Abstract:
This article reports part of the findings from my research study “The effects of error treatments and students” language abilities on the usage of English tenses through the use of computer-assisted language learning” which investigated the effects of different error treatments – overt correction (OC) and self-correction (SC) – on the usage of English tenses of Thai undergraduate students. Both treatments were given through CALL. Language abilities of the students – high, moderate, and low achievers – served as a moderator variable. The study was conducted with 210 first-year undergraduates of Huachiew Chalermprakiet University in a 2x3 factorial design. At the commencement of the style, all subjects were pre-tested by using the Test of English Tenses Usage (TETU) developed by the researchers. After they completed 9 CALL lessons in 3 weeks, the posttest was conducted. Two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and descriptive statistics were used to analyzed and to explain the data. Six weeks after the posttest, the delayed test was administered to investigate the retention of both treatments. The data was then analyzed by two-way repeated measures ANOVA.
Results from the immediate posttest showed that the error treatment factor did not have a significant effect – on the usage of tenses. However, results from the delayed test revealed that the self-correction group had significantly higher retention than the overt correction group. Additional findings from the opinionnaire also confirmed that the SC group rated the materials significantly higher that the OC group in terms of the usefulness of the feedback.
