Mistakes and Corrections

Pearson ELT Professional Development

TWENTY

Nick Dawson


Mistakes and Corrections

By Nick Dawson

What is a mistake? Language is a standardised code for communicating ideas. Communication is possible because both speaker and listener know and use the code. A mistake which leads to a breakdown in communication is a non-standard use of the code which interrupts the clear communication of ideas.

It is important to remember that in any incident of communication, there are two people: the speaker who encodes the ideas and the listener who decodes. Communication breaks down if the speaker uses the code in a non-standard way or the listener decodes the code in a non-standard way.

Two students, at a language school, in Britain, are talking:

Pierre: How long are you here for?

Ali: Two years.

Pierre: What...! You are already here since two years?

Ali: No, no, I am come yesterday.

Pierre: Oh, yesterday...

Ali: No, no, last week, I mean I came last week.

In the interaction above we can spot many non-standard uses of code, but the most important non-standard use is invisible. In Pierre’s opening question he asks “How long are you here for?” This appears to follow the rules of the code correctly, but it does not represent Pierre’s intended meaning. Pierre wanted to ask “How long have you been here?” The breakdown in communication was created by Pierre. He thought his question had asked “How long have you been here?” For this reason, he did not understand Ali’s answers.

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The most noticeable mistakes: You are already here since two years? and I am come yesterday are non-standard uses of code, but both are easily comprehensible. They would not lead to a communication breakdown.

A language teacher’s attitude to mistakes

Language teachers, who are training their students to use a new language code treat all mistakes as equal, both mistakes which create communication breakdown and mistakes which are just mistakes of form, incorrect production of the language code.

Your students are not native speakers of English. Everyone will expect them to make occasional mistakes of form. We are tolerant to these mistakes and make allowance for these imperfections. Occasional mistakes of form do not create communication problems. Mistakes of meaning; such as Pierre’s question: “How long are you here for?” can lead to communication breakdowns and are much more serious.

Mistakes are a normal part of any learning process. In fact, they are proof that learning is taking place. A lesson in which students do not make mistakes is a lesson in which students are not learning. They have learnt, but they are not learning. Students make mistakes because they are stretching the limitations of their knowledge or skill. Their desire to communicate is greater than their competence in communication.

Look at this classroom dialogue: The teacher is introducing a reading text about volcanoes and is collecting experiences from the mixed nationality class. [Carlos is Peruvian, Kyoko is Japanese.]

Teacher: Has anyone seen a volcano? Carlos?

Carlos: It was very big.

Teacher: Right. Anyone else? Yes, Kyoko?

Kyoko: Yes, have see volcano. I’ was las’ year. I visi’ aunt house, near coast. There was – don know how you call in Enrish – tsunami, very big wave. There is big volcano under sea. Make ver’ big sea. Ver’ excitin’.


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Carlos wants to give a ‘safe’ answer. He does not want to take risks. On the other hand, Kyoko is very eager to communicate. She knows the limitations of her English but she really wants to tell her story.

Which type of student do you want in your class – the learner who wants to be safe, or the learner who is really stretching her competence? Clearly we want a student who is really trying to learn and extend their knowledge of English.

How can we communicate this attitude?

The best way to communicate our positive attitude to mistakes is to demonstrate our positive attitude by the way in which we behave. We can put a poster in the classroom (either in English or in the learners’ L1).

Mistakes are a normal part of learning.

Mistakes are not bad.

Mistakes are only good, if we learn from them.

We don’t laugh at our classmates’ mistakes.

We learn from our mistakes.

Let’s all get better and better!

We demonstrate our positive attitude to mistakes by rewarding both success and (like Kyoko) attempts to communicate. We don’t attempt to teach by punishing learners for their mistakes. We stress that mistakes are an opportunity to learn something new.

Quiz shows

We all enjoy watching quiz shows on TV. We enjoy them partly for the satisfaction of getting the correct answers but also for the opportunity to learn new facts from the questions which we cannot answer correctly.


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Think about your own world knowledge. How much have you learned from Quiz shows? After a Quiz show, we don’t remember all of the correct answers, but we remember some. The quiz show makes a small contribution to our knowledge.

Learning from mistakes

Any mistake is a learning step – an opportunity to learn something new. We can either feel guilty about making the mistake or seize the chance to get better and better. If the teacher only makes the learners feel guilty about their mistakes, the teacher’s action will demotivate the learners and encourage them to feel that English is too difficult for them.

Correction

When we watch quiz shows, we don’t remember all the correct answers given by the quizmaster. When the teacher corrects a learner’s mistake, the learner does not always learn from the correction. If the teacher identifies the mistake, and gives the learner a second chance to produce the correct form, the learner, or a classmate is often able to supply it.

There are a number of stages in correction.

1. Identifying that an error exists. 2. Locating which words contain the error. 3. Giving or eliciting the correct pattern. 4. Confirming the learner’s understanding of the correct

pattern.

The purpose of correction is to turn a mistake into a learning opportunity. By correcting the mistake, we hope that the mistake will not be repeated.

After giving a student a correction, it is often valuable to ask the student to repeat the correct pattern. In this way, that student and the other students in the class are more likely to remember the correct pattern. Don’t make a big song and dance about this repetition, don’t let the student feel humiliated or exposed.

Repeated mistakes

How can we avoid repeated mistakes? The mistake may have been generated by L1 interference (transporting an L1 structure to English) or


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because the learner does not understand the correct pattern. The mistake has been generated in the learner’s brain so some sort of remedial re-education is necessary. Repeating the original explanation of the pattern may be sufficient but a different approach may be necessary.

Remedial learning

If you think the mistake is generated through L1 interference, ask the learners to write the L1 pattern and the correct English pattern side-by-side [or one above the other]. Encourage the learners to notice the differences in the two patterns. This will not immediately eliminate the problem, but it will give the learners some guidance in self-correction.

If the teacher needs to re-explain the pattern, concentrate on using the pattern to produce personalised statements. Ask the learner to generate twenty true statements using the pattern. Whilst creating the first few statements, the learner will be concentrating on the pattern. Later their brains will be concentrating on the meaning and the truth of the statements.

It is most important that teachers give special congratulation to students who overcome or self-correct their mistakes.

Correction on-line

On line exercise material vary in their approach to correction. They may:

show the correct answers for a few seconds and ‘try again’.

locate the incorrect answers and offer a ‘hint’ towards correction and ‘try again’.

locate the incorrect answers and ‘try again’.

All these correction techniques are much better than correction of traditional workbooks. With workbooks, we are only interested in the number of ticks which the student receives. We locate incorrect answers and may give the correct answers, but we rarely ask students to repeat the task or give any remedial instruction. The second chance offered by ‘try again’, is one of the best features of digital practice tasks.

Immediate and delayed correction

Immediate correction is very useful, particularly if the learner does not feel humiliated by the correction. Immediate correction is possible in on-


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line written exercises. When students are speaking, we do not interrupt them to correct every error. This would give the impression that we are more interested in linguistic accuracy than the content of what they are saying. When students speak, we usually make mental notes or errors and offer delayed correction.

Learning buddies

The teacher does not have time to provide correction all the time. The teacher may not always be the best person to provide correction. Many mistakes are merely ‘slips’ which the learner could correct once the mistake has been identified. Other mistakes may be an indication that this learner has not understood something which the majority of the class have learned.

Learning buddies, paired classmates, are given time to exchange books and to check and identify mistakes in any written exercises before they are submitted. The learning buddy may simply underline mistakes, or may suggest corrections. Checking time is not wasted time. Both buddies benefit and learn from the checking process.

Everyone in the class will have a buddy and will check his/her partner’s work. Classes in which all learners have a learning buddy submit work with fewer simple slips.

Process writing

In process writing, students working in pairs or groups, plan, draft, edit and then produce a final version of a written composition, essay, article, story, letter or message. Mistakes are discovered and corrected at every stage of the process.

The editing stage is particularly important. The text is edited for language mistakes and then it is re-edited for clear communication.

Process speaking

Learners may also work on speeches, project reports and other forms or oral composition. These can be prepared by pairs or groups following the same steps as in process writing. Students need time to rehearse and it’s useful to have a learning buddy listening to the rehearsal.


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Acting and role play are good ways to practice and demonstrate the procedures of ordering from a menu, buying clothing or making a complaint. These little ‘scenes’ can be prepared using process speaking techniques.

Self-monitoring. Experienced language users are constantly self-monitoring their use of language. They may interrupt themselves, reformulate sentences or add clarifications. For language learners, self-monitoring is more difficult. In old-fashioned language laboratories, students had the chance to listen back to their own recordings and compare them with a model voice giving the correct answer. They could then repeat the drill recording new (and better) responses.

Today, few schools have language laboratories but most students have mobile phones or other digital devices which will record and play back audio. Encourage students individually, in pairs or groups to record themselves speaking English. Teach them how to listen back to these recordings and identify possible improvements.

Word processing tools

Many texts which students prepare, both at school and in their working lives, will be written using a computer’s word processing program. Students should learn how to use the SpellCheck and GrammarCheck tools which are available in most word processing programs. These tools should not be regarded as ‘cheating’. Word processing is an academic and occupational reality so students should be taught how to use these tools to produce linguistically accurate texts.

Assessing progress

As we said at the beginning:

Mistakes are only good, if we learn from them.

When assessing students, one element we should consider is the degree to which the individual learner learns from mistakes. Some students continue to make the same mistakes week after week and year after year.


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Students who are committed to becoming ‘better and better’ pay attention to their mistakes and treat them as learning opportunities. They are not frightened by the prospect of making mistakes because their teacher is positive and supportive.

Conclusions

“A mistake which I find is proof that I am cleverer today, than I was yesterday.”

Documents

Mistakes and Corrections