ABSTRACT
As previously noted, the earliest L2 research on response to student writing dealt almost entirely with error correction, defined by Truscott (1996) as “correction of grammatical errors for the purpose of improving a student’s ability to write accurately” (p. 329). Depending on the instructional context, Truscott’s definition can be broadened to include lexical errors, including word choice, word form, and collocations, and mechanical errors such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and typing conventions. Between 1976 and 1986, there was a fair amount of research activity on questions related to error feedback (and related instructional issues) in L2 writing classes. Many of the studies discussed and analyzed in this chapter were published during this time period. From 1986 to 1996, there are few published studies on this topic, due no doubt to the prominence of the process-writing paradigm in ESL writing classes at the time with its consequent de-emphasizing of sentence-level accuracy issues (see chapter 1). In addition, as is discussed later in this chapter, a number of L1 and L2 researchers and reviewers concluded that error correction was ineffective as a means of improving student writing. These two factors-a powerful pedagogical model that actively discouraged a focus on form and a conflicting and somewhat discouraging research base-may well have convinced
would-be error correction researchers that error correction in L2 writing was a “dead” issue, as out of vogue as previously trendy L2 teaching approaches like the Silent Way and Suggestopedia (or what Brown [1994] calls “The designer methods of the spirited seventies”).
