Het Korrigeren Van Fouten Bij Het Leren Spreken Van Een Vreemde Taal.

Teachers of foreign languages have many problems in dealing with errors in oral communicative exercises: should errors be corrected or does correction interfere with the communicative effort of students?The present study reviews research in this field, in particular the need of correction, its effects and the risk of "fossilization". Emphasis is on the studies of teachers' correction behaviour in the classroom, which seems to be rather ambigous for students; the effects on communication are rather negative. There are few studies dealing with oral work and peer-correction or self-correction. Studies on grammatical judgements show the need of prudence. Effective studies of error gravity from a communicative point of view have to be set up. The effects of methodologies of error prevention or correction need to be studied. The effects of errors have to be measured in communicative situations by means of native - non-native interaction.