Restudy Of Error Correction In Chinese EFL Classroom-from College Students' Perspective

For a foreign language learner, making errors are almost inevitable. Although error treatment has always been a controversial issue for linguists and language teachers, just as Horner (1988:213) suggests,"Feedback is an essential part of language acquisition, and correction is generally accepted as its classroom equivalent."Since 1950's, much research has been conducted with regard to error correction. With the data collected from their oral, written, pronunciation and lexical language teaching practice, the researchers usually fixed their attentions on such questions as,"whether to correct","what to correct","when and how to correct", while one fact was usually neglected, that is, error correction does not refer to the unilateral activities solely on the teacher's part; students should be involved as well. After all, we are teaching students, not the material. Much support can be found in many linguists'theories. In his Affective Filter Hypothesis, Krashen (1982) points out that in SLA(Second Language Acquistion), much importance should be attached to the student's affective state which can determine the success of SLA. Rogers's Humanistic Learning Theory (1969) emphasizes the inner world of the learner and places the individual's thoughts, feelings and emotions at the forefront of all human development. He suggests that teachers should feel a wish to understand their students from the student's inner hearts, which includes feelings, opinions and their personality. Professor Wang Chuming (2001) from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies also states that student's affection is one of the two determining elements which may greatly influence foreign language learning and teaching. Therefore, if the teacher corrects students'errors only from his/her own perspective, without any considerations for students'views, it can be detrimental to better teaching effects.This thesis intends to restudy error correction from the college students'perspective. It's composed of six chapters.Chapter one is an introduction, which provides the definition of error, the differences between error, mistake, slip and attempt, the significance of error, the three phases of SLA(CA, EA and IL), and the necessity for the current study. Chapter two begins with the relevant theories concerning this research: Krashen's Affective Filter Hypothesis, Rogers's Humanism, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the Learner-centered Learning Approach. Then the author reviews the literature of error correction from the following six aspects: what is correction, whether to correct, what to correct, when to correct, how to correct and who to correct. Chapter three introduces the methodology of the research. The subjects of the research are 106 freshmen and 4 teachers from English Department of Nanjing Xiaozhuang Institute. The instruments consist of classroom observation, questionnaire and interview. Four research questions are raised: 1.What are the students'general views on error correction in classroom? 2. What are the correction techniques Chinese teachers practically used in EFL classroom? 3. What are the students'attitudes and preferences toward each specific correction technique? 4. Are there any disparities between students'preferences and the frequencies of teachers'technique employment?...