Error Analysis of Teacher Technical Writing

Abstract

This chapter delves into an investigation of pre-service English as a foreign language teachers' technical writing products, by employing the Surface Strategy Taxonomy proposed by Dulay et al. (1982). By shedding light on the written errors of future English language teachers, this study contributes to our understanding of their language learning needs and presents implications for improving teacher education practices. The chapter examines a corpus of lesson plans written by senior students (n=140) enrolled at a public university, aiming to become English language teachers. Lesson planning can be considered a form of technical writing for language teachers since it requires adherence to specific techniques and the use of appropriate language structures to effectively convey in-class procedures. The analysis reveals that the prospective teachers produced erroneous utterances falling into four distinct categories: omission (45%), misinformation (30%), addition (17%), and misordering (7%). These findings serve as a foundation for several suggestions to enhance teacher education.