Research progress report

For my final project I really wanted to explore the topic of error correction in writing. My goal for this project was to understand what types of error correction strategies, whether teacher or student, can a language teacher foster in order to have a classroom conductive to developing good writing skills. Because the topic of error correction is very broad, I just want to focus on the following question “what type of teacher feedback on error correction is most effective in improving the writing skill of ELL”. I want to explore this topic from the perspective of an ESL class.

1.      Reid, Joy M.Folse, Keith S. (2008) Writing myths :applying second language research to  classroom teaching Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press,

This first source is what motivated me to explore the topic of teacher feedback on writing. There are eight chapters in the book but I only looked at chapter 5 by Ferris. Although this chapter lead me to my research question, I do not believe it answers my research question because it focus more on acts students can do to improve their writing and not the teacher.

2.      Gray, R. R. (2000). Grammar correction in ESL/EFL Writing classes may not be effective.

This second source explores a research done by Robb, Ross and Shortreed which looked at four types of grammar corrections that were used on Japanese students and compared the result to see if they had an influence on the students' writings over time. The results showed that at the end of the course, no significant differences existed between all the groups in terms of accuracy.

3.      Lee,I.(1997). ESL learners’ performance in error correction writing: Some implications for teaching. System, 25(4) 465-77

The article explores three common assumptions behind ESL teachers’ error correction practices, but I was mostly interested in two; overt correction is helpful and all errors deserve equal attention. Based on the reading done in class, we know that this is not the case. Some errors may deserve more attention than others. This idea is also reiterated in this article. As for the first assumption, the article concluded that error feedback may be more desirable than overt correction.