Error Gravity

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Tutoring ESL Students: Error Gravity Homepage

Please view and use the documents in the order they are listed on this page.

Note: the error gravity system applied here is taken from Vann, Meyer and Lorenz's (1984) study "Error gravity: A study of faculty opinion of ESL errors" which can be found in TESOL Quarterly, 18 , 427-40.

Directions: begin by clicking on "Error Gravity: Steps to Analysis." Download and read the document. Then click on the next link, "Examples of Error Gravity Codes." Download it and read it. Next, click on "Practice Error Gravity on ESL student Papers." Read the document and then try to apply error gravity by clicking on the numbered student papers below and following the directions on those papers.

Error Gravity: Steps to Analysis

This document will guide you, step-by-step, through coding serious grammatical errors in ESL student papers. It provides a chart showing the seriousness or severity of grammatical errors.

Examples of Error Gravity Codes

This document provides isolated sentence-level examples of different types of grammatical errors based on the types of errors discussed in the previous document, Error Gravity Steps to Analysis.

Practice Error Gravity on ESL Student Papers

If you click on the links below, you will find two paragraphs of an ESL student's essay. Each link contains the error gravity severity chart, suggestions of errors to look for, a blank essay that needs to be coded and the answers to the coding.

1. South Korea (Summary Essay for English 105)

2. Taiwan (Rhetorical Analysis for English 105)

3. Malaysia (Documented Essay for English 105)

4. Japan (Reflection Essay for English 105)

5. Indonesia (Reading Journal Entry for English 104)

Note: the rest of the ESL student paper examples DO NOT contain suggestions of errors to look for or the answers within the documents themselves. Please code them on your own and then check your answers using the link below paper 7.

6. Puerto Rico (Reflection Essay for English 104)

7. China (Narrative Essay English 104)

8. Turkey (Rhetorical Analysis for English 105)

9. Brazil (Narrative Essay for English 104)

Answers for all of the error-gravity-coded ESL Student Essays

This document displays the error gravity answers for all of the above ESL student papers.

Error Gravity Index for Example ESL Student Papers

This document provides an index of where to find each type of error gravity error on the papers listed above.

ESL Homepage

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