Attitudes Toward Errors in Learning French as a Foreign Language

The objective of this article was to study attitudes toward errors in three age groups: young people (high school students), young adults (young teachers or future teachers of French as a foreign language), and seniors. We formulated three hypotheses: seniors would be less accepting of errors than younger learners; attitudes toward errors and the preferred method of correction would vary depending on the age group; and (future) teachers would distinguish more clearly between errors and mistakes compared to the other two groups. The analysis of the questionnaires confirmed the second and third hypotheses, while the first was not confirmed, which is surprising. In conclusion, we emphasize the essential role of the method of error correction and stress the importance of not dramatizing errors if we want them to become a constructive part of foreign language teaching

Foreign language · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy · Psychology