Forums

1. Do you think it is best to avoid errors in class? I don't think the best option in class is to avoid errors, I do very much agree in what the unit says: errors are basic for the learning process of every student.
2. Which of the ideas (in exercise 5) have you tried yourself? Most of the times, I use student's mistakes as warm up activities to introduce a grammar point, a writing activity etc...
3. Do you believe it is important not to interrupt students when they are speaking in order to draw attention to their errors? Yes, I do believe it. I think speaking is something always hard for them and I don't think we help them if we interrup them in order to correct them. But, we can suggest a group correction for example: ask other students to keep a written list of his/her mistakes and then, at the end, they can explain them or correct them.
4. How do you help learners to see that making mistakes can be a positive thing? I think the best way to prove them that making mistakes is not a terrible thing is by not taking them into account in your marks. I always tell them that I would never evaluate them according to their correctness in activities done in class to practice. Then, I convince them.

It's obvious mistakes must be part of the learning process and for this reason, we 'need' them in classes.

Thanks for writing Iol! I agree with most of the things you say here - making errors just is part of learning a language. The question of whether or not to interrupt students while they are speaking is maybe a bit more debatable. Clearly if the teacher jumps on every little mistake the student will be discouraged and frustrated. But just letting them ramble on and then later presenting them with a list of errors they made might not be the solution either. It all depends, but sometimes interrupting might actually be useful. For example if the errors in an utterance are such that the message is unclear it's probably more useful to let the student know there and then that there is a problem. This could be done quite naturally by simply asking "Sorry? I didn't quite understand that." Or by asking a prompt question like "Erm, are you speaking about the past or the future here?" This will often be enough for the student to attempt to self-correct, and if he or she can't, then this is a great opportunity to feed in the correct version. At the moment of speaking is when they are often most receptive to a correction - rather than after the activity is finished and the need has passed. No?
See you again soon!
Pieter