4. CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
4.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 2: TEACHERS’VIEWPOINTS
This section presents the teacher’s viewpoints about error correction in oral communicative activities. The results will be organized by statements. Teacher’s
comments will be added after the result of each statement to give more details about their responses.
In responding to S1 “I think my students are not afraid of making errors when they are speaking in class”, over half of the teachers (57.1%) participated in the study disagreed with the statement whereas 33.4% of them agreed and 9.5% undecided.
Teachers 6,7 and 8 added that their students were too shy or unconfident, so they tended
to have a negative attitude towards making mistakes, they thought that if they made a lot of mistakes, other students would laugh at them. However, Teachers 12, 20 and 21 who agreed with the statement believed that their students were shy at the beginning of the course, so teachers should encourage them, after some time, they would feel more confident to speak.
Table 14: S1 I think my students are not afraid of making errorswhen they are speaking in class
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Disagree 12 57.1 57.1 57.1 Undecided 2 9.5 9.5 66.7 Agree 6 28.6 28.6 95.2 Strongly agree 1 4.8 4.8 100.0
Total 21 100.0 100.0
The result from Table 15 shows that three teachers (14.3%) believed that their students would be unhappy when they made a mistake, 12 teachers (57.1%) thought that their students felt “embarrassed” and five of them (23.8%) considered they would feel
“normal”. Teacher 21 added that low-level students were embarrassed when they made a mistake, but the high-level students knew that making errors was normal and they did not feel embarrassed any more.
Table 15: S2 when my students make an error, they feel:
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Unhappy 3 14.3 14.3 14.3 Embarrassed 12 57.1 57.1 71.4 Normal 5 23.8 23.8 95.2 Others 1 4.8 4.8 100.0 Total 21 100.0 100.0
As shown in the results from S1 and S2, the majority of surveyed teachers believed that their students were afraid of making errors and they seemed to have
negative attitude towards making errors, hence, 80.9% of the teachers disagreed with the statement and thought that their students wanted them to correct the mistakes. Only three teachers (14.3%) agreed that their students did not want them to correct their errors when they were speaking in class (Table 16). Teacher 6 added that students were happy when they were corrected because they could learn something from teacher’s correction.
Teacher 12 believed that students wanted to be corrected, but how teacher corrected was very important because if this was not done tactfully teachers could discourage them.
Similarly, Teacher 7 stated that if teacher corrected too much, he/she could discourage their students and they would not want to speak any more. Teacher 20 added that teacher should tell students about correction at the beginning of the course; otherwise, students would feel really bad when they were corrected. Teacher 21 believed that it would depend on student’s personality.
Table 16: S3 My students don’t want me to correct their errorswhen they are speaking in class
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Strongly disagree 2 9.5 9.5 9.5
Disagree 15 71.4 71.4 81.0 Undecided 1 4.8 4.8 85.7 Agree 3 14.3 14.3 100.0 Total 21 100.0 100.0
In responding to S4 which asked them to rank the type of errors should be corrected, phonological errors were ranked in the first place by the majority of surveyed teachers, 17 of them (81.0%). Syntactic and lexical errors were ranked in the second place by almost one third of the participants. However, nearly half of the teachers, 42.9%
ranked lexical errors in the third place and over one third of the surveyed teachers
(38.1%) believed that syntactic errors and discourse errors should be ranked in the fourth
place. The majority of the teachers (Teacher 7, 15, 19, 20 and 21) commented that they needed to correct phonological errors because these were the most frequent errors made by their students. Moreover, if students wanted to be understood when they spoke, they should pronounce a word correctly. However, Teachers 15, 19, 20 and 21 added that they did not correct any phonological errors. Instead, they corrected the errors that most students made, such as “ending sounds”, “consonant sounds” and some particular words that are pronounced incorrectly by many students like “because”, “shower”, etc.
Table 17: S4 Among these types of errors: phonological errors, syntactic errors, lexical errors, discourse errors, I think the errors need to be corrected most are:
N=21 0 missing Phonological
errors Syntactic errors Lexical errors Discourse errors
Count 17 0 0 4 First
choice Percent 81.0 0 0 19.0
Count 4 7 7 3 Second
Choice Percent 19.0 33.3 33.3 14.3
Count 0 6 9 6 Third
Choice Percent 0 28.6 42.9 28.6
Count 0 8 5 8 Fourth
Choice Percent 0 38.1 23.8 38.1
Count 21 21 21 21 Total
Percent 100 100 100 100
Table 18 presents the result of S5: the number of surveyed teachers who agreed with the statement was the same as the number of participants who disagreed: 28.6% for each group. There were also 14.3% of the teachers who neither agreed nor disagreed. The result showed that teachers had different viewpoints about when to correct the errors.
Teachers 6 and 7 explained that if they delayed after the activities, students would forget the errors and next time, they would make the errors again. Teacher 15 added that he corrected immediately because students should get familiar with interruption when they
were speaking, even it was for correction. Teachers 8 and 21, however, believed that if they corrected immediately, students would be distracted. Moreover, if correcting after the activities, they had the chance to explain the errors and everybody in the class, not only the student who made the mistake, could learn from the errors. Teachers 8, 12, 19 and 20 stated that it would depend on the activity. Teacher 20 explained that if students were working in pairs, she would go around and help them to correct the mistakes immediately, but if it was a presentation, she would wait until the speaker finished, then explain the errors to the whole class. Other teachers maintained that they only corrected immediately if the error was too serious that other students could not understand.
Table 18: S5 Correcting immediately is more effective than delaying after the activity.
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Strongly disagree 2 9.5 9.5 9.5
Disagree 6 28.6 28.6 38.1 Undecided 3 14.3 14.3 52.4 Agree 6 28.6 28.6 81.0 Strongly agree 4 19.0 19.0 100.0
Total 21 100.0 100.0
In responding to S6 My students don’t want me to correct immediately, the result showed that more than half of the surveyed teachers, 61.9%, believed that their students wanted them to correct immediately whereas 23.8% of the participants thought that their students did not want immediate correction. Three teachers (14.3%) remained undecided.
Table 19: S6My students don’t want me to correct immediately
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Strongly disagree 1 4.8 4.8 4.8
Disagree 12 57.1 57.1 61.9 Undecided 3 14.3 14.3 76.2 Agree 1 4.8 4.8 81.0 Strongly agree 4 19.0 19.0 100.0
Total 21 100.0 100.0
The finding from S7 My students will not remember the mistakes if they are corrected after the activityalso demonstrates the variety in teacher’s responses to “when to correct”: nine teachers (42.9%) believed that their students would remember the mistakes while ten teachers (47.6%) thought that their students would not remember the mistakes. Two teachers (9.5%) neither disagreed nor agreed. Teacher 21 supposed the students still remembered because it usually took students about five minutes to do their presentation, so when teacher reminded them about the mistakes, they would remember.
Table 20: S7 My students will not remember the errors if they are corrected after the activity N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Strongly disagree 3 14.3 14.3 14.3
Disagree 6 28.6 28.6 42.9 Undecided 2 9.5 9.5 52.4 Agree 7 33.3 33.3 85.7 Strongly agree 3 14.3 14.3 100.0
Total 21 100.0 100.0
Thus, the results from S5, S6 and S7 indicated that there were different teachers’
viewpoints regarding the question “when to correct”: while some teachers believed that it was good to correct immediately, other teachers preferred delaying after the activity. The number of teachers who supported immediate correction was almost equal to the number of teachers who opposed.
Tables 21 and 22 provide the results from S8 and S9, which were about how teacher should correct the errors. The best way which 61.9% of the respondents chose was “teachers should tell explicitly which part of the sentences was wrong”, 27.3% of the participants preferred “teachers should indicate that there was something wrong but do not tell explicitly” and 10.0% of the surveyed teachers thought that “teachers should say
nothing” and let students speak freely. In general, most surveyed teachers ranked
“teacher tells explicitly” as the best way, “teacher indicates but not tell explicitly” at the second place and “teacher does not say anything” at the third place. Similarly, the result from S9 indicates that more than two-thirds of the participants believed that “teacher should give the correct answers” while 23.8% thought that “teacher should show the error and let students correct it themselves”. None of the respondents chose “teacher should ask another student to correct the error”. Teacher 6 added that her students did not usually recognize the errors, even after she had indicated, so she corrected the error and asked the student to reproduce it. Teacher 9 stated that she always indicated first, if the student still could not recognize, she would tell them. Teachers 7 and 21 supposed that it would depend on the mistakes: students could correct some kinds of errors themselves, but teacher had to give the correct answers for some other types. None of surveyed teachers asked another student to help correct errors. Teacher 8 explained that students did not believe other students, they just believed teachers, so they did not think that they were wrong and other were right. Teacher 15 supposed that students would not recognize other students’ errors, so he never asked them to correct. Teachers 12,19 and 20 believed that teachers should be careful when asking another student to help them correct because students may feel “lose face” when being corrected by other students.
In general, the findings showed that the participants believed that teacher should be the person who helped correct students’ errors and that they should give the correct answer rather than letting students to find out the mistakes and help each other in correcting them.
Table 21: S8 When I find an error, I think I should
N=21 0 missing Teacher tells explicitly Teacher indicates, but
not tell explicitly Teacher doesn’t say anything
Count 13 6 2
First
choice Percent 61.9 27.3 10.0
Count 6 12 3
Second
Choice Percent 28.6 54.5 15.0
Count 2 4 15
Third
Choice Percent 9.5 18.2 75.0
Count 21 21 21
Total
Percent 100 100 100
Table 22: S9 If the errors should be corrected, I think I should
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Teacher gives the correct
answers 15 71.4 71.4 71.4 Teacher shows the errors and
let students correct 5 23.8 23.8 95.2 Others 1 4.8 4.8 100.0 Total 21 100.0 100.0
As can be seen from Table 23, the result of S10 which asked surveyed teachers to rank what their students think if someone made an error and teacher did not correct, the first thing which 11 surveyed teachers (52.4%) believed was that “because teacher want them to speak freely or do not want to upset them”. However, 10 other respondents (47.8%) supposed that their students would think that their teacher did not care what they were speaking or they were so busy and could not recognize their errors. The second thought of 57.2% was also positive, because teacher wanted them to speak freely or did not want to upset them while 42.8% of the participants had negative belief “teacher does not care what we are speaking” or “teacher is too busy”.
Table 23: S10 If my students make an error and I don’ t correct it,my students might think the reason is
N=21 0 missing Teacher is busy Teacher does not
care Teacher wants us
to speak freely Teacher does not want to upset us
Count 4 6 6 5
First
choice Percent 19.0 28.6 28.6 23.8
Count 6 3 6 6
Second
Choice Percent 28.6 14.3 28.6 28.6
Count 6 6 5 4
Third
Choice Percent 28.6 28.6 23.8 19.0
Count 5 6 4 6
Fourth
Choice Percent 23.8 28.6 19.0 28.6
Count 21 21 21 21 Total
Percent 100 100 100 100
Table 24 presents the result of S11“Generally, I want to let my students speak freely without correction”: the majority of those who responded to the questionnaire, 85.7%, disagreed with the statement, only a small number of participants (9.5%) agreed and one of them, 4.8% neither disagreed or agreed. Teachers 6 and 8 explained that correcting errors was teacher’s duty, so they could not let her students speak the wrong thing. Teachers 7,19, and 20 stated that if teacher did not correct, students would continue to say in the wrong way and it meant that they made no progress in their studies. Teacher 21, however, said that students should be allowed to speak freely but only in limited time and limited section of the activity, other time, teacher should help them to correct so that they could be understood by other students.
Table 24: S11 Generally, I want to let my students speak freely without correction
N=21 0 missing Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Strongly disagree 4 19.0 19.0 19.0
Disagree 14 66.7 66.7 85.7 Undecided 1 4.8 4.8 90.5 Agree 2 9.5 9.5 100.0 Total 21 100.0 100.0
Hence, the results showed that nearly two-thirds of surveyed teachers believed that their students were afraid of making errors when they spoke in class and they would feel “embarrassed” or “unhappy” when they made an error. As a result, most of them thought that their students would want them to correct the students’ errors when they were speaking in class. Therefore, the results showed that teachers seemed to worry a lot about student’s errors and they tended to believe that correction was very important and if they did not correct, they did not fulfill their responsibility as a teacher.
Phonological errors were the type of errors that the majority of teachers believed they should correct because some teachers stated that in speaking, phonological errors made the speech incomprehensible. However, this finding was different from Huynh Thi Thu Suong (2006) when she found that teachers treated lexical errors, grammatical errors and discourse errors more than phonological errors. A possible explanation for this might be that this study focused on oral communicative activities when students were involved in speaking tasks and the surveyed teachers believed that phonological errors could hinder communication rather than other types of errors.
Responses from the study also revealed that the surveyed teachers did not agree with each other about when to correct the error. The number of teachers thought that correcting immediately was better than delaying after the activity was almost the same as the number of teachers who supported delayed correction. The teachers who supported delayed correction stated that they did not want their students to be distracted by their correction and they did not want to miss other mistakes, which corroborates with
Littlewood (1991) and Edge (1990)’s suggestions. However, the finding did not support
Huynh Thi Thu Suong’s study (2006) when she noticed that teachers preferred immediate treatment than delayed one.
The majority of the teachers believed that if they found an error, they should tell their students clearly and they should give them the correct answer rather than let their students correct the error themselves or ask a friend to help them correct. However, some teachers thought that they should let students to correct the mistakes themselves. Nearly half of the surveyed teachers thought that if they did not correct the errors, their students would think that “teacher is busy” or “teacher does not care” while more than half of them believed their students would think “teacher wants us to speak freely” or “teacher does not want to upset us”. The majority of teachers who responded to the questionnaire did not want to let their students speak freely without correction.