A study investigated differences in native and non-native French speaking teachers' patterns of error correction of second-year students' compositions. Subjects were eight university teaching assistants (TAs), four native speakers of French and four non-native speakers. Data were drawn from photocopies of all students' corrected compositions (n=220) on a common topic, with common essay parameters. Analysis of marking and teacher comments on the essays focused on differences in the number of corrections by different TAs, categories of errors corrected, and attention paid to essay content. TAs also completed questionnaires and were interviewed concerning their error correction procedures. Results indicate that both native speakers and non-native speakers attended carefully to all error categories (verb, noun, spelling, pronoun). While most of the TAs stated that they graded compositions on both grammatical accuracy and content, none made any comments about whether the essay was interesting or not, original or unimaginative, or well or poorly organized. Implications for TA preparation, error correction, and classroom instruction are examined. Questionnaire and interview questions are appended. Contains 12 references. (MSE)