英语论文网

hers were 12 females and 8 males. Whereas for the inclusion of the students in the study certain criterion had to be met – students had to be advanced – no criterion was used in selecting the teachers for the study. They were teaching classes of different levels of proficiency and were selected randomly.
Instrumentation

Student’s survey. The survey consisted of a 25-item questionnaire which started with personal questions about educational and language background of the students and continued with items about their beliefs, desires and attitudes in learning. Since the respondents were advanced learners of English and it was assumed that they would have no problem understanding the language, the questionnaire was given in English. In fact, the questionnaire had been originally developed by one of authors as a “first session questionnaire” for the purpose of eliciting the needs, wants and desires of learners and had been revised over different administration. The questionnaire was designed in a way that through the initial questions, the learners were required to have an evaluation of themselves and were then directed towards expressing their beliefs and opinions about their learning. The questionnaire included different topics but items 16, 17 and 18 were particularly embedded in the questionnaire to address our research questions:
16. On a scale of 1 to 5 where “1” means not important at all, “5” means extremely important and “3” means moderately important, how important do you think it is to receive feedback on errors in your writing assignments?

Not important at all a b c d e Extremely important

17. How would you like the errors in your writing be treated?

All the errors should be corrected

There is no need to correct all the errors (only important errors should be corrected)

18. Who do you think should correct the errors in your writings?

1.Yourself

2.Teacher

3.Your peers (classmates)

There were also some other items included in the questionnaire which were used for the purpose of this study. One asked whether they revised their papers after receiving feedback. Another asked the learners to evaluate their progress in writing where the learners had to check whether that are making no, some, or good progress in L2 writing. Another item whose results were analyzed and used was the one which asked the learners which skill they consider as their weakest. Some items were designed in a way to cross-check one another. For instance the answers to item 16 were verified by the answers to item 24:
24. Do you like to receive feedback on the errors in your writings?

? Yes

? No

Teacher’s survey. A short questionnaire was used to collect teachers’ opinions. First they had to express their opinion as to whether they think L2 writing error correction should be done at all or not. In order to cross-check their answers to this question, an item was included in the questionnaire which asked whether they think that error correction is harmful and should be abolished. They were also required to state whether they think they should correct all the students’ writing errors. The final item sought teachers’ opinion as to who is responsible for correction of the errors – teachers, learners or their peers.

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