A Wide-Angle View of Prekindergarten through 12th-Grade Teachers' Beliefs about Language Correction

This article explores patterns in teachers' reported correction of student language use in speech and writing. The authors use the concept of language correction in student writing and student speech as a proxy for prescriptive approaches to teaching about language. By conducting a large-scale survey of all language and literacy teachers from preschool through 12th grade across an entire state, the authors were able to identify patterns in teachers' approaches to teaching about language that smaller case studies and nuanced qualitative studies have not yet documented. They examine differences in teachers' self-reported correction of student language use across teacher characteristics and contexts such as grade levels taught, regions of the state, years of teaching experience, and whether teachers had taken a linguistics class. The authors identified marked differences in how elementary and secondary teachers report correcting student writing and speech. They found a small but significant difference in the impact of taking a linguistics class depending on grades taught. They note small but significant differences between reported correction of language for teachers in urban and rural contexts. They discuss implications for professional development on teaching about language targeted to the needs of teachers based on grade level, context, and experience.