Detection, correction and justification of prescriptive grammar errors by university students: language training of future teachers

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the detection, correction and justification of prescriptive grammar errors by a group of first-year university students in teacher education. In the introduction, current trends in prescriptive grammar implantation are presented. The second section presents a study that aims to answer the following research questions: 1) Are university students able to detect prescriptive grammar errors? 2) What sociolinguistic variables are related to their ability to detect errors? 3) Are students who detect errors able to fix them and justify them?, and 4) What are the teaching implications of the results on the detection, correction, and justification of errors? In the study, 162 students in the first academic year were provided a series of sentences that contained at least one error and were asked to detect, correct, and justify the errors they could find. The results show that only half of the errors were detected and that students who entered the university with an upper secondary school diploma were able to detect more errors than those entering from vocational training schools, regardless of their first language. They also show that detection of an error does not ensure error correction nor justification. The final section provides some suggestions to improve language learning at the university level.

Keywords : implantation of prescriptive grammar, language teaching, university, metalinguistic competence, teacher education.