The Types and Effects of the Teacher's Error Treatments in EFL classes

随着最近对沟通的重视，在课堂上纠正错误可能被认为是不必要的。然而，第二语言学习者，尤其是年龄较大的学习者，可以从老师的负面反馈中受益。为学习者的中介语发展提供适当的反馈是语言教师职责的重要组成部分。错误处理研究的最终目标是实证地证明不同类型的错误处理对习得的认知和情感影响。然而，在我们开始进行雄心勃勃的实证验证之前，首先有必要调查教师使用了哪些错误处理方案，使用频率如何，以及在实践中影响其使用的因素。这种关于错误处理的描述性工作将帮助我们找到有意义的问题来解决，帮助我们在课堂上更明智、更有原则地使用错误处理。为了提供关于初任教师错误处理行为的描述性数据，我们对41节初任教师讲授的初中英语课进行了转录和分析。调查结果如下：(1)错误发生的平均频率极低，这是由于过度使用语法解释和重复练习造成的；(2)最常见的错误是语法、词汇和发音错误；(3)所犯错误中只有一小部分被忽略；(4)机械英语练习中直接提供正确答案的处理方式比自我纠正的处理方式使用得更多。(5)在交际实践中，非中断式错误处理比中断式错误处理使用得更多，但只有少数被试使用前者。(6)部分“提供答案”类型和部分“自我纠正”类型的短期效果较好，成功地诱导了学生的正确回答。

With the recent emphasis on communication, error correction might be considered unnecessary in the classroom. However, second language learners, older learners in particular, can benefit from receiving negative feedback from the teacher. It is an important part of the language teachers responsibility to provide appropriate feedback for the learner's interlanguage development.The final, yet far distant, goal of error treatment research is to empirically prove the cognitive and affective effects of different kinds of error treatment on acquisition. However, before we can set out on the ambitious undertaking of empirical verification, it is first necessary to investigate what error treatment options are used by teachers, how often they are used, and what factors influence their use in practice. Such descriptive work on error treatments will help us find meaningful questions to tackle, helping us aim towards more informed and principled uses of error treatments in the classroom.In an attempt to provide descriptive data on novice teachers' error treatment behaviors, 41 junior high school English lessons taught by student teachers were transcribed and analyzed. The findings were as follows ; (1) the average frequency of error occurrence was extremely low, which turned out to be due to the overuse of grammatical explanations and repetitive drills, (2) the most frequent errors observed were errors in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, (3) only a small portion of the errors committed was ignored, (4)treatment types for mechanical English practice which directly provided correct answers were used more than self-corrective treatments, (5) for communication practice non-interruptive types of error treatment were more used than interruptive types, but only a limited number of the subjects used the former types. (6) Some of "Answer Provision" types and some of "Self-correction" types showed better short-term effects, successfully eliciting corrected responses from students.