Self-correction Strategies Employed in Spoken English by Chinese First-year College EFL

Abstract

          The purpose of this study is to examine whether first-year Chinese college students correct their oral English, how they show their performance or behavior of error recognitionand self-correction in their English speaking, and how they correct their speaking errors. Mixed research methods were used in this research and English language samples were recorded and transcribed from 17 samples at Yunnan Agriculture University in China. The quantitative data were used to display the results of the English speaking to answer research question one; the qualitative data from content analysis was used to answer question two and three. The data collection methods are missing The signs of error recognition and self-correction in the language samples were identified, counted, analyzed, and interpreted. The findings reveal that firstly, most informants demonstrated their signs of error recognition with three physical types of productions: repetiti=on before correction, immediate correction, and meaningless utterances before correcting. Secondly, the informants not only corrected linguistic errors, but also tried to increase their speaking contents’ comprehensibility. These results indicate that most Chinese college students can be identified as “Monitor over-users”. Consequently, in order to improve their speaking English, focusing on students’ behaviors of error recognition and self-correction by English teachers, as well as learning more about the students’ needs are necessary.