ERROR CORRECTION

Teacher Training
Course
INTRODUCTION
● Error Correction in ESL
Classes.
WHEN
● Mistakes are good things
and students need to SHOULD WE
know that they are. CORRECT?
● Learning English is like
learning to ride a bike: you fall
off a lot, but you get the hang
of it in the end.
● Error vs. Mistake. HOW SHOULD
● An error reflects the WE CORRECT?
competence of the learner,
whereas a mistake refers to a
performance error that is either
a random guess or a “slip”.
● While mistakes can be self-
corrected, an error cannot be INTEGRATION
self-corrected. AFTER
CORRECTING
TEACHER STEVE STORY’S
PERSPECTIVE ON ERROR
CORRECTION
● Please watch the following video, posted by Professor
Steve Story from MadridTeacher.com, a virtual
platform on the web, that helps ESL teachers to
improve quality in their sessions.
ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES
● Start With the
Question: WHAT?
● The student will
immediately know
there’s something wrong
with the statement
he/she produced, and
will be open for help.
● At this point, you
should wait for the
student to correct
him/herself.
ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES
● Pinpoint Error Location.
● If your student doesn’t
realize where the mistake
is, try to guide him/her by
repeating the statement
yourself and stopping
right before the
missing/wrong word.
● e.g. Student: “I went
shopping now”.
Teacher: “I went shopping…
what/when?”
ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES
● Use Fingers.
● In the event that your
student is still
confusing/forgetting a
certain word order or
tense, use your fingers
to show them the right
syntax or missing/extra
word they need in their
statement.
ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES
● Provide Multiple Choice.
● This is an option for semi-
modeling the right
answer. Once you’ve tried
the previous techniques
and your student doesn’t
seem to self-correct,
provide an easy, logical
“multiple” choice question
to activate your student’s
memory.
● e.g. Student: “…I am a
engineer”
Teacher: “a” or “an”?
ERROR CORRECTION TECHNIQUES
● Model.
● After you’ve gone through all
of the correction techniques
explained before, and your
student still fails to
understand his/her mistake,
provide a straightforward
correction, and have him
integrate this word(s) to the
statement.
● This should be your LAST
resort.
● e.g. Student: “She work at
home”.
Teacher: “She WORKS at
home…repeat”.
CONCLUSIONS
Some teachers correct
●
every mistake made by
their students. Other
teachers rarely or never
correct their students’
mistakes.
● Both approaches have
serious weaknesses.
● The first one leads to
student’s nervousness and,
as a consequence, lack of
fluency.
● The second one leads to
students to speak but whose
English is hard to
understand.
CONCLUSIONS
● When a student makes a mistake it is usually counter-productive to say "No!"/"That's
wrong!"/"Are you serious?"/"How long did you say you've been studying English?" etc.
● It's often kinder to say "Not bad"/"Nearly"/"Good try"/"That's an interesting mistake" etc.
● Some say that you shouldn't laugh at students' mistakes, but it sometimes breaks the
"mistakes taboo" and makes linguistic risks and disasters an acceptable part of the
classroom culture.
● The ability to correct themselves when they make a mistake is an important one for
students to develop. Encourage it and give them time to correct themselves.
● Once they’ve done the correction, have students repeat the statement again, in order to
“integrate” their correction to their learning process. This last step is very important.
● It's much better for the students if they get into the habit of listening to themselves when
they are speaking and correct themselves as they go along. Obviously they won't be able to
correct all the mistakes they make but they will be able to correct a lot of them.
● As far as possible, correct mistakes anonymously. Do this by making notes of students'
mistakes as you monitor then putting them on the board later.
● Depends on the type of drill.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
➢Internet Resources.
● Teaching Tip 11: Error Correction, by Liz Regan, 2003.
● http://www.tefl.net/teacher-training/teaching-tip_11.htm
● Error Correction in ESL. Video posted from Youtube.
● http://neilwhitfield.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/error-correcti
on-in-esl/

● Errors as a Learning Tool.

● http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/727945/error_corr
ection_theory_and_practice.html