4. CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 3: COMPARISONS OF STUDENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ VIEWPOINTS
COMPARISONS OF STUDENTS’ AND TEACHERS’ VIEWPOINTS
This section of Chapter 4 will compare student’s responses to teacher’s responses about error correction in oral communicative activities. The responses’ frequency and percentage will be compared statement by statement. The Independence Sample T tests will be used to find out whether the teacher’s responses and student’s responses differ significantly. The significance level was set at 0.05.
Response to S1 which asked students about whether they were afraid of making errors when they were speaking or not and asked teachers whether their students were
afraid of making errors when they spoke (S1), showed that while 57.1% teachers believed that their students were afraid of making errors, only 29.8% students thought that they were. Similarly, 49% of surveyed students agreed that they were not afraid of making errors whereas 32.4% teachers believed the students were not afraid. Therefore, students seemed to have more positive attitude towards making errors with the mean 3.41 in compared with the mean 2.80 in teacher’s responses. The T test (Appendix G, p. 97) also revealed that student’s responses and teacher’s responses were significantly different, as shown in Tables 25 and 26 (p value=0.017).
Table 25: Crosstabulation of S1 and groups
Group Total
Teacher Student
S1 Strongly
disagree
Count 0 4 4
% within group .0% 2.1% 1.9%
Disagree Count 12 54 66
% within group 57.1% 27.7% 30.6%
Undecided Count 2 22 24
% within group 9.5% 11.3% 11.1%
Agree Count 6 87 93
% within group 28.6% 44.6% 43.1%
Strongly agree Count 1 28 29
% within group 4.8% 14.4% 13.4%
Total Count 21 195 216
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 26: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S1
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 2.8095 1.03049 4.00 4.00 Students 195 3.4154 1.10144 2.00 2.00
p value=0.017
In responding to S2 which asked students how they felt when they made a mistake and asked teachers how their students felt when they made a mistake, the number of
teachers thought that their students were “unhappy” was almost the same as the number of students who felt “unhappy”, however, 57.1% of surveyed teachers thought that their students would feel “embarrassed” while only 37.4% students thought they were
“embarrassed”. Similarly, nearly 43% students felt “normal” when they made an error while only 23.8% teachers thought that their students felt “normal”. Therefore, the results indicates that teachers seemed to believe that their student’s feeling towards making errors were more negative than what the students really felt. However, the T test (Appendix G, p. 97) showed that there was no significant difference between teacher’s responses and student’s responses as shown in Tables 27 and 28 (p value=0.437).
Table 27: Crosstabulation of S2 and groups
Group Total
Teacher Student
S 2 Unhappy Count 3 30 33
% within group 14.3% 15.4% 15.3%
Embarrassed Count 12 73 85
% within group 57.1% 37.4% 39.4%
Normal Count 5 83 88
% within group 23.8% 42.6% 40.7%
Happy Count 0 3 3
% within group .0% 1.5% 1.4%
Others Count 1 6 7
% within group 4.8% 3.1% 3.2%
Total Count 21 195 216
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 28: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S2
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 2.2381 .88909 2.00 3.00 Students 195 2.3949 .87519 2.00 2.00
p value=0.437
In the case of S3 “Students don’t want their teacher to correct their errors when they are speaking”, teachers responded more negatively than students when 90% of the surveyed teachers disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement in compared with 65.6% of students who disagreed. The percent of teachers and the percent of students who agreed with the statement were roughly the same. However, 14.9% students strongly agreed with the statement “I don’t want my teacher to correct my errors when I am speaking” whereas no teachers strongly agreed. The T test (Appendix G, p. 97) also revealed that the responses of teachers and students differed significantly at p =000 (Table 30) Thus, it seemed that most teachers believed their students wanted them to correct their mistakes while students seemed to expect teacher not to correct their mistakes and let them to speak more freely.
Table 29: Crosstabulation of S3 and groups
Group Total
Teacher Student
S3 Strongly disagree Count 2 39 41
% within group 9.5% 20.0% 19.0%
Disagree Count 15 89 104
% within group 71.4% 45.6% 48.1%
Undecided Count 1 9 10
% within group 4.8% 4.6% 4.6%
Agree Count 3 29 32
% within group 14.3% 14.9% 14.8%
Strongly agree Count 0 29 29
% within group .0% 14.9% 13.4%
Total Count 21 195 216
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 30: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S3
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 2.2381 .83095 2.00 2.00 Students 195 4.3077 .76502 2.00 2.00
p value=0.000
Responses to S4 showed that both teachers and students thought that phonological errors were the most important type of errors that should be corrected. However, teachers seemed to put more weight on phonological errors than students did when 81% of
surveyed teachers chose this type of errors compared with 65.1% of students who picked them. Consequently, students also expected their teachers to correct other types of errors with 13.3% wanted their teachers to correct syntactic errors, 6.7% hoped lexical errors to be corrected and 14.9% preferred their teachers to correct discourse errors. Yet, the T test (Appendix G, p. 97) showed that no significant differences were found between teacher’s responses and student’s responses as shown in Tables 31 and 32 (p value=0.584).
Table 31: Crosstabulation of S4-1 and groups
Group Total
Teacher Student
S4-1 Phonological errors Count 17 127 144
% within group 81.0% 65.1% 66.7%
Syntactic errors Count 0 26 26
% within group .0% 13.3% 12.0%
Lexical errors Count 0 13 13
% within group .0% 6.7% 6.0%
Discourse errors Count 4 29 33
% within group 19.0% 14.9% 15.3%
Total Count 21 195 216
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 32: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S4-1
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 1.5714 1.20712 1.00 1.00 Students 195 1.7128 1.11207 1.00 1.00
p value=0.584
Responses from S5, S6 and S7 in students’ questionnaires show that the majority of surveyed students (91.8%) preferred their teachers correcting their error immediately rather than delaying after the activity, therefore, most of them (87.2%) would feel
“normal” or “happy” if their teachers corrected the mistake immediately. The teachers, however, had different viewpoint about when to correct the mistakes. While nearly half of the teachers (48.6%) supported correcting immediately, nearly one- thirds of them (31.8%) preferred delayed correction. The means of S5 (4.30), S6 (3.15) and S7 (2.31) from student’s responses and the means of S5 (3.19), S6 (2.76) and S7 (3.05) from teacher’s responses show that students seemed to have more positive attitude towards immediately correction than teachers did.
Table 33: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by STUDENT group for S5, S6, and S7
N Mean Std. Deviation Median Mode
S5 195 4.3077 .76502 4.0000 4.00 S6 195 3.1487 .75535 3.0000 3.00
S7 195 2.3128 1.36585 3.0000 1.00 Table 34: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by TEACHER group for S5, S6, and S7
N Mean Std. Deviation Median Mode
S5 21 3.1905 1.32737 3.0000 2.00 S6 21 2.7619 1.26114 2.0000 2.00 S7 21 3.0476 1.35927 3.0000 4.00
When asked in the case the teacher found the error, how they would like teacher to deal with it, the first thing the majority of students wanted their teacher to do was to tell them clearly which part of the sentence was wrong, “teacher indicates there is something wrong, but not tell explicitly” was the second for most students and a lot of them did not like when teacher ignored the error when they ranked “teacher says nothing about the error” the third. Many of the teachers seemed to agree with their students with
the similar choices. Results of S8 from teacher’s questionnaires show that the great part of teachers seemed to agree with their students when most of them chose “tell explicitly”
first, then “indicates but not tell explicitly” second and “say nothing” the third.
However, nearly one-third of surveyed teachers believed that “indicates but not tell explicitly” was the best way and 9.5% of them thought “say nothing” should be ranked first. The T test (Appendix G, p. 97) revealed that teacher’s responses differed
significantly to student’s responses to S8 with the p value=0.000. Tables 35 and 36 showed the results of students’ and teachers’ first choice while Tables 37 and 38 showed the results of students’ and teachers’ second choice for S8.
Table 35: Crosstabulation of S8-1 and groups
Group
Teacher Student Total
Count 13 178 191
Teacher tells
explicitly % within group 61.9% 91.3% 88.4%
Count 6 15 21
Teacher indicates, but not tell
explicitly % within group
28.6% 7.7% 9.7%
Count 2 2 4
S 8-1
Teacher does not
say anything % within group 9.5% 1.0% 1.9%
Count 21 195 216
Total
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 36: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S8-1
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 1.4762 .67964 1.00 1.00 Students 195 1.0974 .33017 1.00 1.00
p value=0.000
Table 37: Crosstabulation of S8-2 and groups
Group
Teacher Student Total
Count 6 16 22
Teacher tells
explicitly % within group 28.6% 8.2% 10.2%
Count 12 169 181
Teacher indicates, but not tell
explicitly % within group
57.1% 86.7% 83.8%
Count 3 10 13
S 8-2
Teacher does not
say anything % within group 14.3% 5.1% 6.0%
Count 21 195 216
Total
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 38: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S8-2
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 1.8571 .65465 2.00 2.00 Students 195 1.9692 .36479 2.00 2.00
p value=0.225
Responses to S9, which asked students how they wanted an error to be corrected and asked teacher which was the best way to correct student’s errors, show that the majority of teachers and students expected “teacher gives the correct answers”. Yet, about one fourth of the teachers believed that “teacher should show the errors and let students correct” whereas only 12.3% of students favored this way of correction. In contrast, some students wished that their teacher asked a friend to help them correct while no teachers thought that they should. However, teacher’s beliefs and student’s
expectations about how to correct an error seemed to be compatible because no
significant differences were found between teacher’s responses and student’s responses (p value=0.261) (Appendix G, p. 97).
Table 39: Crosstabulation of S9 and groups
Group
Teacher Student Total
Count 15 163 178
Teacher gives
correct answers % within group 71.4% 83.6% 82.4%
Count 5 24 29
Teacher shows errors and let me
correct % within group
23.8% 12.3% 13.4%
Count 0 4 4
Teacher asks a
friend to correct % within group .0% 2.1% 1.9%
Count 1 4 5
S9
Others
% within group 4.8% 2.1% 2.3%
Count 21 195 216
Total
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 40: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S9
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 1.3810 .74001 1.00 1.00 Students 195 1.2256 .58359 1.00 1.00
p value=0.261
Responses to S10 “When someone made a mistake and teacher did not correct it, I think the reason is” show that the first thought of almost 41.5% students and 28.6%
teachers was “teacher wants us to speak freely” while 23.8% teachers and 11.3%
students thought that “teacher does not want to upset us”. Similarly, 19.0% teachers and 32.8% students thought that “teacher is busy” whereas 28.6% of teachers and 14.4% of students would think “teacher does not care”. Results from Table 41 reveal that 47.2%
students had negative attitude and 52.8% students had positive attitude towards non- correction whereas 47.6% teachers had negative attitude and 52.4% teachers had positive attitude. Similarly, responses from Table 43 show that the second thought of 47.2%
students was negative while 53.8% of them had positive attitude. Correspondingly,
42.9% teachers had negative attitude and 57.1% of them had positive attitude. Hence, teachers and students seemed to have the same attitude towards non-correction. The T test (Appendix G, p. 97) also revealed that there was no significant difference between student’s responses and teacher’s responses (p values =0.296 and =0.837)
Table 41: Crosstabulation of S10-1 and groups
Group
Teacher Student Total
Count 4 64 68
Teacher is busy
% within group 19.0% 32.8% 31.5%
Count 6 28 34
Teacher does not
care % within group
28.6% 14.4% 15.7%
Count 6 81 87
Teacher wants us to
speak freely % within group 28.6% 41.5% 40.3%
Count 5 22 27
S10-1
Teacher does not
want to upset us % within group 23.8% 11.3% 12.5%
Count 21 195 216
Total
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 42: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S10-1
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 2.5714 1.07571 3.00 3.00 Students 195 2.3179 1.05099 3.00 2.00
p value=0.296
Table 43: Crosstabulation of S10-2 and groups
Group
Teacher Student Total
Count 6 42 48
Teacher is busy
% within group 28.6% 21.5% 22.2%
Count 3 48 51
Teacher does not
care % within group
14.3% 24.6% 23.6%
Count 6 45 51
Teacher wants us to
speak freely % within group 28.6% 23.1% 23.6%
Count 6 60 66
S10-2
Teacher does not
want to upset us % within group 28.6% 30.8% 30.6%
Count 21 195 216
Total
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 44: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S10-2
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 2.5714 1.20712 3.00 4.00 Students 195 2.6256 1.13898 3.00 1.00
p value=0.837
Responses to S11 “Generally, I want my teacher let us speak freely without correction" and “Generally, I want to let my students speak freely without correction”
show that the majority of teachers (85.7%) and students (84.1%) strongly disagreed and disagreed with the statements. Yet, while 9.5% of surveyed teachers agreed with the statement, only 6.6% of surveyed students agreed with the statement. However, no significant differences were found between student’s responses and teacher’s responses as shown in Tables 45 and 46 (p value=0.904) (Appendix G, p. 97).
Table 45: Crosstabulation of S11 and groups
Group
Teacher Student Total
Count 4 41 45
Strongly disagree
% within group 19.0% 21.0% 20.8%
Count 14 123 137
Disagree
% within group 66.7% 63.1% 63.4%
Count 1 18 19
Undecided
% within group 4.8% 9.2% 8.8%
Count 2 11 13
Agree
% within group 9.5% 5.6% 6.0%
Count 0 2 2
S11
Strongly agree
% within group .0% 1.0% .9%
Count 21 195 216
Total
% within group 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%
Table 46: Mean, Standard Deviation, Median, Mode by teacher and student groups for S11
Group N Mean Std. Deviation Mean Mode Teachers 21 2.0476 .80475 2.00 2.00 Students 195 2.0256 .78934 2.00 2.00
p value=0.904
Therefore, the results of the study showed that the students and teachers seemed to believe that students were afraid of making errors and wanted their errors to be correct.
However, the surveyed teachers tended to think that their students were afraid of making errors when they spoke in class more than the students thought they were. Similarly, the teachers tended to believe that their students wanted the teachers to correct the students’
errors more than the students expected. The findings proved that teachers seemed to be worried about student’s errors and correction more than their students did. Accordingly, the findings did not support the findings of Ueno (2007) who found from his study that while teachers tended not to correct student’s errors because they did not want to make them embarrassed, students preferred their errors to be corrected more often. A possible explanation for this might be that some teachers were still affected by traditional ways of teaching which emphasize on accuracy and that teachers should help students to be
“accurate” all the time and if their students were wrong, it was their fault because they did not ‘teach” at all. However, a number of students also expected their teachers to correct their errors more often.
Both teachers and students agreed that phonological errors were the type of errors that should be corrected most because they both realized that phonological errors could hinder communication more than other types of errors in oral communicative activities.
Some teachers noted that it was because phonological errors were easily recognized when students spoke. Moreover, some students stated that “pronunciation” was not usually taught at schools, so they were not confident about their pronunciation and they admitted that they often made phonological mistakes.
The study found that most students expected that their teacher would correct their errors immediately while only half of the teachers supported immediate correction. This result can be explained by the fact that teachers had learned about Communicative Language Teaching and they were aware of the need of communication in learning and some of them tried to avoid distracting students or damaging their communication as suggested by Doff (1990), Edge (1990), Hadfield (1997), Harmer (1994). However, it was surprising that not all of the surveyed teachers had the same opinion about when to correct.
The majority of students preferred teachers to tell them explicitly about the errors and give them the correct answer. On the other hand, some teachers believed that they should give their students the chance to correct the mistakes themselves. This difference can be explained by the fact that students were still affected by “spoon feeding” tradition and they seemed not very confident and independent in their learning while teachers had approached some advanced teaching methods and hoped to give students the chance to correct the mistakes themselves as proposed by Harmer (1999) and Ur P (2000).
Responses from the survey showed that both teachers and students seemed to have positive attitude towards non-correction. However, there were nearly half of the teachers and students thought that “teacher is busy” or ‘teacher does not care” if teacher did not correct errors. Also, most students and teachers did not agree that students should be allowed to speak freely without correction.
In summary, both teachers and students thought that error correction was
important in oral communicative activities. The students tended to expect that their errors would be corrected immediately and the teachers tended to try to correct as many errors as they could in spite of the fact that they were taking part in oral communicative
activities. The results showed that the traditional method of teaching and learning which emphasized on accuracy still affected greatly on teachers and students. Although all teachers were aware of the necessity of using language as a means of communication, most of them seemed to worry a lot about student’s errors and their responsibility as a teacher who had to make things “right”.