Oral Error Correction in the Foreign Language Classroom: Students’ Attitudes

This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of tenth grade male and female students in public schools in Southern Almazar district towards teachers’ correction of their oral errors. The study also aimed to investigate the students’ attitudes towards the types of errors corrected by their teachers in the EFL classroom. This study is a descriptive analytical study that used a five likert scale questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of (25) items. It was checked for validity and reliability prior to distributing it to the students. The participants of the study were 342 male and female students from public schools in southern Almazar district. After obtaining the data, the results were analyzed statistically through mean scores, standard deviations, t-test and Levenes’ test. The results of the study showed that participants both male and female have positive attitudes towards oral error correction, results also showed that the participants have a positive attitude towards the different types of errors corrected namely, lexical, pronunciation and grammatical errors respectively. There were no significant statistical difference at (a≤0.05) in students’ attitudes towards oral error correction in the classroom due to gender, and no significant statistical difference in students’ attitudes towards the types of errors corrected by their teachers due to gender. The conclusion is that students want and need their teachers to correct their oral errors whether these errors are lexical, pronunciation or grammatical errors. Making errors is a natural part of the process of learning a foreign language. Teachers should use the best techniques to make students feel at ease for being corrected. Recommendations include conducting research to investigate teachers’ attitudes towards error correction of students’ oral errors. Keywords: Error Correction; oral error correction, learners’ Attitudes