Unit 5 - Expoiting Learners Errors

[Magda Fenarova]

2+4. I try not to interrupt students speaking, sometimes (making a basic mistake, e.g. 3rd person present simple I prononce "s", or I show "s" on the board..) I make a gesture, a face, so students can correct themselves.
After written test, essay, composition we write commen mistakes, we correct, try to learn correct forms..., to avoid the mistakes next time.
After a week or two I make an exercise Find mistakes, I use the mistakes from students test or essays.
I like using exercises -Find a mistake - one sentence means one mistake, later not every sentence has a mistake (sometime I tell my students how many sentences are not correct, when the class is good or later at the end of semester I do not say how many sentences are incorrect, how many are correct.
1.Students will make mistakes, it is necessary to tell the students that everybody who learns a language makes mistakes so it is not necessary to be afraid of speaking and making mistakes. Students should talk and talk, should be able to express their adeas - it is our aim. To have a nice, relaxed atmosphere in the class, not to be worried about mistakes. And to have feedback, to learn from our own mistakes and from other students mistakes.
Nobody is perfect.

[Admin]

Hi Magda, thanks for writing. It sounds like you have an extensive repertoire of feedback and correction techniques, that's great: focusing on form is an essential part of learning a language, and if you can vary how you do it, so much the better.
About correction during speaking: I know what you are saying - if you try to correct every error students make, they will get very frustrated and in the end be discouraged from trying to speak.
At the same time, it is when they are struggling to express an idea and are getting it wrong, that they are particularly receptive to correction or re-phrasing. I think the trick is to feed in corrections as they are required, when the errors are such that meaning becomes unclear - but without stopping the conversation dead. A quick intervention from the teacher - "Listen, you can say it like this:.." or "Do you mean X or Y?" Get the student to repeat the correct form, even quickly write it on the board and than back to the converstion. If this is done skillfully it can feel like "help" and not like "correction" and the flow of the conversation isn't disturbed.