Abstract:

This investigation was conducted with the intention of possibly recognizing error risk taking as a new variable related to advanced learners’ grammatical accuracy. The grammatical weakness of English learners has been addressed by many language teachers in India and Iran. Error risk taking as one of the psychological levels of error orientation is “the result of an achievement-oriented attitude which requires flexibility and taking responsibility. There are positive relations to need for achievement, qualifications, readiness for change and initiative, as well as a negative relation to control rejection” (Rybowiak et al. 543). Moreover, error orientation shows how learners cope with and react to their own mistakes and errors. The purpose of the study has been to determine the existence of any meaningful relationship between the error risk taking and the grammatical accuracy of the Indian and Iranian students. The target population of the research included the English students at Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch, and the students at Panjab University who were female and doing BA in the field of English language. A sample of 200 Indian and a sample of 200 Iranian senior students were selected based on the multistage random sampling. They were administered the two instruments of the research: The Structural Error Risk Taking Questionnaire (SERTQ) and the structure section of a standard TOEFL test with the intention of obtaining as valid data as possible. This comparative research has been conducted based on a descriptive correlational study in Iran and India, and resulted in the existence of significant correlation between the two variables in each context. In India the correlation coefficient amounted to 0.204 (significant and positive at the 0.01 level), and also was found to be 0.160 in Iran (significant and positive at the 0.05 level). In conclusion, the investigation has paved the way to support the idea of having error risk taking as a strategy which needs training and management.

Keywords:

Error competence, error risk taking, grammatical accuracy.