Thanks, Bill, for the background detail.

Your one comment which needs further discussion perhaps is the following:

'Errors drop away when students do lots of writing, and
those that don't drop away can be handled on an individual basis.'

This is not something that I have found though my experience is miniscule 
compared to yours.   The same argument was made for ESL communicative 
language teaching.   In other words, providing learners were immersed in 
substantial doses of conversation, they would naturally correct their 
errors.  This did not prove to be case.  In fact, what happened was the 
beginning of the fossilisation of the errors which were not brought to the 
learners' attention.   The same happens. by the way, with  untutored 
immigrants   I play chess every day with a 70 year-old Serbian who can 
express whatever he wishes in English but cannot utter a 'sentence' without 
errors in it and he's been speaking English for decades.

I would not wish to cast doubt on your assertion as it is clearly based on 
your long experience; however, I wonder if you have thought about the nature 
of this process of self-correction that you witnessed - particularly as it 
goes against what has been reported in much of the relevant literature.

It would be useful if other members of the List were to allow us to benefit 
from their experiences.   Have they, I wonder, had the same experience of 
self correction as yours.

Ron. 

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