Research On Classroom Error Correction Behavior Of Junior High School English Teachers Based On Students’ Needs

Errors are inevitable in the process of learners’ language acquisition.As a result,how to comprehend and correct learners’ errors has become one of the important topics of foreign language teaching and research.But there is still controversy on whether to correct errors,what errors to correct,how to correct errors,when to correct errors,and who to correct errors.Although researchers have conducted a large number of studies on English classrooms error correction,most studies at home and abroad only focus on teachers’ error correction behavior,but ignore students,the object of error correction behavior.What’s more,existing studies mainly take the high school students and college students as their study subject.In view of this,teachers and students in a junior high school in H city,Hubei province as study subject,taking Error Analysis Theory,Interaction Hypothesis Theory and Theory of Maslow’ Needs as the theoretical basis,and the study employs questionnaires,classroom observation and interviews to analyse if teachers’ error correction behavior could meet students’ needs for error correction.Firstly,the author investigated students’ needs for error correction behaviors in English classrooms through questionnaires.Secondly,the author observed teachers’ classroom to check whether teachers’ actual error correction behaviors meet students’ needs,and finally,the author interviewed teachers and students in order to gain insight into the research subjects’ personal experience of error correction in classrooms.Based on the analysis of data of questionnaires,the results of classroom observation and interview,the following conclusions were drawn.First,students have strong needs for error correction.As for what errors to correct,students hope teachers to correct grammatical and lexical errors,followed by phonological errors,and are least willing to correct pragmatic errors.As for when to correct errors,most students expect teachers to correct errors after they have finished expressing themselves.As for who to correct errors,most students expect the teachers to correct their phonological,grammatical and pragmatic errors,while they expect to correct their own lexical errors;As for how to correct errors,most students expect to correct phonological,grammatical,and pragmatic errors in an explicit way,while they expect to correct lexical errors with guidance and meta-linguistic prompting.Second,teachers’ actual error correction behaviors in the classroom basically meet students’ needs,but there are some differences in who to correct errors and great differences in how to correct errors,Students expect teachers correct phonological and grammatical and pragmatic in an explicit way,while to correct lexical errors in a guidance and meta-linguistic prompting.However,in the actual classroom,teachers often used repetition to correct phonological,grammatical,and pragmatic errors,and correct lexical errors explicitly.To conclude,the author proposes the following suggestions.Teachers should choose reasonable and ppropriate error correction methods to meet students’ needs for error correction,Student-centered,teachers should vary error correct subjects to meet students’ needs.The limitations of this study and some suggestions for future research are also presented.