Error Correction

One of the most interesting things to know about this topic are the definitions of some very essential terminology.

An error constitutes a mistake which the student cannot self-correct, but may be possible for other students in the same class to correct. Sometimes this is true; sometimes not. I suppose that this comes with experience and knowledge of the CEFR levels.

Often our students make slips; especially the higher levels like intermediate and upper-intermediate. Even advanced students can make them. A slip is a mistake that the student can correct on their own (without any additional instruction).

The last are attempts. Attempts are mistakes that every learner of English (or any language for that matter) will make at some point. They may not be familiar with the correct grammar, lexis, etc. However, so long as the mistakes don't detract from understanding the meaning of what the student is saying, these are called local mistakes and may be corrected at the discretion of the teacher. When the mistakes begin to break down the communication process and what the student is saying becomes unclear, this is when the teacher needs to switch gears and clarify what the student means. These kinds of mistakes are referred to as global mistakes.

How to Correct Mistakes

There are several different ways of correcting mistakes in the English language world. Before we move into the techniques of correction, there are two major types of correction. The first is on-the-spot correction or improvised correction. This is done entirely without any preparation and has some of the highest variety of techniques. The other type is delayed - usually after the task is completed by students.

One of the more well-known techniques for on-the-spot correction involves peer correction. This is something that the teacher should cared for in the class, however. If used too often with a student who is more or less resistant, it can destroy what is referred to as the "affective filter" (a term coined by Stephen Krashen that states that a learner learns best when comfortable and at ease). Many teachers in the 1970s took this theory and ran with it to create such types of methodologies like "Suggestopedia" and "Community Language Teaching." Personally, I would only start to prompt peer correction if I know that I've corrected this mistake already either during the lesson or recently in previous lessons. Usually some slight embarrassment can benefit the student in order to motivate them not to make the same mistake again when it doesn't directly refer to Krashen's Natural Order hypothesis. Very often in these cases, it's best to use self-correction with your student.

One of the ways to prompt self-correction in students is by using your fingers. Now, I know, I know. Every teacher likes to joke about how using a finger to represent a word or sound can seem rather odd or even rude... especially when the mistake rests on your middle finger. But the key thing is that we as human beings find it easier to think realistically rather than abstractly, and the majority of learners we have in our classroom are learning English to use it for some practical purpose. Therefore, it's a good idea to use finger correction in order to allow the student to see the mistake and then make the necessary correction. For a demonstration of how finger correction occurs, I can recommend to you Adrian Underhill (the creator of the phonemic chart used in almost every English language classroom.

Besides finger correction, you could also simply pretend just to not understand the student. This can be effective if you can use it in a humorous, but friendly circumstance. It also doesn't involve criticism on the part of the teacher, which again, can help maintain the student's affective filter during the class. Plus, this is most likely what will occur in real life if the students actually use it in their travelling or usage with native speakers in their job, for example.

There's another type of correction that doesn't involve so much self-correcting on the part of the student but instead focusses on the teacher correcting the mistake. This is called reformulation. When the teacher will reformulate what the student said in the correct and appropriate way so that the main message of the student is still carried forward. For example, a student says, "I going to Bath, and we see the Romanic Baths." The teacher might respond with something like, "Oh, so your going to Bath to see the Roman Baths... And what's everyone else doing?"

This type of correction can also be effective, because in the real world when someone makes a mistake, we are often listening for what we expect to hear rather than what may actually have been said. The McGurk Effect is one small example of how what we hear changes based on what you see, and therefore, your brain expects differently.

Now onto the second type of correction. After a fluency driven (or content-based) activity rather than an accuracy driven activity, it's good to make a note of different mistakes students made on the board. This means that the teacher's intervention during the freer practice activity is kept to a minimum. A teacher should only intervene if they are prompted by the student or the student is making global mistakes to such an extent that the other student finds it difficult to understand him/her. Similarly to finger correction where the student is able to "see" his/her mistake, the student will be able to read and locate the error on the board. As a result, if used effectively, a teacher can prompt self or peer correction when discussing the mistakes together as a class. An example of a whiteboard with delayed correction can be seen below:

One last type of correction that is often overlooked in the language learning classroom are written errors made by students. How many of you teachers have received a written composition from a student, marked it up making all sorts of corrections, and then gave it back to the students at the next lesson only to see the composition with your corrections land in the trash just a few minutes or hours later? I don't know about you, but this type of situation happened all too often when I first began my teaching. I felt like all that extra time spent helping students were wasted. So, what can we do to remedy the situation?

The answer is simple: get students involved. Usually mistakes are minded better if there is a second or even a third draft that students know about. However, having students correct their own mistakes again is the optimum option. This keeps the students actively involved. These types of activities are based in the idea that as long as the students are active in the learning process, then they are learning something - even if it means only a very small amount of tweaking is all that is necessary. For some more information on this particular aspect of error correction, you can visit this link.

In conclusion, there are many ways to correct your students errors. You can prompt them, their peers, correct the mistakes yourself, or even just ignore them. I believe that this is a skill that comes with time as a teacher continues to work. Don't forget that you can always ask your students what types of error correction they prefer. This is their skill that they are building, so why not give them some say in what they want or don't want. This comes to a basic CELTA principle that I often heard and that is "Teach the learners; not the lesson." While the subject matter is important for learners, sometimes, they can benefit from slowing down a bit or speeding up. This is what makes teaching a real art and definitely more beautifully painted with practice.