“What are errors and how should we deal with them in our classes?”
When I first started teaching the answer to these two questions was clear and unproblematic. What are errors? They are any departure from standard English. How should we deal with them? We should correct them lest they become ‘bad habits’.
Subsequently, these two questions have become the most difficult, problematic and mysterious of all questions related to language teaching.
What are errors? We simply don’t know any more. Why? Because there is no agreed upon standard by which to measure learners’ output. For a start, there are so many varieties of native speaker English (both spoken and written) that it’s impossible to decide if a sentence like ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ is ‘wrong’ or not. On top of that, many learners are not interested in speaking ‘native speaker’ English anyway.
What should we do about errors? Research suggests that correcting errors has only an accidental effect on accuracy, and that many so-called errors (like failure to add –s to present simple third person singular verbs, as in she work) are an inevitable stage of language learning, and are extremely resistant to correction. On the other hand, if we don’t correct errors we may send out a message that accuracy doesn’t matter, which may threaten the long-term language development of our learners. Also, we need to be aware that excessive correction can be very de-motivating for many learners, while not to correct errors will make us look incompetent in the eyes of other learners.
In short, errors, and the way we handle them, are an enormous puzzle, and I would be fascinated to know how you deal with this puzzle yourself.
Scott
Hi Scott,
One of the courses I teach is discussion/debate and as students allegedly learn or have learnt English online and had grammar lectures, the course is supposed to be speaking-based. I tried doing my usual dogme ‘language focus’ but it didn’t go down well, I also don’t have any boards, just a projector and a wall. Thus, I started focussing on error correction and supporting language creation but with an emphasis on helping students put across their ideas, not on saying something is wrong. Now, there’s a lot of peer support and if I correct something once and the student reoffends the others pick up on it.
As I said, it is a discussion and it has evolved into me acting like an orchestra conductor in a way. Sometimes pair work, group work or even a debate seems appropriate, other times just a class discussion seems to work. Whatever the format, because I am interested in creating real conversation with ideas, opinions and views, however controversial, error correction is welcomed and often asked for. I’m also now the ‘last resort’ in a way after self-correction and peer.
Thanks for the comment Phil. It sounds like you have created the optimal ‘learning environment’, at least insofar as errors go. When the classroom becomes a kind of ‘self-healing’ organism, with the teacher as last resort, you have a really potent content for ‘scaffolded’ risk-taking.
I’ve recently came across an approach that deals with errors similar to Kolb’s experential learning cycle. It takes time, but it allows the learner to reflect on errors and avoid making them again.
I would be interested to hear more about this. Do you have a link to a site?
Yes, I’d be interested, too.
Not only is this area a huge puzzle, (spoken) errors (and their correction) are also things that a teacher has to be able to make almost instantaneous decisions about in the moment of teaching….do I correct it or not? why is it wrong, what is correct in this context/instance?, what level is the learner and how much do they know / can I ‘push’ them here? how do i correct it? now or later? how is the learner going to feel? – all these thoughts and decisions have to be answered in the moment, and that’s pretty overwhelming.
As much as I’d like to say I have a principled approach that is based on my awareness and consideration of these issues, it often isn’t
I might deal with errors just as I might deal with communication breakdown with other (native) speakers e.g Sorry, did you mean…? or What do you mean? at times, and at other times I make sure there is a stage of the task/lesson that deals with inaccuracies that were heard.
I’d like to believe that this is a very eclectic approach that attempts to focus on learner needs, and the dynamics of the class
K
Thanks for the comment Kristin. I guess we all like to think our approach to error correction is ‘principled’, but as you say, in the heat of the moment, it’s very difficult to juggle all the factors – cognitive, affective, cultural etc – that impact on how we deal with errors that arise in spontaneous talk. Perhaps that’s where teaching is more an art than a science.
For me, a combination approach has always helped. Understanding learning situations and the learner mix is extremely important to the teacher. I’m sure most teachers agree that it s much easier to provide explicit feedback to younger learners. An indirect approach is better whilst handling a class of upper intermediates or adults.
Errors that come in way of communicative competence cannot be compromised or ignored. Errors in accuracy can probably be handled in indirect manner involving the rest of the class in diagnosing and correcting the errors
A colleague of mine talks a bout three types of error – accuracy, intelligibility and irritation.
Accuracy means correcting just because it’s not correct. He feels these should be left alone, particularly if the learner’s meaning is clear.
He mainly feels you should only correct when the error makes it difficult to understand the learner.
Most interesting is his ‘irritation’ class. If he feels the error irritates native or advanced speakers, he corrects it.
I like this idea but am also wary about who decides what irritates
Has there been any sudies that shows when you leave an accuracy error alone (for example 3rd person, present +s) the learners actually self corrects over time through just exposure (reading & listening) to correct language from the teacher of other materials / sources?
Hmmm I haven’t heard of any such studies but it’s something I’d be curious to see. Mind you, it would be very difficult to operationalize such a longitudinal study with two groups of learners.
Thanks Ed – I like your (or your colleague’s) classification, particularly the ‘irritation’ category. I think we do owe it to our students to indicate the errors that are likely to alienate their interlocutors. I distinctly remember a Spanish teacher I had who told me, almost from day one, that she was driven crazy by learners saying ‘una problema’ instead of ‘un problema’. It made such an impression that I very rarely make that mistake!
I agree with you Scott in saying that error correction is one of the most problematic areas of language teaching.Hundreds of articles and book chapters are written about this area of ELT.
I am always puzzled as to wether I should correct a student’s error or not as I have many cases where this correction certainly had side-effects or counter-productive results.
now,I always take some time in the beginning of the school year so that I know something about the personality of my students before I start directly or even indirectly correcting their errors.I have discovered- and most educators might have seen this as well-that some students are too fragile and they might react in a way too personal to the teacher/other student’s correction/feedback on their errors.
This doesn’t mean that some errors shouldn’t be corrected.In cases where error correction hurts,I have resorted to “let it to another day” or delayed error correction;in other words,if I see that a students keeps making the same error ,I find a way to correct the error when he/she is not aware that I am referring to him/her.I sometimes feel that if the student is nor corrected on the spot,he/she wouldn’t be aware that he’s:she’s making that mistake/error.I have found this ,however,better than switching off a student once and for all.
Another poin I would like to make is that how much correction really happens when we correct a student’s error.I am not aware of the existence of any research about if correcting an error is really what “corrects” the student’s error.I suppose that so many errors get corrected along the way without the teacher’s intervention;and this is where other language skills play a great role.I strongly believe that extended reading and writing have a major role to play in chaning a student’s misconceptions of a language item.I am getting pro comprehensible input -krashen- here;and I really agre with the hypothesis that sports Krashen “comprehensible input” theory.
Talking about L1,how much error correction do our mothers/fathers do while we are learning our first language?I have a one year old baby now – and already another oen before him- and I have not noticed myself or his mother correcting our baby’s errors;and yet so many sentnces emerge at an early age.It might be a school fashion then to correct errors,which no one is aware that they are really corrected that way.I suppose that creating the L1 conditions in L2 or FL learning is what really needs to be taken into consideration.
Much language learning happens exactly the same way as other learning”(s)” about life do.Children learn language by observing an older person around them,that observation involves listening to him/her and trying to emitate him/her.This might explain why so many “family/tribe” “errors” continue and resist change despite school’s correction.I am here referring to black English that might be corrected by so many teachers in school and yet it continues to evolve and distinguish itself as a distinct language.I have also witnessed cases where some of our students exchange the /l/ and /r/ sounds and they never orrect them despite our efforts and sometimes the sarcasm of other peer students.
So many misteries remain untapped by research,and language errors continue to be a mystery.
The question then arises is there a way to examine implicit focus on form affects linguistic accuracy of a group of EFL learners, written production of language proficiency in comparison with another group receiving delayed, explicit focus on form at the same level of language proficiency?.Are there any statistically significant differences between Explicit teaching and Implicit teaching when teaching the usage of grammar?
Thanks, Brahim, for your comment. I think that what you say here gets to the heart of it:
“I am not aware of the existence of any research about if correcting an error is really what “corrects” the student’s error.I suppose that so many errors get corrected along the way without the teacher’s intervention;and this is where other language skills play a great role”.
I think it’s probably a case of both – that is to say, some errors are susceptible to the teacher’s intervention, while others just resolve themselves over time and through exposure and practice. The problem is, the constellation of ‘correctable’ errors and ‘non-correctable’ errors will very from learner to learner, so maybe – as a safe bet – we should correct more often than not, in the hope that at least some of our corrections will hit the target. Just a thought.
One of my approaches is very similar to Phil Wade’s. I always encourage collaboration & wide open commumnication channels in my classes & part of this is peer – to peer error correction and improvement. Taken from your ‘unlpugged teaching’ book, I prefer to use the word unsuccessful language and improvement” rather than error or mistake. One of my favourite tasks is one from your book, where I make a list of utternaces (successful and not) and the learners must discuss each one and try to locate any unsuccesssful language, correct it and then also improve the utterance (if possible). I also find that a good method is getting the learners to produce and deliver mini-lesson & tasks on the area of language that is causing them problems – this works better though when it deals with something tangible like a piece / area of grammar.
Karl
Thanks, Karl, for your comment – and thanks for mentioning that activity from ‘Teaching Unplugged’. I had a class who told me that one of the activities that they really liked was just going through a list of errors I had collected from a previous lesson, or from their homework – all anonymised – and working on correcting them. Something satisfying in getting things right, especially when there’s no threat to one’s public ‘face’.
The main errors I find students all over making are: failure to add -s to the third person (as discussed previosly), incorrect preposition use, and failure to use the past simple (what i call the ‘yesterday i go’ syndrome).
It seems to me that these errors are mostly the result of a) lack of self-awareness and b) – something which i feel is grossly overlooked – the fact that the correct form WAS NEVER TAUGHT IN THE FIRST PLACE. In this case, how can we expect our students to get it right?
Let’s take the third person singular ‘-s’. When I studied French and German at school, a great deal of time was spent learning to conjugate the verbs. Now, in English, because only the third person singular is subject to an ending being added, students are never taught how to conjugate verbs in the present simple (or any tense for that matter). It seems it is our general practise to merely *tell* our students “oh, and don’t forget, when you’re talking about he or she, you have to put an ‘s’ at the end”. Of course, the student nods, more or less understands, BUT CRUCIALLY HASN’T PRACTISED AND THEREFORE HASN’T LEARNED IT.
Clearly this is a mistake in our approach as it sends out a message to students that the ending doesn’t matter, that verbs don’t have endings, students of course subsequently don’t practise this hence the mistakes they make.
Therefore, I make a point of focusing just on third person ‘s’ on a regular basis hopefully so these kind of mistakes don’t become embedded.
I give a prompt such as ‘Right, SS A, He – Want – Question’ to which the reply should be ‘What does he want’ I then drill this with other verbs. Then I might change it to ‘Give me a question with ‘who’ and ‘know’ by which I’m trying to elicit “Who knows?” or “Who knows where i can find a good shoe shop in this town?”
OK, so these drills are not exactly pretty, tend to be teacher-centred (although you can get them to do it in pairs as well) but they are crucial.
Interesting comment, Steven. I think you’ll find that there are many teachers out there (I was one!) who have definitely TAUGHT the present simple -s, in the sense of having presented it, drilled it, practised it, corrected it – endlessly – and still students resist using it. This is fairly well attested in the literature on second language acquisition – certain grammatical structures simply resist teaching. Why?
Take the third person -s. How many good reasons might there be for students NOT to learn it?
1. It consists of one sound and one letter – difficult to perceive, compared to, say, the ‘-ing’ ending, which is typically learned much quicker.
2. It’s redundant, since in English we always state the subject of a verb, even if it’s a pronoun, so we know that ‘he work’ refers to ‘he’. Why flag the third person twice?
3. The -s ending indexes the plural in many languages, including Engish – so it seems odd to add it to a singular verb.
4. In many Latin-based languages, the -s ending, if added to a verb, signals the 2nd person (tu hablas) not the 3rd person, so, for speakers of these languages, it is counterintuitive.
5. In many regional versions of English, it is not used.
So, for all these reasons, the -s ending in the third person singular present tense verbs is VERY difficult to acquire, and resists both teaching and correction.