The Error hierarchy of Turkish EFL teachers in their assessment of compositions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Title: The error hierarchy of Turkish EFL teachers in their assessment of compositions Author: Nergiz Turkkollu Thesis Chairperson: Ms. Patricia J. Brenner, Bilkent University MA TEFL Program Thesis Committee: Dr. Arlene Clachar, Dr. Phyllis L. Lim, Bilkent University MA TEFL Program The present study sought to discover which sentence level errors committed by Turkish students who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) are considered to be the most and the least serious by Turkish EFL teachers. It also aimed at investigating whether Turkish teachers1 judgments of gravity of errors establish a hierarchy of errors. The study used global and local criteria developed by Burt and Kiparsky (1974a) for determining the seriousness of errors. The most serious errors are the ones interfering with communication (global), and the least serious errors are the errors which do not prevent a message from being understood (local). Thus, errors in seven categories represented by 21 sentences were presented to 2 0 Turkish EFL teachers in the form of a questionnaire. The subjects were asked to indicate how serious they considered each error in these sentences on a 5-point ranking scale. Of seven categories of error, three categories (word order, verb form, and lexis) represented global errors, and four categories (concord, negation, preposition, and spelling) represented local errors. The present study considered three questions. The first question asked whether there was a hierarchy oferror among Turkish EFL teachers. The results revealed that Turkish teachers did not consider all errors equally serious, and that their judgments of gravity of errors established a hierarchy of errors. The second question investigated what kind of hierarchy was established by Turkish teachers. In judging the seriousness of errors, the Turkish teachers made use of both criteria, that is, the basic level of the rule violated and the criterion of comprehensibility. It was found that the errors which the Turkish teachers considered the most serious were the ones which caused the greatest problems for comprehension. They also referred to the teaching objectives, that is, formal accuracy while evaluating. The third question asked whether the hierarchy would change according to the teachers' ages. Subjects were divided into two groups: 10 teachers between 20-35 age range, and 10 teachers between 36 and over. Although both groups established the hierarchy depending on both criteria, the first group showed some preference for the criterion of comprehensibility in assessing the gravity of errors. It was also observed that 20-35 age group marked more severely than did the other group. The findings of the study indicate which errors are considered the most serious by Turkish teachers and that errors should be evaluated according to an explicit guideline to mark students* written work objectively.