An investigation into the preferred error correction techniques employed by teachers of english and suggestions for teachers in speaking lessons at green school english center, huong canh, binh xuyen, vinh phuc

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ***** LE THI THUY TRANG AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PREFERRED ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AND

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

*****

LE THI THUY TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE PREFERRED ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES EMPLOYED BY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS IN SPEAKING LESSONS AT GREEN SCHOOL ENGLISH CENTER, HUONG

CANH, BINH XUYEN, VINH PHUC

(SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS

OF THE DEGREE OF BARCHELOR OF PEDAGOGY IN ENGLISH)

Supervisor : TRAN THI NGAN, M.A

Ha Noi, May 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A completed study would not be done without any assistance Therefore, the author who conducted this research gratefully gives acknowledgement to their support and motivation during the time of doing this research

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who made it possible for me complete this thesis for graduation First and foremost, I want

to send the deepest appreciation to my supervisor: Mrs Tran Thi Ngan-a lecturer at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 for her insightful advice and suggestions and kind encouragement Without her help and guidance, I would not have been able to complete my research work

I want to express my sincere gratitude to the committee members for their advices and invaluable feedbacks Without their assistance, I would not be able to

complete this research

In addition, I also wish to thank my colleagues and students in Green school

English center, Huong Canh, Binh Xuyen, Vinh Phuc who participate in the survey

ABSTRACT

It may seem that error correction is a simple procedure which does not need to

be examined, but it is the opposite of the truth It is necessary that teachers are informed about how students perceive error correction in order to teach effectively Error correction is a fundamental process of language teaching By correcting the learners’ errors can help students to recognize where they are wrong From that students can enhance their use of English, especially in speaking skill There are different techniques which birng benefits or drawbacks to correct errors in teaching language In this study, the paper presents the preferred error correction techniques which the teachers in Green School English center tend to use to correct their students’ errors

well-TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Research scope 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Research significance 2

1.5 Design of the research 2

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Overview of errors 4

2.1.1 Definitions of Error 4

2.1.2 Errors versus Mistake 5

2.1.3 Types of Errors 5

2.1.3.1 Grammatical Errors 5

2.1.3.2 Discourse errors 6

2.1.3.3 Phonological errors 6

2.1.3.4 Lexical errors 7

2.2 Errors correction strategies in speaking lessons 7

2.2.1 Definitions of error correction 7

2.2.2 Types of error correction 8

2.2.2.1 Teacher correction 8

2.2.2.2 Peer correction 8

2.2.2.3 Self-correction 9

2.2.3 Common error correction techniques 9

2.2.3.1 Explicit correction 10

2.2.3.2 Recast 10

2.2.3.3 Clarification requests 11

2.2.3.4 Metalinguistic clues 11

2.2.3.5 Elicitation 11

2.2.3.6 Repetition 11

2.3 Timing of error correction 11

2.3.1 Immediate correction 12

2.3.2 Non-Immediate Correction 12

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 14

3.1 An overview of the research site 14

3.1.1 Research question 14

3.1.2 Participants 14

3.1.3 Research instruments 14

3.1.4 Questionnaires 14

3.1.5 Classroom observation 14

3.2 Data analysis 15

3.2.1 Data analysis from questionnaires 15

3.2.1.1 Demographic information 15

3.2.1.2 Teachers’ error correction techniques 15

3.2.2 Data analysis from Class observation form 17

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS, DISCUSSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND APPLICATIONS 19

4.1 Findings and discussions 19

4.1.1 Teachers’ awareness of error correction: 19

4.1.2 Teachers’ preferred error-correction strategy: 19

4.1.3 Problems for Error correction 19

4.1.4 Suggestions to improve effectiveness of using explicit correction in speaking lessons 20

4.2 Recommendations 21

4.2.1 Reducing error correction frequency 21

4.2.2 Creating some activities for students to practice 21

4.2.3 Correcting Errors strategically 22

4.2.4 Deciding Time to correct errors 22

4.2.5 Applying different error - correction strategies 22

4.3 Applications 23

4.4 Pedagogical Implication 23

4.5 Suggestions for further studies 24

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 25

5.1 Summary 25

5.2 Limitation of the study 25

REFERENCES 26

APPENDIX 1 29

APPENDIX 2 32

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Due to its special importance in nowadays’ social-economic life, learning English is necessary for a lot of people The center of English teaching and learning is

to master four skills including speaking, listening, reading and writing Of which, speaking is regarded as the most difficult for learners to develop because it requires them to produce the language most of the time spontaneously of without enough time

to construct appropriate and correct utterances Over a long period, considerable attention has been paid to errors and error correction in speaking classes (Ellis, 1994) There is nobody who is able to learn a foreign language without making errors during the phases of language acquisition That is why this field of study deserves a great deal

of linguists’ attention

Proving feedback and correcting errors to learners on their performance is a fundamental aspect of teaching because making errors is a part of learning, and error correction should be done selectively in order to have better results in the classroom Teachers are an essential part of this learning process, as they are usually those who help students to correct their errors and to avoid them in the future If error correction

is done correctly, it can make students be able to use language fluently and accurately

in the right contexts However, if it is done incorrectly, it might bring harms to students For example, it can hinder the learners’ confidence of using language, especially when they speak

To most language teachers, correcting learners’ oral errors is one of the most frustrating tasks because it has more potential for subjectivity due to individual variables (Cohen, 1998) Generally, different teachers have different techniques to correct errors Some teachers often like showing explicitly that the learners were wrong and giving directly correction, some others prefer to attract students’ attention

on their errors by raising teacher’s voice

Because of that, this study is conducted with the aim to find out the preferred error correction techniques in speaking lessons The results contribute to enhance the

quality of teaching English in Green School English center

1.2 Research scope

Due to the limits of time, ability and availability of the data, the researcher intends to investigate the current situation of correcting errors in speaking lessons at Green school English center and find out appropriate error-correction strategies for application in real context The respondents of this study are limited to the teachers at Green school English center, therefore, their opinions of appropriate error-correction strategies in speaking lessons might not be representative of all teachers of English nationwide

1.3 Research questions

The research is carried out to answer the following question:

1 What are teachers’ preferred error correction techniques in speaking lesons?

1.4 Research significance

Learners’ errors are significant to both teaching and learning, for errors are evidence of their learning development This study, therefore, will contribute a new implication to second language acquisition, particularly, to the area of error correction

in speaking class Pedagogically, information obtained from this study might help teachers of English get insights into oral errors and oral error correction From this they adjust their teaching and apply appropriate error-correction strategies to make error-correction more effective These will help to enhance the quality of English teaching efficiency and learning English

1.5 Design of the research

The study consists of five main parts:

Chapter 1: Introduction: it consists of the rationales, scope, significance,

research question and design of the research

Chapter 2: Literature Review: this chapter presents various concepts relevant

to the research topic such as the overview of errors which reviews the definitions of errors as well as types of errors This chapter also includes the views of appropriate error-correction techniques in which, when, what, who and how to correct errors effectively are mentioned in detail

Chapter 3: Methodology: this part presents the research question, participant It

also focuses on the data collection instruments, presentation and analysis of the data,

gives a detailed presentation and analysis of the data from the questionnaires and classroom observation

Chapter 4: Findings, Discussions, Recommendations and Applications: it

consists of some discussions and interpretations of the findings of the study This chapter also provides some recommendations for effective error correction in speaking lessons Applications, engages the practice of error correction in speaking lessons by following the three-stage model

Chapter 5: Conclusion: this chapter includes the summary of the study and

some pedagogical implications for correcting errors appropriately in speaking lessons This part also points out some limitations of the study and provides some suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Following the introduction, the theoretical assumptions as well as the findings about error correction and error correction techniques from previous empirical research will be reviewed to discuss the approaches to teaching and learning speaking This chapter will also discuss the overall views of errors Finally, timing of error correction will conclude the literature review

2.1 Overview of errors

2.1.1 Definitions of Error

It is essential to understand what the term error stands for Different teachers have different opinions about error These are based on their own perspectives and aspects of study According to Lennon (1991) an error is “a linguistic form or combination of forms which in the same context and under similar conditions of production would, in all likelihood, not be produced by the speakers’ native speaker’s counterparts” Besides that, Hendrickson (1980) defines “error” as “an utterance, form,

or structure that a particular language teacher deems unacceptable because of its inappropriate use or its absence in real-life discourse” Even though there are so many definitions based on the native speaker language norms, it is apparent that the definitions created in such way are problematic Nowadays, the most of the language teachers are not native speakers of the language they teach In practice, this means that students are permanently exposed to the nonnative language model, so the language used in the classrooms might be different from the native speaker norm Moreover, teachers are more focused on students’ abilities to communicate the message, rather than a grammatical level of the language (Allwright and Bailey, 1991) In the light of this, an error could be a deviation from a phonological or grammatical rule, an incorrect form or expression in a particular situation Considering that the purpose of the current research focuses on the correction of oral errors, it is not of primary importance to understand all the actual reasons behind errors Consequently, the definition employed for the purpose of this research considers the term “error” to refer

to the language deviated from the Standard English, and/or that are deemed to be inaccurate

2.1.2 Errors versus Mistake

Errors and mistakes are a natural part of the learning process Normally, these two terms seem interchangeable, but in fact they are quite different from each other James (1998, p 78) suggests that the difference between mistake and error can be found in relation to the correction ability According to him, a mistake is a fault in learner’s statement that he is able and willing to correct On the contrary, an error is something that a learner is neither able nor inclined to correct According to Corder (1967), “errors occur due to the lack of knowledge of the proper rule” An example for this may be; “Although I like cities, but I prefer the countryside” This sentence shows that the speaker did not know the correct usage of concessive clauses or he/she might transfer an acceptable rule of grammar from his/her mother tongue Hence, errors show the present level of a learner’s language development of a particular language And Tanner and Green (1998) define a mistake as “a slip of the tongue; the learner knows the correct form but has temporarily forgotten it” As a consequence, the speaker fails to perform his/her linguistic competence An example of a mistake is “He goes to scool “ This occurred because the speaker has forgot the way to spell the world “school” Actually mistakes are non-systematic and can be self-corrected while errors tend to be systematic and not self-corrected In this study, there is no distinction made between errors and mistakes as it is often intricate to determine whether it is an error or a mistake

2.1.3 Types of Errors

Language scientists have divided errors in many different ways throughout the history First of them, Burt (1975) divided errors into global errors and local errors The former refers to errors that have a signigicant impact on the clarity of commnication and are “those” that affect overall sentence organization, such as wrong word orders, missing, wrong, or misplaced sentence connectors” (p.56) On the other side, the latter influences a single element in the sentence, but most often is not a signigicant barrier to communication There are, for example, errors connect to nouns, verb imflections, articles and auxiliaries On the basis of the linguistic levels, errors can be dinided into four major categories as follows:

2.1.3.1 Grammatical Errors

Grammatical errors, which stress the need for Grammatical accuracy in both speech and writing may hinder communication Actually, the biggest distraction for

any language teacher with regard to error correction has been traditionally focus on in Engish language teaching on the correction of error at a grammatical level Grammatical errors have two subcategories One subcategory consists of morphological errors and the other of errors in syntax A morphological error involues

a failure to comply with the norm in supplying any part of any instance of the following word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives or difinition, as thay do not possess any morphotogy Into morphological errors category belong, for example, leaving out the third person - s (she know Paul) or using the past tense - ed too often (she camed here) These types of errors are deemed as quite basic, but persistent among the students even on the upper levels On the other side, syntax errors have an influence on phrases, clauses, sentences and paragraphs with regard to, for instance, phrase

structures or inter-sentence cohesion

2.1.3.2 Discourse errors

Discourse errors are dependable upon the observance of the rules of speaking and reflect learners’ cultural and pragmatic knowledge of language use An example for this kind is “Now I ‘m learning English news I like them” As can be seen, this is an error of cohesive device misuse because the speaker considered “news” a plural noun Hendrickson (1981) points out that pedagogy needs to be related to modes of linguistic presentation The approach to correcting errors in the written mode should be quite different from the approach to correcting spoken errors Each discourse mode demands different correction at different acceptable periods With spoken discourse, the question

of when to correct becomes vital to the learner's confidence and to the train of conversation Besides, methods for correcting oral errors are also paid much attention to

It is extremely difficult for a spontaneous conversation or interaction to take place in oral communicative discourse if the exchange is interrupted with corrections As a result, immediate correction of oral errors should not be encouraged for fear of damaging learners’ confidence A more suitable approach would be to encourage learners to be conscious of the ability to monitor themselves and correct their own errors

2.1.3.3 Phonological errors

Phonological errors are manifested in wrong pronunciation and/or intonation For example, the speaker mispronounced the word from [waste] to [water] in the following sentence: “Some threw water in the forest they got a fine” This caused difficulty for the listener to understand In the process of second language acquisition, such errors

necessitate timely correction because they may have a meaning differentiating function

As teachers, few would expect students to be able to achieve a native sound system in their target language This is an area where fossilization does tend to take place However, a communication breakdown can occur if a phonologically-induced error is serious enough to affect intelligibility This is when appropriate correction is crucial in indicating the speaker's error, as by implicit suggestions from the listener

2.1.3.4 Lexical errors

Lexical errors may also hinder communication and intelligibility This type of errors can easily arise in combination with other categories An example is a speaker's error in the sentence: “I read a lot of books interesting” It is a common type of lexical errors, namely wrong word order A more serious lexical error can be found in the following utterance: “The man raised from the ground” That is the misuse of the verb

“raise” In this case, “rose” would be accurate Like morph-syntactic errors, lexical errors are errors which are habitually corrected by teachers On the whole, it is easy for teachers to correct lexical errors as one only needs to pinpoint the change in meaning and provide the correct word

2.2 Errors correction strategies in speaking lessons

2.2.1 Definitions of error correction

There are a lot of studies have dealt with the matter of error correction “Error correction” is described as “a reactive second move of an adjacency pair to a first speaker’s or writer’s utterance by someone who has made the judgement that all or part of that utterance is linguistically or factually wrong” (James, 1998, p 235) Similarly, Richards and Lockharts (1996) defines error correction as “a response either

to the content of what a student has produced or to the form of the utterance” In a more practical view, Edge (1989) clearly states that correction does not always mean making everything absolutely correct but helps learners learn to express themselves more accurately

In language teaching and learning, the term “correction” is used to indicate that the teacher supplies an appropriate item to response to what is perceived to be an error (Chun et al, 1982) In their opinion, in supplying an appropriate correction, the teacher has to do more than just give modelling Clearly, it is advisable to make it explicit to the student on how the right form of language should be produced

Allwright and Bailey (1991) state that the word “correction” implies a permanent

“cure”, which is different from impermanent “treatment” They argue that even if a teacher corrects an error and manages to get a right answer, it does not mean that the error has permanently been cured Since the focus of their research is to investigate the permanent effects of teachers’ responses on learner errors, the use of the term

“correction” is considered to be appropriate

To sum up, error correction refers to the assistance provided by either teacher, peer, or self, with reference to any shortcomings on the part of a language learner in the target language

2.2.2 Types of error correction

In error correction, the use of various types of correction methods has been recommended as it is considered to be more effective than relying upon a single one (Lynch, 1996) The basic difference between 'error' and 'mistake' indicates a clear-cut correction policy in terms of classroom practice: that 'errors' should normally be corrected by teachers, by peers and by self

2.2.2.1 Teacher correction

As the overwhelming majority of the respondents would confirm that the teacher

is certainly the one capable and authorized to correct the errors Hendrickson (1978) is

in favor of providing the learners with teacher correction which concentrates on correcting communicative errors rather than linguistic errors As far as teacher correction is concerned, teachers should correct the error in an interactive way as it is beyond student’ language proficiency This correction is necessary and may become

an effective learning means because the learning is based on the communicative need However, Maicusi et al (1999) claim that teacher’ frequent correction of errors actually makes the learner dependent on correction by others, especially by their teachers It is better for learners to be motivated to do so themselves and teachers should help them become conscious of their error and give them incentive as well as hints to correct the error in order to avoid repeating it in the next time

2.2.2.2 Peer correction

Peer correction is a classroom technique where learners correct each other instead of teacher doing this In the classroom, peer correction is a kind of useful method because that can make students feel more confident and less intimidated being help by others in the class However, some learners are highly resistant to being

corrected by someone other than the teacher Cohen (1975) suggests that peer correction may improve the learners’ ability to recognize errors In this respect, Bruton and Samuda (1980) claimed that peer correction is beneficial in the language classroom The advantage of peer correction is to help learners cooperate and involve

in the process of learning Besides, it also makes them less dependent on the teacher According to Bailey (2005), peer correction can be very effective if it is done in a positive and supportive way Teachers might as well leave the correction for their learners in the hope that errors can be corrected through peer work since the language proficiency of the learners in a group varies That is what one student cannot correct may be corrected by other students Besides that, if the language is out of students’ understanding, it needs the correction giving by the teacher

2.2.2.3 Self-correction

Self-correction if when learners correct themselves instead of a teacher doing it Teachers can involve learners in self-correction to different degrees, by giving learners more or less guidance as to the location and nature of their errors, and examples of good use of language to compare their own to For example, the learner says ‘I feel relax' and then immediately changes this to ‘I feel relaxed' Bailey (2005) stresses that learners may learn more if they themselves correct their errors In this way, they may be memorable and could promote actual learning According to Carroll (1955), self-correction not only gives learners more opportunities to improve their speaking ability but activates their linguistic competence as well (cited in Corder, 1967) However, learners have much difficulty in self-correcting Thus, self-correction should be done with the help of other students or teachers When a learner has made an error, the teachers or other students are advisable not to provide him or her the correct form immediately but give him or her a chance to correct it by supplying some necessary hints

In short, each type of error correction has its own advantages and disadvantages

It is suggested utilizing the types that are most appropriate in certain situations Also a combination of error correction types will make the correction more effectively

2.2.3 Common error correction techniques

In the past decades, this has been a worthy debated issue of the appropriate correction of learners’ errors As a language teacher and as a language learner, it is important to know how to correct errors in general and in speaking class in particular

However, the issue of dealing with oral errors in second language learning is complex Once we have decided that correction is necessary, we must focus on how to correct in

a way that is both appropriate and effective Allwright and Bailey (1991) claim that error correction should be varied The most comprehensible and frequently used CF classification was made by Lyster & Ranta (1997) They divided corrective feedback into six types which teachers use to respond to learner errors:

2.2.3.1 Explicit correction

Explicit correction refers to the explicit provision of the correct form As the teacher corrects the errors, he or she directly fingers out what the student is false Hendrickson (1980) sees that “Explicit correction is detailed direct correction indicating that teachers provide learners with exact forms or structures of their erroneous utterances” According to Fanselow (1977), the most popular correction of errors carried out by the teachers is giving the right answer That is explicit correction The benefit is that when the teachers give the right answers to the learners who make errors, the learners might not be confused They directly recognize that their answers were wrong However, Norrish (1983) asserts that explicit correction of errors not only hinders the improvement of the communicative competence but also produces negative consequences in learners

2.2.3.2 Recast

Recasts happen when the teacher reformulates the statement of the student, however he does not explicitly say where did the error occur Without directly indicating that the student's utterance was incorrect, the teacher implicitly reformulates the student's error, or provides the correction Chaudron (1977) described recasts (termed in his study as Repetition with Change) as further divisible into subtypes by the following variant features:

• Emphasis: intonation, without which he considered this technique weak

• Reduction: modeling the correct form only of the portion that the student said incorrectly

• Expansion: modeling the correct form with added information: liable to confuse the student by drawing away from the correction it is unclear from Chaudron’s description whether this variant would further come to be considered a combined technique involving metalinguistic feedback by Lyster and Ranta’s definitions (1997)

2.2.3.3 Clarification requests

Clarification requests indicate to learners that either their statement has not been understood by the teacher or it is somehow ill-formed Therefore, the learner has to repeat or reformulate their statement Such request includes expressions like “Excuse me?”, “I don’t understand” or similar

2.2.3.4 Metalinguistic clues

Metalinguistic feedback is focused on providing the learner with comments, information, or questions related to the errors in the learner’s statement However, the teacher does not overtly correct the error, but instead provides the learner with metalinguistic information about the nature of the error, which should help the learner

2.3 Timing of error correction

Correction can enable students to recognize their errors and acquire the correct form of their target language However, it is also tricky to decide when to correct so

that it will not affect the communication process Allan (1991) states that the teachers‟ failure to correct oral errors at the appropriate time might lead to a negative reaction to

language learning in general and to error correction in particular

It is important for the teachers to understand that every error that seems serious does not need to be corrected immediately Actually, it is usually counterproductive to attempt immediate correction of all errors Realizing this, teachers should be more tolerant of their learner’ errors as it is better to speak with some errors rather than waiting until they can speak accurately To be more concrete, communication is important in speaking lessons

2.3.2 Non-Immediate Correction

Postponing error correction to a future time will be less effective, as time elapses between the error and correction (Chaudron, 1987) However, this may be necessary, particularly if the error is common to the whole class (Holley & King, 1971) Teachers may note errors and deal with them later, either at the end of the task, lesson, or in a following lesson This can also provide time for the teacher to design efficient and effective practice tasks and allow the learner a greater opportunity of self-correction and help the development of autonomous control processes

The decision on whether to correct immediately or not may depend on many factors including learner sensitivities, learning situation, learning purpose and activity type In terms of lesson focus, teachers have to decide whether the lesson focus is on accuracy or fluency and then design activities which help students produce accurate language or express themselves freely to develop fluency It is advisable not to deal with oral errors during fluency practice

An understanding of when to correct is most effective Once we have identified

an error, we need to determine the best time to correct it so that the correction will be helpful to the learner