Read the statements and write if you agree or disagree.

1. When the teacher corrects students by telling them the right answer, the
students don’t remember what they said wrong. The students will continue to
make the same mistakes again and again.
2. When the teacher elicits correction from the students and encourages them to
correct themselves, the students learn from their mistakes.
3. The teacher should correct every mistake the students make.
4. Mistakes are bad. The teacher should not encourage them.
5. Students are not able to correct their own mistakes.
6. In a good lesson the students don’t make any mistakes.
7. When a student makes a mistake, it means the student is trying out something
new, it means real learning is taking place in the lesson.
8. Students don’t like correcting each other.
9. Most correction for accuracy and form happens in the drill.
10. Most correction for meaning and use happens in the production stage.
11. Most direct correction happens during pair work and group work.
12. Most indirect correction happens in a Teacher – Whole class situation.

Now read the text below to understand more about the role of correction.

THE ROLE OF CORRECTION

1. Traditional attitudes to mistakes and correction
In the past, a lot of teachers on over the word thought that and it was a bad
thing if a student made a mistake. To them, it showed that the student was
being stupid, or lazy, and in some cases, deliberately rude to the teacher for not
being attention on for not learning the lesson carefully enough. Instead of
correcting students the teacher would say “sit down” in a disciplinary way or
walk away from the student who had made a mistake if they had done
something wrong or impolite. If the teacher did correct the student, it would be
by giving the student the correct model and getting him or her to repeat it. For
 these traditional teachers, a perfect lesson would be a lesson when no mistakes
were made by the students.
2. The Communicative Approach to Mistakes and Correction
In the communicative approach mistakes as seen as positive steps towards
learning. If students make mistakes, it shows they are trying to formulate
sentences and responses for themselves - not simply copying the teacher model.
They are taking the model, adapting it to make it into something they really
want to say and trying it out on the teachers and their friends. They are learning
by doing and because this is a process, students will not come up with a perfect
“product” - a sentence with no mistakes - the first time. For communicative
approach teachers, no mistakes in a lesson means that no real learning has
taken place. Correction is seen as a technique to get students to refine what
they want to say. Correction is an integral part of the lesson. The teacher’s
attitude towards correction is positive and correction techniques are used to
encourage students not to put them down or make them feel stupid. For these
teachers, a perfect lesson is a lesson full of student mistakes and students
correcting themselves and each other.
3. Memory and Correction
Real learning takes place when students are given the opportunity to internalise
language and memorise it. Often, simple repetition does not help internalisation
or memory. For this reason it is better for the teacher to elicit the correction
from the students, not just tell the student the correct answer and get them to
repeat it. If the teacher elicit corrections from the students, the students must
think, discover their mistakes, choose an alternative word or words and try to
say it again on their own. Students remember the correction for longer because
the teacher has given them independence, encouragement and made them learn
actively instead of getting them to repeat everything without thinking, like a
parrot.
4. Students’ ability to do self/ peer correction
A lot of teachers believe that students are not able to correct themselves or each
other and that the teacher must give them a right model to copy. This simply is
 not true. About 90% of all errors are mechanical (accuracy) errors and as soon
as the teacher points out to the student where the mistake in the sentence is, the
student quickly and easily corrects it for himself or herself. If the mistake is the
vocabulary mistake and the student cannot self-correct, again, in over 90% of
all cases another student in the class can supply the new word. Students are
happy to help each other and this sort of peer correction encourages students to
be independent of the teacher and learn from each other instead. It is only
really for pronunciation that clear module from the teacher is necessary.
5. Direct and indirect correction
It is not necessary for the teacher to correct every mistake that happens in the
lesson. At the beginning of the lesson when the teachers set the scene and does
a lot of eliciting from the student and the teacher does not expect the students
to be accurate - just to be able to get the main ideas, and so mistakes are
ignored at this time. During the drill, when the emphasis is on accuracy, then it
is important for the teacher to correct all the mistakes. This is done by direct
correction and what the teacher does is stop the student, point out where the
mistake is and then get the students to self-correct or be corrected by another
student. During the practice-production stage, when the emphasis is more on
fluency, the teacher does not correct every mistake because this stops the
nature flow of the speakers and they do not get a chance to communicate their
message. The teachers are use in direct correction at this stage. This is done by
not interrupting the students but writing out the mistakes they make or
recording them on the tape recorder and dealing with correction at a later time.
Either in the feedback part of the lesson or the next day the teacher writes the
mistakes on the board or reach them out and the students correct them.
6. When and What to correct.
When? What? Why? How?
Set the scene Don’t correct Ideas and Ignore mistakes.
Preteach anything. understanding are
vocabulary Elicit the general important here,
idea and leave it not accuracy.
 all that.
Presentation There is little to correct because the teacher is talking
most of the time.
Drill: Teacher- Correct all the The aim of the Use direct
Whole class mistakes, usually drill is to get correction to
form and students to control accuracy.
pronunciation. memorise target
language through
correct models.
Practice and Correct mainly The aim of this Use indirect
Production: Pair mistakes of stage is to get correction to
and Group work meaning and students to help
use. communicate a uninterrupted
clear, meaningful fluency
message.