ABSTRACT
Itseemscommonnowtoreadthaterrorsarecrucialtolanguage learners(seeDulayandBurt1974)becauselearnerslearn,itis argued,byforminghypothesesaboutthetargetlanguageandby testingtheirhypothesestodestruction.Itisclearfromstudiesof rule-learningbyhypothesisformationandtesting(seeWason1971) thatnegativeinstancesarefarmoreinformativethanpositive instancesandthereforeerror-making(thecreationofnegative instances)wouldappearcrucialtolanguagelearning.
