Introduction

One view of self-correction is that it makes a virtue out of necessity: independent learners, having chosen to forego opportunities for assessing progress and correcting linguistic faults through classroom interaction (Chaudron, 1983; White, 1994, 1997), simply have to accept their misfortune, monitor their own progress without grumbling and quickly develop the ability to self-correct. However, as Hurd (2001) observes, the ‘teaching voice’ is present in the learning materials, which constitute the link between teacher and learner. In independent contexts, learners are accustomed to engaging with the materials without constant mediation by a tutor. Indeed, Little (1995) argues that even when there appears to be no social interaction, such as when a learner uses a textbook, the psychological process involved nevertheless includes a covert, internalised version of it.

Accordingly, an understanding of interaction and its associated cognitive processes can reveal much about second language acquisition (SLA) in these contexts. For instance, although classroom-based, the work of Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994), who were among the first to investigate the fault correction/learning interface from within a theoretical, rather than a phenomenological stance, is highly relevant. Exploring the implications for learners of Vygotsky’s ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD) (the distance between learners’ actual and potential development levels), a concept widely discussed in research into teacher-learner interaction, this study investigated the effect of negative feedback given to students on their linguistic faults. Learning was found to improve when tutor-learner dialogue was increased, especially when intervention was graduated and contingent, and the help provided was ‘designed to discover the novice’s ZPD in order to offer the appropriate level of assistance and to encourage the learner to function at his or her potential level of ability’ (Aljaafreh & Lantolf, 1994: 468).

Self-instructional activities usually require students to engage in some form of guided self-correction, such as checking their answers in the Key, or comparing what they have written or recorded with a model version.