A Survey Of Teacher Correction Of Grammar Errors In Writing For Non-English Majors

This survey, with non-English majors as subjects, intends to explore two main issues: Is it necessary to correct non-English majors' grammar errors in their writing? If yes, what is the key to the realization of effective correction?As for the issue of correction necessity in foreign language learning, there have been two main trends in the circle of applied linguistics. Behaviorists regard the learning process as the formation of a set of habits, and maintain that in order to develop good language habits, errors should be immediately corrected as soon as they find their way into learners' language. Quite on the contrary, mentalists equal the leaning process with that of the "acquisition" of mother tongue by children. Therefore they advocate a "non-correction" policy. Both of the arguments fail to take learner difference and error difference into consideration in making the hypothesis and thus are invalid. Recently, there appears a more eclectic pinion that suggests the nature of the error and the context of it be the most important factors to determine the correction necessity. In the case of non-English majors, due to their special learning characteristics, learning tasks and learner characteristics, it is hypothesized that correction is not only necessary but also of great importance to them. Is this hypothesis valid? This becomes one of the most important issues of the survey.Another task of the survey is to get some information regarding the current situation of error correction and correction expected by non-English majors. Such information covers correction models, correction frequencies, correction depths, and correction steps as to each individual. The gap between the two is also to be found so as to shed some light on ways of carrying out effective correction in the future.A questionnaire designed for this purpose is thus given to 150 non-English majors from Kunming University in Science and Technology, Yunnan Radio and TV University and Yunnan University. The data is encoded, compared, contrasted and analyzed to get the information needed for further discussions and proposals.Results show that it is necessary to correct grammar errors for the non-English majors in their writing as hypothesized. It also shows that there is some gap between the present correction practice and what is desired by students. For example, more correction models are called for and more systematic work needs to be done by teachers and students. Besides, there are some relationships between the model choices on the one side, and on the other side students of different sexes, distinct personalities and varied proficiency levels. The same can be said of the step choice and proficiency levels.Based on such results and findings, the paper tentatively puts forward some suggestions: For instance, we should pay more attention to explanation, try to realize individual correction, and value variety in correction models, etc. In the light of the suggestions given by the students, a more systematic job is recommended. Specific ways of enforcing these principles are also included in the essay.Further researches need to be done out of two considerations. For one, whether these suggested ways are effective or not needs to be tested. For another, this study focuses only on grammar errors, leaving discourse and stylistic errors untouched upon. To achieve the ultimate goal of improvement in non-English majors' writing, correction of such errors should also be studied.