Lee, I. (2005). Error correction in the L2 Writing Classroom: What do Students think? TESL Canada Journal, 22 (2), 1-25

Why did you correct my error?

In article Lee moves away from the commonly research focus, which mainly focuses on teachers’ feedback strategies and their effects on students writing. Lee argues that there is less research which focuses on students’ beliefs and attitudes about teachers’ feedback on errors.  The topic on error correction is one of the utmost controversial topics in the field of L2 writing. The question of whether we should or should not provide feedback to students’ writing is one which still needs an answer, if any. Nevertheless, if a teacher decides to provide feedback to students’ writing, which can be the most exhausting and time-consuming aspect of teachers’ work. It would be of great benefit for the teacher to know the students beliefs and attitudes with regard to the teachers’ feedback on errors. Evidence from numerous researches in the field of L2 writing indicates that students are eager to receive teachers’ feedback on their writing and believe that they benefit from it. However, there seem to be a variance between students’ preferences with regards to the type of error and the methods that teachers use in providing the feedback. Students’ preferences and expectations are often affected by their language learning environment. It seems students learning English in a foreign environment (EFL) expects teachers to provide grammatical and lexical feedback, as oppose to students learning English as a second language (ESL), who expects teachers to provide rhetorical organization and idea generation.  

Lee administered a questionnaire, which was in both Chinese and English to a total number of 320 high school students from eight secondary schools through a contact teacher in each school. The author also did a follow-up interview in Cantonese with a selected number of students in order to find out whether certain questions might be difficult or unclear.  Lee in agreement with other researchers’ found that students wished their teachers to mark and correct errors for them. Students also believed that error correction was primarily the teacher’s responsibility. He found that there was no gap between teachers’ feedback methods and students’ preferences in error correction. Most of the students preferred comprehensive feedback as oppose to selective error feedback. The students believed that writing must be entirely error free. I think this believe is detrimental to students learning process, because if students focus on writing an error free piece of writing they might limit their creativity and sound artificial. I also think certain errors may never disappear. Another finding that was of interest to me is students did not believe they were making a great deal of progress despite teachers’ error feedback. I find this quite interesting; because I feel sometimes L2 writing teachers put so much effort in providing feedback to students because they feel it will help students gain accuracy.    

Overall, I found this article quite informative, because pedagogical I think it will be of great benefit if students appreciate and understand the types of feedback methods or techniques teachers use when providing writing feedback to students. This will help teachers save time and energy. However, I think most students will probable appreciate whatever feedback technique a teacher choose to use, because it might be the only one they are exposed to and think it is the best or only technique available. I also find it interesting that the learning environment plays a role in determining the type of feedback students prefer. I think this will help teachers to kind of have a starting point when trying to determine the type of feedback students might appreciate. However, teachers should be cautious, and not assume the same apply to all or most of the students.