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ance at this point was to catalog the reasons they set out, and look for the similarities and recurring patterns, and try to combine related ideas and render them in several statements. The teachers’ interviews were of a more delicate nature since the interviews were unstructured, and the issues raised and discussed were various.

The responses of the teachers were classified under four general headings. The first group concerned the actual practice of teachers in their classrooms in relation to error correction. The second set was about the teachers’ personal belief and opinion about their practice. Teachers’ ideas about the corresponding research findings in the literature were collected under the third set. Finally, their ideas about the best and ideal way of error correction in terms of comprehensiveness were drawn together under the fourth heading. For one thing, this could facilitate the search for recurring patterns of response. For another, by so doing, the whole ideas of the teachers could be analyzed and subsequently reported in a more systematic manner.

Results

Error correction in L2 writing has become a heated topic of enquiry for ELT researchers which has yet remained unresolved. The main controversy concerns what Ferris (2004) refers to as the “big question” (p. 50): Does error feedback help L2 student writers? The number of studies addressing this question is increasing, but serious reservations can still be expressed nonetheless as to the utility of error feedback in L2 writing. Whereas different studies have sought to find an all-embracing answer to the query, what is critical is their failure to tackle all of the issues that can be argued to relate to the enquiry.

In fact, what seems to be missing in most of the studies examining the question is the significance of what learners think. The present study was therefore conducted first to address this “lost chain” and help propose a utilitarian resolution for the dispute between those in favor of error correction and those against it. As its second objective, the study tried to address the comprehensive/selective debate, and suggest a “preference utilitarian” compromise which can bring about, as much as possible, the satisfaction of individual preferences of those involved.

The results of the student’s survey revealed that, in effect, all the learners wanted the errors in their writings be corrected. Also, all of the students interviewed believed that error correction is necessary and that it can help them in the process of learning.

It was also found from the survey that some 90 percent of the learners believed that their errors in a writing task should be corrected comprehensively. The typical snap response to the interviewer’s question on the reason of this belief was “I want/like to know all of my errors”. They usually continued with statements such as “I feel more confident when I know all my errors” and “I can learn more this way” or some other related explanations for their choice.

Peripheral though as it may be to the main purpose of the study, it was somewhat surprising to learn that while they did not have a negative opinion of their peers and peer-correction in general, all but one of the learners uttered that even when their writings are corrected by their peers, they would like to have it supplemented by their teacher’s feedback.
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