Topic: Algorithmic Approach to Error Correction in the Hong Kong ESL classroom

Justifications:

Hong Kong is an international financial center. Those who have a low level of English proficiency are penalized to a much greater extent than in most other communities. In these recent years, there have been a lot of news reports on local students’ declining English standards. Many people are now worrying that the situation will go from bad to worse and, as a result, Hong Kong will lose its edge as a major regional centre in Asia.

As a matter of fact, a lot of Hong Kong teachers have made a lot of effort to improve students’ English levels. Enhancing accuracy is always a main focus. However, whether students can learn from teachers’ feedback is a main concern.

Therefore, in this paper, I will try to investigate the potentiality of the Algorithmic Approach to helping students correct their errors fundamentally. Whether there is any room to incorporate this approach with communicative teaching is another area I will discuss. To me, form-focused instruction provided within communicative teaching contexts works best.