A study on error correction to reduce learning anxiety in oral communication in EFL classes

The purpose of this study is to investigate EFL students? preferences of error correction strategies in oral communication and the extent to which their preferences are affected by the anxiety levels of the students. This study is conducted at three state universities with the participation of 266 students from the department of ELT in Turkey. Three sets of data were collected through three instruments. The first set of data was collected through the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) questionnaire. The subjects in the study were first asked to complete FLCAS to assess their general language anxiety level. Then they were categorized into three different anxiety levels: low, medium and high. The aim of categorizing the subjects into three different anxiety levels is to determine whether the students? preferences of error correction methods change according to their anxiety levels. The second set of data was collected through Chaudron?s (1988) taxonomy concerning error correction strategies which was a list of 27 error correction methods and the third set of data was collected by two open ended questions with regard to the types of errors that learners preferred to be corrected and person who provides correction. The analyses of the quantitative data reveal that nearly half of the students (43.8%) believe the corrections of pronunciation errors are important for them. Moreover, the results also indicate that the majority (62.1%) of the students prefer their teachers to correct their errors during oral communication. In addition, the results indicate that there is significant relationship between student?s preferences of error correction methods and their anxiety levels. All students with low levels of anxiety prefer to be corrected explicitly, they prefer some correction technique in which the teacher supplies the correct answer. Whereas some students with mediumand high levels of anxiety feel better when they are corrected implicitly, these students prefer the error correction technique in which their teacher shows the place of error and gives a clue about how to correct it. Keywords: Foreign language anxiety, English language teaching, error correction.