Investigation On Error Correction In English Classroom Teaching In Senior High School

It is inevitable to make errors in the process of language learning. Especially for those Chinese language learners, classroom teaching is the main source to acquire language, even the only source, therefore, the way teachers use to treat students’ errors will influence their language learning efficiency. Error correction has been a controversial topic in the field of second language acquisition from 1950 s till the present. Many researchers, such as Corder,Chomsky, Chaudron,Long, Liu Runhong, Hu Zhuanglin and so on, contribute to error correction study. However, only a few researches concentrate on senior high school EFL Classroom. The purpose of this research is to investigate teachers’ and students’ views on error and error correction so as to give some practical suggestions to teachers of senior high school.The definition, type and origin of errors has been made a detail description at first, then the development of error correction and previous research on error correction calcified systematically, which provide theoretical support for this study. On the basis of Chaudron’ s five specific questions:whether errors should be corrected or not, which type of errors should be corrected, when, who and how to treat errors, this study is made to investigate the error correction of senior high school.The research methods of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis are used to do empirical study, which is conducted mainly by questionnaire and interview. The subjects of this study were 12 teachers and 300 students from a senior high school of Hebei province. The questionnaires were designed on the basis of the questionnaire adopted in Feng suyan’ s thesis An Investigation on Teachers’ and Students’ Views on English Errors and Error Treatment Methods in Senior High Schools English Class(2012) and Qian Rong’s thesis Error Correction in College English Class-A Survey in Guangxi Normal University(2005). Some necessary changes had been made according to the research questions of this paper. All the data from questionnaires is entered and processed by the software SPSS 13.0 to calculate the percentages.According to the data analysis, the conclusions of this study are stated as following:Firstly, almost all teachers and students have a positive attitude toward error and error correction. They think it is inevitable to make errors in the process of language learning. Secondly, a majority of students prefer their errors to be corrected after their speech, rather than corrected immediately. Thirdly, teachers think other students should take part in the corrective activities, while students are willing to be corrected by teachers. Finally, students hope teachers can correct directly, when errors occur. In a word, students were satisfied with the teachers’ way of error correction.Through this study, there are some constructive suggestions provide for foreign language teaching: teachers should have an open mind and keep on updating their teaching theory to catch up with the pace of age; They also need to regard the error corrective feedback as a part of their professional responsibilities, so as to form a right view on error correction; many factors should be taken into consideration when teachers chose the appropriate way to treat errors; meanwhile protect students self-esteem, respect every student so that they can face errors bravely. Some limitations of the present study and recommendations for further research are concluded in the end.