A Study On The Error Correction Attitude And Behavior Of Novice Junior Middle School English Teachers In Class

In the process of learning English,junior middle school students inevitably make language errors.So error correction becomes a very important part of English classroom teaching.And the error correction attitude and behavior of teachers in the classroom must have a certain impact on students’ language learning.Now researches at home and abroad mainly focus on the relationship between error correction feedback and second language acquisition,the effectiveness of error correction feedback and the comparison of teachers’ and students’ preferences.However,there are few studies on the attitude and behavior of novice English teachers in junior middle school English classrooms.Based on the theories of Corder’s Error Analysis theory,and Long’s Interaction Hypothesis and Krashen’s Affective Filtering Hypothesis,this study chooses 6 novice English teachers in Chongqing who have been working for less than 3 years as the research objects.This article also selects these teachers’ listening and speaking classes for observation,and conducts a questionnaire survey and interview to the 6 novice teachers after class.This paper intends to do the following researches:1.The attitude of novice junior middle school English teachers towards error correction in class.2.The error correction behavior of novice English teachers in junior middle school class.3.The relationship between the attitude and behavior of novice junior middle school English teachers in classroom error correction.The empirical research findings are summarized below:1.On the dimension of novice teachers’ attitude towards error correction in the classroom.About whether to correct,novice teachers have a positive attitude towards error correction;about which error should be correct,some novice teachers strongly support all of the errors should be corrected.And the phonetic errors,lexical errors and grammatical errors are regarded by other novice teachers as the most important errors that should be corrected in class;about when to correct,all of the novice teachers prefer immediate error correction or delayed error correction no matter what kind of errors students make;about who to correct,novice teachers are most inclined to teacher correction and self-correction,but all of them ignore peer correction;about how to correct,in teachers’ attitude,they are more likely to use indirect way to deal with students’ errors,like elicitation,repetition and so on;about the effects of error correction,most teachers feel satisfied with the effects of error correction.2.On the dimension of novice teachers’ behavior towards error correction in the classroom.About whether to correct,the novice teachers actively treat all kinds of errors in class and correct them with a high frequency;about which error should be correct,novice teachers are also very active in correcting students’ all of the errors.In contrast,they are less active in correcting students’ phonetic errors;about when to correct,novice teachers more frequently use immediate error correction and delayed error correction.But they still use the postponed error correction from time to time;about who to correct,no matter what kind of errors students make,teachers are almost more inclined to use teacher correction in class;about how to correct,the novice teachers use recast more in class.3.On the dimension of the relationship between novice teacher’s error correction attitude and behavior.About whether to correct,the attitude and behavior of novice teachers towards correction for every kind of error are very positive;about which error should be correct,it can be found that most teachers’ attitude coincides with their behavior;about when to correct,it can be found that the attitude and behavior of novice teachers are somewhat inconsistent.In the attitude,the teacher ignores the postponed error correction,but it is used in the actual error correction process;about who to correct,no matter in the attitude or behavior of novice teachers,they are most inclined to teacher correction and self-correction.But there is still a gap between attitude and behavior.For example,in the attitude of error correction,teachers do not consider peer correction,but use it in the actual process;about how to correct,the error correction behavior of the novice teachers in class deviates from the teachers’ attitude.In teachers’ attitude,they are more likely to use indirect way to deal with students’ errors,like elicitation,repetition and so on.But in actual class,novice teachers use recast more.Based on the above research findings,this study makes the following suggestions for novice English teachers:1.Novice teachers should reflect on whether their error correction behavior is reasonable,such as: whether they hurt the self-esteem of students and reduce the self-confidence of the students in English learning.2.Novice teachers should reflect and compare the deviations between their actual error correction behavior and their attitude in order to better teach.3.Novice teachers should enrich the error correction methods.4.Novice teachers should give students more opportunities to correct their own errors.