Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction Volume 1, Issue 2, October 2018 p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 39 TEACHER’S CORRECTION STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS’ ERRORS IN EFL SPEAKING CLASS Leni Nuraeni Department of English Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education University of Kuningan, Indonesia E-mail: leninuraeni785@gmail.com Fahrus Zaman Fadhly Department of English Education, Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, Universitas Kuningan, Indonesia E-mail: fahruszf@gmail.com APA Citation: Nuraeni, L., & Fadhly, F. Z. (2018). Teacher’s correction strategies on students’ errors in EFL speaking class. Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction, 1(2), 39- 44. Received: 22-06-2018 Accepted: 26-08-2018 Published: 01-10-2018 Abstract: This study is aimed at identifying the types of students’ errors made in EFL speaking class and what the kind of teacher’s correction This study used descriptive qualitative method and the informants of this research was the EFL students at second semester at the department of English education, Universitas Kuningan. Techniques of collecting data used in this study were observation, questionnaire, and interview. Ellis’s theory used to classify the teacher’s correction strategy used and Arias’s theory used to classify the students’ errors type in EFL speaking class. The findings showed that there are five types of errors that made by the students, they are pronunciation, grammatical, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic. Pronunciation error was the most frequent error made by the students. While, there were strategies used by the teacher in correcting students’ errors, they were recast, repetition, explicit correction, elicitation, and clarification request. Recast strategy was used by teacher as a frequent strategy. Keywords: teacher’s correction strategy; students’ errors type; EFL speaking class. INTRODUCTION Many students feel that there are some difficulties in learning speaking skill and most of them doing error(s) in their speaking. It is no surprise that students make a lot of errors in the process of acquiring the new language (Tomkova, 2013). Children learning their first language (L1), adult native speakers, second language learners, even the English as Foreign Language (EFL) students, they all make the errors (Lopez et all, 1999, p. 168). In several studies, like in the Tomczyk’s study (2013), as regard the types of errors, out of three main sorts of errors (grammatical, pronunciation and lexical ones), grammatical and pronunciation errors tend to be the most important. It is also claimed in Coskun’s (2010) study that the grammatical and phonological error are the most frequent error that appear in EFL speaking class. There are some possibilities that EFL students in speaking class made the error. So this study aims to identify what the error type that usually appear in EFL speaking class in Universitas Kuningan. In fact, the teacher still let the students keep the error and do not correct the error at all. So, in every research related to corrective feedback on students’ error, it always raises the issue that error should be corrected. Many students that made the error and it can make misunderstanding even speaker-listener miscommunication including pronunciation error. Pronunciation is the “foundation of speaking English” (Akram & Qureshi, 2012, p. 43). Pronunciation is one of the important aspect Leni Nuraeni & Fahrus Zaman Fadhly Teacher’s correction strategies on students’ errors in EFL speaking class 40 to make someone understand what the speaker say. So, the “pronunciation should be accurate enough and should enable the students to communicate in efficient way” (Akram & Qureshi, 2012, p. 43). Furthermore, Arias (2004, p. 176) states that in the teaching learning process, especially in speaking class, the teachers are daily faced with the problem of whether to threat errors or not. Error correction by teacher on students’ error is the importance activities in the teaching learning process during the past decade. No teacher can deny the fact that correcting the errors made by students when they speak or write is one of the most difficult tasks in language acquisition (Amara, 2015). In fact, it can be possible that the teacher will not be successful in giving treatment on the students’ errors. As arias (2004, p. 175) states that “teachers often fail to help their students notice and correct their errors simply because they lack the necessary understanding of error treatment”. As the error as the natural phenomenon in the teaching learning process, so the teacher have to give feedback of that errors. Punishing the error has always occurred along with teaching and learning processes and has always been used as an instrument of power and a teaching strategy (Lopez et al, 1999, p. 169). In teaching learning process, the teacher have a role in helping the students to avoid the error, as Lopez et al (1999, p. 172) noticed that the teacher’s role is to help the students become conscious of their errors and give them incentive to try and find for themselves why they have made the error and how they could avoid repeating it. In reaction to that, the teacher have to provide the students with some kind of feedback because, as Ustaci (2014, p. 29) states all learners need their teachers’ help in correction process. Giving a correction feedback on student’s error is an important role for the teacher in the teaching learning process especially in the speaking case. But teachers have to decide what strategy that will be used in correcting the students’ errors to offer the opportunity for student to perceive the mismatches between their language production and the target discourse form, potentially to reformulate their language outcomes (Chatupote, 2014). As according to Ellis (2009, p. 3), feedback is seen as contributing to language learning. Besides, there are some controversies related to giving feedback to the students error that has been viewed in SLA and language pedagogy, these controversies address which errors should be corrected, who should do the correcting (the teacher or the learners him/herself), which type of corrective feedback is the most effective, and what is the best timing for corrective feedback (immediate or delayed) (Ellis, 2009, p. 3). Based on the explanation above, this study focused to identifiy the error that is made by the students in the speaking class and endorse the correction strategy used to give the feedback on students’ errors in the EFL speaking class. METHOD This research used descriptive qualitative method. Qualitative research method is chosen in order to explore and understand the social phenomenon (Creswell, 2009). This research was carried out in the Department of English Education, Faculty of Teacher’s Training and Education, Universitas Kuningan. The participants of this research were the teacher and the learners. It consists of one teacher and the learners who was taken from two classes (A and B class) which consists of 23 students of each class at the second semester on the first grade in the academic year 2014/2015. According to Creswell (2009, p. 164), qualitative researchers collect data themselves through examining documents, observing behavior, or interviewing participants. Naturalistic observation is used in this study. Fraenkel and Wallen (2009, p. 442) argue that “naturalistic observation means observing individuals in their natural settings, simply observes and record what Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction Volume 1, Issue 2, October 2018 p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 41 happens as things naturally occur”. Observation involves the collection of data without manipulating it (Bloomer, 1998, p. 186). The following step to collect the data was questionnaire as one of the technique to collect the data. Questionnaire used to gather the data about what participant usually do, what participant opinion and what the participant feel about the correction process in speaking error. As Taylor (1998, p. 2) stated that a questionnaire can help you obtain information about what people do, what they have, what they think, know, feel, or want. This questionnaire use close-ended questions with the students as the respondents. In order to triangulate the data, in this research also used interview to know what the teacher applied in the process correcting the students’ errors in the speaking class. As stated by Fraenkel and Wallen (2009, p. 446), the purpose of interviewing people is to find what is on their mind-what they think or how they feel about something. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Based on the data collected, it was found that there were five types of students’ errors corrected by the teacher in EFL speaking class. They were pronunciation error, grammatical error, lexical error, semantic error, and semantics error. The most frequently students’ error made in EFL speaking class was pronunciation error with the frequency is 33 or it can reached 72%. Ellis (2009) noticed that an error takes place as a result of lack of knowledge (i.e. it represents a gap in competence). In other word, errors are produced of lack of misinterpretation of student in developing their knowledge or inadequate teaching and learning. Pronunciation errors was the most frequent error made by the students in EFL speaking class. It indicates that the pronunciation was one of the difficult aspect in speaking, because when the students make the error it was possible that the communication will not going well and the message of the speaker will not be conveyed. As Akram and Qureshi (2012, p. 43) stated that the “pronunciation should be accurate enough to be clearly understood and it should enable the students to communicate in an efficient way to be intelligible”. Furthermore, this study found that there are five of six types of strategy used by the teacher in correcting the students’ errors in EFL speaking class. Those were recast, elicitation, repetition, clarification request, and explicit correction. The most frequently correction strategy used for correcting the students’ errors were recast strategy which reached the percentage 37%. Recast strategy is the most frequent strategy used by the teacher in correcting the students’ errors. This probably indicates that the teacher wants the students to realize the error first or the teacher implicitly direct that the teacher implicitly direct the student to self-correct. Since, in giving correction on students’ errors, the teacher immediately reformulate part of the error students’ utterance and replaced with the correct one, so the students will realize that there are something error in their utterance and doing the self-correct or the teacher give the other students to give correction (peer correction) . According to Ellis (2009) recast strategy is a strategy that the corrector, in this case is teacher, incorporates the content words of the immediately preceding incorrect utterance and changes and correct the utterance. Besides that, there are some controversies related to giving feedback to the students error that has been viewed in SLA and language pedagogy, these controversies address which errors should be corrected, who should do the correcting (the teacher or the learners him/herself), which type of corrective feedback is the most effective, and what is the best timing for corrective feedback (immediate or delayed) (Ellis, 2009). First, relating to the controversy about error should be corrected, in the students’ questionnaire result, about 91% or 42 of the respondent response that the teacher almost Leni Nuraeni & Fahrus Zaman Fadhly Teacher’s correction strategies on students’ errors in EFL speaking class 42 always do correction when there are some errors happened in the students’ speaking, while just about 9% or 4 of the respondent response that the teacher does not give correction when his/her students made an error. Also, based on the interview result, some of the respondents argued that the error should be corrected. It indicates that giving correction on the students’ error is important in order to develop the communicative skill and the learners’ performance. As Sarosdy et al (2006, p. 121) states that the purpose of giving feedback is to improve learners’ performance, it provides constructive advice, and guidance to the learners in their effort to raise their performance levels. Here are the part of the interview about the students should be corrected as follow. R : Should the error be corrected? S#2 : Of course, it should be corrected). Because, if we let the error, even speaking is for communicating, if there is wrong of pronunciation, it will make understand. There is no synchronization between A and B for example. Afterwards, with respect of the timing of error correction, the result shows that the teacher immediately gives correction to the students’ errors, that’s about 37% of the students’ response. It might indicates that the teacher have found the same problem that many students doing in speaking so the teacher considered to correct the students’ error immediately because as Arias (2004, p. 178) states that the time to treat immediately is when the student make an error and it is type of error that many students are having problem with. Based on such respondents in interview, they argued that the teacher usually give immediate correction, because they argued that it is effective for remembering the student about error that have been corrected. R : Do the correction immediate or delay? It might be immediate, right? The teacher do not delay until the end of learning activity? S#6 : No, at the end of the students’ talking so the teacher give immediate correction, while the teacher delay the correction, but not at the end of the learning activity. In my point of view, that was effective, because when the teacher correct immediately when the student made the pronunciation error for example, so the students’ concentration in speaking will be cut, so the student will not focus on the content of what will be said. So the teacher should correct the error till the student end the talking. Furthermore, in respect for who should correct the error, it related to the teacher’s correction technique. There are three options that were served for the students, those are teacher immediately corrects the student error (teacher correction), teacher engage the students to correct my own error (self- correction), and teacher ask the other student to correct my error (peer-correction).The result shows that there are 69 % of the respondent argued that the teacher immediately used his/her own correction on students’ errors (teacher’s correction), 10 or 22% of the respondents argue that teacher engage the students to correct their own error, and 4 or 9% of respondents argue that teacher ask the other student to correct student’s error. The most frequently technique used by the teacher was teacher correction, it possibly indicated that the student do not realize which they made an error or no and they might prefer their teacher to correct their error because of the teacher more understand what the teacher have to do on the student’s errors. As Mendez (2010, p. 246) believes that the person to correct the errors is the teacher that knows the problem and the solution when the students make an error in their speaking. Then, when the students made errors in their speaking, it can be relate with the source of its error made. The result shows Indonesian Journal of Learning and Instruction Volume 1, Issue 2, October 2018 p-ISSN 2614-8250, e-ISSN 2614-5677 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/IJLI 43 that the common source of error that affect type student made an error is intralingual transfer (70%), it probably occurs because the students do not master the English yet and the lack of the understanding of English. as Brown (2000, p.225) states that as the learners progress in the second Language, their previous experience and their subsumers begin to include structures within the target language itself. The while the least common source is the context of learning (6%). It probably occurs because the unsatisfactory the teaching learning process either in the teaching method or the course book that used by the teacher in delivering the material. So, the students often misinterpret what the students get from the teacher explained in the teaching learning process. Besides that, in the correction activity, there are some reactions of the students like the students admit the error and correct by themselves, just continue talking. The result shows about 61% the most frequently reaction of the students when they realize that they carried out the speaking errors, the students usually admit the error, think about the error and correct them by themselves and continue talking. It probably indicates that the student want to improve their communication skill by trying to self-correct when they made an error. As Tomkova (2013, p. 62) states with self-correction, the students can produce their own language and can repair their own communication breakdowns. Later, the frequency of the students made an error in their speaking or it related into how often the students made the error in their speaking. There are four possibilities, those are more often, less often, always, and never do the error in their speaking. Based on the result of the students’ response, there are 48 % of the respondents that more often do the error in their speaking. It probably indicates the lack of the students’ knowledge about English speaking that can be caused by the source of the students’ error, like mother tongue interference, lack of the second language understanding, and unsatisfactory teaching method and the course book used. As the Brown (2000, p. 223) categorized that there are three source of errors, interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer, and context of learning. The last, the frequency of the teacher’s correction or how often the teacher have to correct the students’ error. The frequency of the teacher’s correction can be related with the timing of the teachers’ correction. Based on the students’ response, There are 85% of the respondents argue that the teacher always gives the correction if that is possible, 7% argue that the teacher gives correction only in the accuracy activities, 6% argue the teacher gives correction only in the fluency activities, and then 2% argue that the teacher never give correction when the students made an error. 85% respondents argued that the teacher always give the correction if that is possible. It might indicates that the teacher realizes that error correction is one of the important things in the teaching learning process. CONCLUSION There are some types of error made by the students in the speaking class at the 2nd semester of Universitas Kuningan, such as pronunciation error, grammatical error, lexical error, grammatical error, and semantic error. After classifying the error made by the student, it can be known that the most frequently type of error in EFL speaking class is pronunciation error, is 72 % or 33 of the respondents made an error. The strategy most frequently used by the teacher in correcting the students’ error is recast strategy which the teacher implicitly reformulates the students’ error, or provides the correction without directly pointing out that my utterance was incorrect. Students’ error should be corrected to avoid the student made the error continually in the teaching learning process and to avoid misunderstanding even miscommunication in delivering the message when speaking. Either the pronunciation error that is the most frequently type of error made, or grammatical error even lexical error can Leni Nuraeni & Fahrus Zaman Fadhly Teacher’s correction strategies on students’ errors in EFL speaking class 44 make draw the underlying competence of the students’ in the productive skill, namely speaking. 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