To Correct or not to Correct?


Language teachers deal with errors all the time and have different points of view on the way of correcting them. Some agree that only global errors have to be corrected. But what about the ones often repeated but being local? So, there is a controversy about correcting minor errors or not correcting them at all. I believe that local errors also should get attention from the teacher's side but be more subtle and not overwhelming for a student. For this purpose, I prefer using different kinds of speaking error correction. Here are some of them:

  • recast or shadowing (teacher repeats the correct variant of  what a student said
Example 1:  Student: She goed to work yesterday.
                    Teacher: Oh, she went to work yesterday.

Example 2: Teacher: What is the girl in the picture doing?
                    Student: She speaks to her friend.
                    Teacher: Yes, she is speaking to her friend, that's right.
  • use of gestures (while a student is speaking the teacher can give a signal to, for example,  change the word order or just hint there's something wrong)
  • writing down mistakes (while a student is speaking write down the mistakes you think are important to draw attention to and discuss with the class after)
  • group/small group correction (ask students no point out some errors and then share thoughts and suggest ways of correction)
But even when using these methods don't forget to also note what was positive about the response. It is important for a student to hear about his/her success to, not only about weak points!

For more material on error correction check out the links below.
 



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