Unit 5 Final task

[Ana Ma Buñuel]

If I take into consideration that the text we are looking at was written by a lower intermediate student, I think organization and vocabulary are actually quite good! It is mistakes in spelling, verb tense accuracy and word order that need to be observed. I personally think that grammar mistakes are the type of error most commonly made by students who are learning English. For example, when they don’t choose the correct verb tense for expressing an idea or don’t use it in its correct form. They may also make mistakes when using the articles, or when placing words in the wrong order. I think Students tend to make the same mistakes; some will take longer in avoiding them than others… In the long term most grammar mistakes will disappear, especially if the student engages in reading a bit every day. Some mistakes are easy for students to correct once they have their writings back and read them again (I insist a lot on reviewing whatever they write before handing it out, but I am not always successful!). Other grammar mistakes are not easy to find because the student does not know the correct way to express an idea.
What I do to improve their development….I don’t correct all the mistakes, only the ones that they should know according to their level of the language, but it is true that I insist on some more than on others (e.g. the –s in the third person singular of the Present simple tense). I usually write sentences on the board with mistakes for the students to correct once they have their writing tasks back. That helps a lot. I also found this activity online and I think it is quite engaging. On the walls of the class, the teacher puts up some sentences containing errors from their essays (without their names!). Students (in pairs and with a number that identifies them) walk around the classroom, read the sentences containing the errors, and discuss how to correct them. Students will need to write the correct version on the sticky note together with their number, and stick it next to the sentence. When the students have corrected all the sentences, they sit down. The winner is the pair who has corrected most of the sentences.

[Irina]

I think the logical structure is quite good but I doubt that the student is a lower Intermediate lever. All students who are learning English have the common types of mistakes in writting section ( word order, grammar, spelling) and I'm trying correct only grammar part that we've already learned. In some period of time the students can correct the mistakes on their own by returning to the previous writing and analyze them.
What I do as some help to analyze or avoid the mistakes is write the incorrect grammar sentences on the board or give them the pieces of paper with the mistakes. They discuss in pairs and tick if it's correct or not. Then discuss as an open class.
For teenagers as a starter level I put up some sentences with the mistakes from their speaking or writting on the wall. It might be spelling, grammar or word ordering mistakes. Students need to take one piece with appropriated colour for each student and correct individually.

[Oksana]

So the text is logical and the structure is good, level of vocabulary is ok, for intermediate student, there different types of mistakes, and the stratagy I like to use to correct mistakes in these types of works is self correction, first in a class we look at common mistakes and I give students their works with no correction, then I give them chance to find and correct mistakes, thay may use the help of the pair, and at the end, I give them corrected copy of their work, ant they check and correct their first given paper one more time, then we discuss what was difficult, and explain the difficulties one more time.