.12, No. 3, pp. 1-31, Fall 2015

Written by:

Maghsoud Alizadeh Salteh

English Language Department

Farhangian University

Urmia, Iran

Karim Sadeghi

Department of English Language and

Literature

School of Literature and Humanities

Urmia University

Urmia, Iran

Presented by:

Mohammad Mustafizur Rahman

Student, MA in ELT

East West University

Jannat Shaila Karim

Student, MA in ELT

East West University

Abstract

Students’ and teachers’ attitudes toward various aspects of language and instruction

Investigation of the preferences of 30 EFL teachers and 100 L2 students

Two questionnaires were developed to elicit views of students and teachers

Interviews were taken to add a qualitative dimension

The results revealed a noticeable differences in the preferences and attitudes of teachers and students

Introduction To respond student writers’ errors is a controversial

issue ESL students want for error correction that it is

effective Has not enough published work on students’

preferences and viewpoints Teachers’ understanding of the non-linguistic

aspects of teaching and learning Teachers’ and students’ mutual understanding

makes the feedback more fruitful

Purpose and Research Questions

To examine the misfit between teachers’ and students’ preferences on error correction

Research Questions (1) On what aspect(s) of language (content, ideas,

vocabulary, grammar, text organization, mechanical errors, etc.) do teachers offer and students receive feedback?

(2) What are the favoured techniques of error correction according to teachers and students?

Research Methods

Participants The study was conducted at Azad (Open) and Payam Noor

Universities in the northern part of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. 100 students and 30 teachers took part in this study Participants were from disparate native language backgrounds

(i.e., Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish) Participating students successfully passed ‘English grammar 1 & 2’,

‘advanced writing’, ‘essay writing’ and ‘reading comprehension’ courses

Participating teachers’ teaching experience ranged from a minimum of one year to a maximum of 33 years

Research Methods (con't.)

Data Collection Instruments and Procedures The use of questionnaires and interviews as a method of

data-gathering

Questionnaire: demographic information, multiple response items, closed items (yes / no), and Likert-type items

Nine participants (four teachers and five students) were interviewed

Data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively

Results

All the information obtained from the participants was fed into SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for statistical analysis

SPSS generated different types of data: frequency of participants

percentages

mean of the students’ and teachers’ responses

standard deviation

standard error mean etc.

Results (con't.)

Discussion

The points have been discussed:

Useful amount of corrective feedback

Preference for the correction of different types

of errors

Evaluation of various error correction techniques

Discussion (con’t.)

This study has paralleled with:

Oladejo (1993)

Diab(2006)

Amrhein and Nassaji (2010)


Useful Amount of Corrective Feedback

According to this study:

1. Both teachers and students are optimistic about the effects of corrective feedback given by the teacher.

2. Teachers give priority to providing feedback on errors of content or ideas and on errors that bring meaning negotiation process.

3. But students prefer to get feedback on all errors.


Other studies say:

1. Students want correction of all types of errors while teachers are selective and tended to focus on meaning negotiation and accuracy. (Amrhein and Nassaji)

2. Redecki and Swales (1988) are supporting students viewpoints of students that their write up should be corrected otherwise they might lose their faith in teacher.


Other studies say:

3. Students believe that good writing is equal to error free writing so their errors should be corrected. (Leki, 1991)

4. On the other hand, Oladejo’s study strongly disagreed with the idea that grammatical errors should be disregarded in favor of errors that break down the exchange of meaning.


Other studies say:

5. In Diab’s study 10% students wanted their

teachers to focus exclusively on errors that

interfere with communication whereas in

this study the percentage is 18.


Preference for the Correction of Different Types of Errors

According to this study-

1. Teachers strongly uphold paying attention to the errors of content / idea and organization.

2. Students gave priority to errors of grammar and vocabulary choice.

3. Students displayed negative or neutral opinions about the effectiveness of corrective feedback on ideas and content of the writing.


Other studies say:

1. Students preferred comments on the writing style and idea/ content as the most important teacher feedback they longed for. (Diab)

2. Students showed a stronger inclination for the correction of all errors.

3. They were concerned about using correct English, implying that they set error free writing rather than interesting and coherent content as their goal. (Amrheinand Nassaji)


Other studies say:

4. Students long for corrective feedback in the form

of comments on content and ideas rather than on

grammatical, structural, surface errors. (Semke

1984), (Lee 2005).


Evaluation of various error correction techniques

According to this study:

1. Teachers preferred more explicit techniques of error

correction.

2. Students prefer explicit and explanatory error

marking techniques to being asked to self-correct or

peer-correct.


Other studies say:

1. Students thought that it was chiefly the responsibility of

teachers to do the correction. (Amrhein and Nassaji)

2. Self or peer correction has been found to be useful in

some previous research.( Ferris and Robberts,2001;

Makino,1993)

3. Students’ preference for teacher’s error correction was

high but teachers’ preference for it was low. (Nunan)

CONCLUSION

Feedback will be productive if teachers and students have mutual understanding.

Students believe that feedback is useful.

Teacher’s immediate yielding to students’ preferences and expectations may give rise to student over-dependence on the teacher.

Teacher must help students understand how feedback is supposed to influence their writing and why it is given in the way it is.

teachers and students attitudes toward error correction in l2 writing

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