Faculty Publications

To Err Is Human: A Reminder To Teachers Of Language-Anxious Students

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Foreign Language Annals

Volume

36

Issue

1

First Page

25

Last Page

32

Abstract

This interview study examined the reactions of anxious and nonanxious foreign language learners to their own errors. Native Spanish-speaking students were videotaped twice: First as they took part in an English-language conversation with the researcher and then as they watched themselves in the taped interview. An analysis of the participants' English interactions and responses to their own oral performances indicated that anxious and nonanxious students differed in their ability to recognize their errors and in their reactions to making errors. Specifically, anxious learners made more errors, corrected themselves and code switched more frequently, overestimated the number of errors that they made, and recognized fewer errors in a stimulated recall situation. The implications for choosing errorxc-correction techniques are discussed.

Department

Department of English Language and Literature

Original Publication Date

1-1-2003

DOI of published version

10.1111/j.1944-9720.2003.tb01929.x

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