A Survey Of Of Students' Preferences For Error Correction In English Classroom At Senior High School

For every language learner,errors are inevitable.Therefore,for language teachers,whether to correct errors or not and how to correct them have become the key issues in their research.Against the student-centered education background,teachers can deal with that issue according to different students' preferences.The previous literature shows that many studies on classroom error correction regard students as a whole and are related to college classrooms,paying little attention to differences in students.Hence,this study attempts to explore the preferences for different students for error correction in English classroom at Senior High School and help teachers adjust error correction strategies,improving the efficiency of error correction according to students' preferences.Based on error analysis,interlanguage theory and interaction hypothesis,questionnaire and interview serve as research instruments to investigate 310 Senior One students from three senior high schools.This study mainly discusses the following questions: i.What are the overall preferences for senior high school students to error correction in the English classroom? ii.Are there gender differences and language level differences among senior high school students in their preferences for error correction? iii.What are the causes of senior high school students' preferences for error correction in the English classroom?The data from the questionnaires and interviews were carefully collected and analyzed by SPSS and the results are as follows:All of the senior high school students hold positive attitude to error correction.As for what errors to correct,students are most inclined to grammatical and lexical errors.As for when to correct errors,students prefer to either after their utterances or after class correction.As for whom to correct errors,teacher correction is the most popular among students.Besides,female and high-level students also prefer selfcorrection.In respect to the methods of error correction,a majority of the students in class accept both explicit correction and recast.Significant differences can be found between male and female students' attitude towards error correction.It means that female students have a more positive attitude towards error correction than male students.As for what to be corrected,when to correct,whom to correct and how to correct errors,there are no significant differences occur between male and female students' preferences.Furthermore,in terms of whom to correct errors,significant differences can be found between high-level and lowlevel students.High-level students most prefer themselves to correct errors,while low-level students incline to teachers' correction.But in students' attitude,what to be corrected,when to correct and how to correct errors,there are no significant differences among high and low level students.Most students have a positive attitude towards error correction for the reason that it improves students' English proficiency and help them avoid repeating the same errors.Besides,students believe that grammar and vocabulary are the basic knowledge of English and they need to learn it well.Students most prefer their errors to be corrected after their utterances because this way protects students' self-esteem.As for the subjects of error correction,students choose teachers' correction because teachers are authoritative in their mind.But some students hope to correct errors by themselves because it makes them have a deeper impression on their errors and reflect on why they make the errors.Finally,in terms of the methods of error correction,nearly all students prefer to recast,by which students have the opportunity to discover and correct their errors in this method.Based on the above findings,it is suggested that teachers attach importance to error correction,take students' preferences into consideration and combine explicit and implicit correction in the process of correcting errors.It is advisable for students to try self-correction or peer-correction more often.When errors corrected after class,students should learn to reflect and analyze from errors.Finally,students can pay more attention to pragmatic errors.