Error Correction in the Early Stages of Second Language Learning

Some studies suggest that teacher feedback on ESL/EFL students’ writing is not all the time effective (Hendrickson, 1980; Semke, 1984; Robb et. al, 1986; Truscott, 1996). Ka Ping (2004) examined the factors that affect the effectiveness of teacher feedback by analyzing students’ preferences for teacher feedback in their writing. Red marked corrections by teachers are often discarded by the learners and the same mistakes are most likely to be made the next time they sit for a composition. The checklist comes here as a solution to help students self-edit their errors in their writing in order to produce a final draft. The present research supports what is seen as an efficient way of making the corrections, i.e. providing learners with error checklists for their first draft for purposes of re-writing that draft and giving a final draft to be corrected by the teacher. In this sense, the learner would be self-assessing him/herself. Two groups of 25 students participated in the study. The checklist was administered to one group of students for one semester. The experimental group performed better in the final exam test. I conclude that the use of the checklist is very beneficial in the noticing and avoidance of errors in writing.