Comparing Native and Nonnative Teachers' Evaluations of Error Seriousness

There is a widely held belief that Japanese teachers of English place much
more emphasis on grammatical accuracy in error correction than do their
Assistant English Teacher (AEn colleagues. To test the validity of this belief,
a survey instrument was designed which asked both groups to evaluate a
variety of student composition errors for seriousness. Both groups of teachers
were then asked to state the criteria they used in their error judgments. The
results showed that the Japanese teachers did indeed tend to judge grammatical
errors more harshly than their nati ve-speaking counterparts, and some explicit! y
used grammatical accuracy as their main criterion in grading papers. Most
AETs noted comprehensibility as the primary basis for their judgments.
Interestingly, despite their harsher appraisal of grammatical errors, the majority
of Japanese teachers also reported using comprehensibility as their most
important criterion.