In one of Bill VanPatten’s latest Tea with BvP episodes (which I’ve edited down to only his responses, see the CI Materials page for past edited episodes), he talked about how there are no errors when it comes to the expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning of our students, at least in terms of language acquisition. What we hear/read from students is a consistent representation of how they’ve construction the second language system in their mind. It is what it is, and there are very few factors besides time and comprehensible input. Thus, there are no errors.
This has HUGE implications for language teaching. Take the following comparison…
Magister P. 