![\"Scott](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/scott_thornbury_bigger.png\")
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When I first started teaching the answer to these two questions was clear and unproblematic. What are errors?<\/em> They are any departure from standard English. How should we deal with them? <\/em>We should correct them lest they become \u2018bad habits\u2019.<\/p>\n Subsequently, these two questions have become the most difficult, problematic and mysterious of all questions related to language teaching.<\/p>\n What are errors?<\/em> We simply don\u2019t know any more. Why? Because there is no agreed upon standard by which to measure learners\u2019 output. For a start, there are so many varieties of native speaker English (both spoken and written) that it\u2019s impossible to decide if a sentence like \u2018I can\u2019t get no satisfaction\u2019 is \u2018wrong\u2019 or not. On top of that, many learners are not interested in speaking \u2018native speaker\u2019 English anyway.<\/p>\n What should we do about errors?<\/em> Research suggests that correcting errors has only an accidental effect on accuracy, and that many so-called errors (like failure to add \u2013s to present simple third person singular verbs, as in she work<\/em>) are an inevitable stage of language learning, and are extremely resistant to correction. On the other hand, if we don\u2019t correct errors we may send out a message that accuracy doesn\u2019t 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<\/em> to correct errors will make us look incompetent in the eyes of other learners.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n What are errors & how should we \u00a0deal with them in our classes? – Scott Thornbury 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 \u2018bad … Continue reading Error correction – Scott Thornbury<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,5,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classrooms-correction-and-critical-thinking","category-error_correction","category-summer-sampler-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7316,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/7316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"