Abstract
This study investigated (1) teachers’ and learners’ opinions about error correction, including the necessity, frequency, timing, type, method, and delivering agent of error treatment; and (2) the relationship between anxiety and preferences for error correction among students. One hundred sixty adult ESL students and 18 native English speaking teachers in two language institutes at Northern California universities participated in the surveys. The student participants’ proficiency levels varied from low intermediate to advanced, and they were assigned to either a low anxiety group or a high anxiety group based on their language anxiety scores. The results revealed that both the teachers and students agreed that student errors should be treated, but students wanted more correction than their teachers thought. The teachers and students had significantly different opinions about timing, method, and delivering agents of error correction, as well as types of errors that need to be corrected. In contrast, a significant difference between the high and low anxiety groups was found only in delivering agents of error correction.