From Error Analysis to Effective Writing Outputs

Abstract

This chapter investigates the overlap between error analysis, process-oriented writing, and a social constructivist approach to teaching and their effects on foreign language technical writing. The study is significant for its unique emphasis on the coalescence of these three domains, which is natural yet rare in research. Data collection tools included interviews, document analysis, and random participant observation. Error analysis was also used as a methodological approach to examine longitudinal data from a cohort of B1-level English language learners. The initial technical writing work revealed a failure to adopt the nature, structure, and content of technical writing. Yet, later-produced works exhibited better development over time after the interventions, which were full of specific strategies. By validating the synergy in error correction between process writing, which clears clouded minds with its precise step-by-step layout, and social constructivism, which helps generate meaning and cooperate, the study concludes the necessity of such integration into technical writing classes.