Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing

Treatment of Error offers a realistic, well-reasoned account of what teachers of multilingual writers need to know about error and how to put what they know to use. As in the first edition, Ferris again persuasively addresses the fundamental error treatment questions that plague novice and expert writing specialists alike: What types of errors should teachers respond to? When should we respond to them? What are the most efficacious ways of responding to them? And ultimately, what role should error treatment play in the teaching of the process of writing?

The second edition improves upon the first by exploring changes in the field since 2002, such as the growing diversity in what is called “L2 writers,” the blurring boundaries between “native” and “non-native” speakers of English, the influence of genre studies and corpus linguistics on the teaching of writing, and the need the move beyond “error” to “second language development” in terms of approaching students and their texts. It also explores what teacher preparation programs need to do to train teachers to treat student error.