1. The Self-Monitoring of Articles and Verbs in ESL Written Production.
- Author
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Schwarte, Barbara and Matsumura-Lothrop, Emiko
- Abstract
A study analyzed the ability of 31 advanced students of English as a Second Language (ESL) to monitor their own use of article and verb errors in their compositions. Subjects were 31 foreign graduate students enrolled in an advanced composition course at Iowa State University. The two categories of grammatical errors were monitored in three successive steps: (1) immediately after production and without prompting; (2) one class meeting after production; and (3) two class meetings after production, with prompting. Data were drawn from students' initial and final compositions. Students were encouraged to correct their compositions (monitoring), but were not given teacher corrections until the third monitoring session. Results indicate that 25% of verb errors and 15% of article errors were detected and corrected without teacher prompting. About half of unprompted monitoring occurred immediately after production. Article errors were monitored accurately more frequently than were verb errors, and both kinds of correction were more accurate when unprompted. About 80% were able to make at least one unprompted correction. Subjects using the monitoring procedure throughout the semester showed a decrease in verb errors but not article errors. (MSE)
- Published
- 1987