System 34 (2006) 509–519 www.elsevier.com/locate/system 0346-251X/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.system.2006.09.001 Teachers’ perceptions of error: The eVects of Wrst language and experience Ken Hyland a,¤ , Eri Anan b a School of Culture, Language and Communication, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK b 25 Nakazato-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0804, Japan Received 5 March 2006; received in revised form 25 August 2006; accepted 13 September 2006 Abstract This study investigates raters’ identiWcation of errors in the writing of an EFL student. Drawing on data collected from a correction task and a questionnaire, we examine the beliefs and practices of three distinct groups of 16 participants in each: native English speaking EFL teachers, Japanese speaking EFL teachers and educated native English speaking non-teachers. Participants were asked to identify and correct the errors in an authentic text written by a Japanese university student, judge which errors they considered the most serious, and to give reasons for their choices. The results con- Wrm earlier studies that non-native English speaking teachers are generally more severe in grading errors and rely more on rule infringement rather than intelligibility in judging seriousness. In addi- tion, we discovered that the Japanese teachers were far more likely to regard stylistic variations as errors, although the native English speaking teachers were sensitive to features of formality and aca- demic appropriacy. We argue that these diVerences are a result of the participants’ experiences and discuss the issues surrounding error identiWcation for teachers.  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Error perception; Feedback; Writing style; Grammar correction; Language awareness * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 20 7612 6789; fax: +44 20 7612 6534. E-mail address: k.hyland@ioe.ac.uk (K. Hyland).