ERROR TREATMENT BY EXPERIENCED AND INEXPERIENCED IRANIAN EFL TEACHERS OF WRITING

Research suggests that inexperienced teachers, even those with high levels of competence and proficiency, have considerable difficulty when it comes to making judgments of acceptability (Allwright, 1998). It has been speculated that, to the extent that this is the case, it may have some implications for the error treatment practice of inexperienced teachers, in terms of their identification of error and of their assessment of the gravity of different types of error. If so, this may explain why research findings may show significant differences between experienced and inexperienced teachers' reaction to error both quantitatively and qualitatively. The present study attempted to explore this area further. A sample of ten experienced and ten inexperienced teachers were selected and their performances on an acceptability judgment test were compared. Furthermore, their attitudes to error treatment methodology and their views regarding error treatment were probed by means of a questionnaire. Then, the compositions written by at least three students were given to both experienced and inexperienced teachers to correct.The findings of the study revealed that inexperienced teachers appeared to be more tolerant of error, both in theory and practice, than their experienced counterparts. This may mean that presumed differences between experienced and inexperienced teachers with respect to error treatment are less general than has been suggested, and that inexperienced status is less significant than other factors like language ability and professional training. Finally, findings show that this is a more complex area than has already been realized and that it warrants further and deeper investigation.