Investigation On Error Correction In Junior English Classroom Oral Activities

Errors have been given much attention in the study of language acquisition in general and in the study of the second language or foreign language acquisition in particular. Researchers are interested in errors because errors are believed to contain valuable information about the strategies that people use to acquire a language. Error correction in English teaching is an area which has been investigated in foreign countries but very little research has been done in the Chinese context, especially in Chinese middle schools. To reveal how teachers correct student errors in oral activities, what they believe in their teaching practice, and the students'viewpoints about the teachers'error correction, the author carried out a case study which involved four teachers and 233 students in a junior middle school. By studying the classroom observation, interviews and questionnaire responses of the teachers and students, the writer of the paper has found that:1. Students'main errors were those phonological, grammatical and lexical. Teachers often did on-spot correction. They often elicited the appropriate answers from the student who made the errors. They cared for students'feelings about the errors and corrections.2. There was a gap between teachers'and students'views about errors and error correction. Teachers'opinions about what to correct, when to correct, how to correct in English classroom oral activities were different from those of the students'. Students held more positive attitudes towards teachers'correction than what their teachers imagine.3. There was a gap between the teachers'beliefs and their teaching. All the four participant teachers believed that they should correct their students after the oral activities in order not to interrupt students. They seldom used delayed correction. They were often impatient when they found an error, so they did on-spot correction. Otherwise, they left the errors alone.4. Most of the English classes lacked authentic oral activities. Sentence drills and imitation based on grammar-focused teaching still were the basic and main contents of English oral activities.