A Contrastive Study On Interventional Correction And Introspective Correction

As we all know, errors are inevitable in language learning, thus correction is ofgreat importance in the process of language learning and teaching. Based on theKrashen’s input hypothesis, affective filter hypothesis; Schmidt’s noticing hypothesisand Nunan’s theory of learner-centeredness, this paper attempts to investigate thecontrastive effect of introspective correction and interventional correction inclassroom teaching. Three questions are put forward in the research:(1) Dointrospective correction and interventional correction affect non-English majoruniversity students’ language competence?(2) Which is more effective in revisingstudents’ translation in English classroom teaching，introspective correction orinterventional correction?(3) What’s the relationship between introspective correctionand interventional correction?An experimental study was carried out in Shanghai Normal University within asemester (16weeks in total) from September,2013to January，2014. The subjectswere82non-English major sophomores who passed the CET-4for the first time at thethird semester from two classes. All of them were served as the experimental class, aswell as the control class in order to gain the educational equality. They took the testonce a week while only three of them were chosen as the pretest, mid-test andfinal-test about translation of CET-6. Besides, atfer the pretest, a questionnaire wasused to figure out students’ preferable type of correction. In the post-test, ifve out ofthe total subjects who were voluntary to go further to provide the verbal reportsshowing their insights into two different types of correction and their performance inthe process of correction.The results indicate that:(1) Non-English major university students do benefitfrom both interventional correction and introspective correction.(2) Taking variousfactors into consideration, interventional correction is obviously superior tointrospective correction in the short term, while introspective correction has a tendency of catching-up over the interventional one in the long term.(3) Quitedifferent from each other，interventional correction and introspective correction alsocannot be separated from each other. Interventional correction lays solid foundationfor introspective correction and^introspective correction is the final goal ofinterventional correction.Generally speaking, non-English major students can benefit from interventionalcorrection and introspective correction in English classroom teaching. Both of thecorrections have a positive effect on university students’ translation performance, andeven the English language performance and competence. Interventional correction ismore apt to the beginning stage of learning while the introspective one can be used inthe late stage and even the fully success of introspective correction can be the goal inclassroom correction. Thus great attention should be paid to the two types ofcorrection and their relationship.