What errors do you give priority for correction?
25
23
20
15
10
10
13
12
5
10
meaning errors
grammatical errors
2
0
Always
Usually
Sometimes
Rarely
Figure 24. The kind of errors respondents give priority to for correction
In order to facilitate comprehension, 26% of respondents stated that they
always make use of paralinguistic features such as pictures and gestures, while 51%
do that usually and 23% sometimes (see also appendix IV, p. 127, table 73).
Respondents seem to make extensive use of questions to which they know the
answer in advance (display questions), as it is shown in figure 25 (see appendix IV, p.
127, table 74).
The questions I ask students aim at checking
how well they have comprehended something
and, therefore, their answers are known to me,
in advance
Sometimes
29%
Always
9%
Usually
62%
Figure 25. The frequency to which respondents resort to display questions
This high frequency of display questions is, according to Lightbown
and Spada (1999: 102), ‘…one of the crucial differences between classroom
interaction and conversations in the real world’. However, the use of display questions
limits the students’ contribution to the discourse to those of mere respondents who
feel that they are asked a question not in order to provide some information to the
discourse, but in order to be tested for their knowledge. Brock (1986) found that
learners produce longer and syntactically more complex utterances when they respond
to genuine rather than to display questions.
62