Errors and mistakes

Collocations: What word goes with all the words? big terrible silly make a(n) did it by cannot afford any more learn from your _________________ human factual statistical unexpected grammatical make a(n) it may contain trial and __________________

Discussion questions: Discuss the questions below with your partner: a) What is the difference between ‘error’ and ‘mistake’ in an ELT context? b) Should learners’ mistakes be corrected? Why? Why not? c) When should learners’ mistakes be corrected? d) Which mistakes should be corrected? e) Who should do the correcting?

ELT approaches and error correction: Audiolingualism, which gained considerable popularity in the 1960s, grew out of the belief that language learning was a process of habit formation. This teacher-centred approach relied heavily on imitation and memorisation where learners had to learn carefully sequenced lists of set phrases or sentences. There was great effort on the part of teachers to get learners to produce error-free sentences. In fact, mistakes were not to be tolerated in Audiolingualism. They were a sign that the ‘good’ habits hadn’t yet been learnt.

ELT approaches and error correction: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) shifted the emphasis from accuracy to fluency. Mistakes were no longer seen as negative manifestations of learners’ performance, but rather as an indispensable part of the learning process, showing that real learning is taking place. The main purpose of language learning is the ability to use language for real communication. Error correction still has a place in the classroom but it would be less direct and intrusive; for example, it can take place at the end of a communicative activity. Error is an indication of learners’ effort in producing the language.

ELT approaches and error correction: The Lexical Approach (LA) proposed in the early 1990s can be considered an offshoot of the CLT. While compatible with the communicative view of the language, the LA claims that grammar mistakes are often results of gaps in the lexical knowledge. Therefore, what is often needed is not error correction but rather more lexical input to enrich learners’ vocabulary. Grammar mistakes will eventually take care of themselves as learners work on developing their lexical knowledge, particularly their command of ready-made phrases, patterns and ‘chunks’.

Correcting written works: Look at the following techniques of written error correction and decide which would be appropriate for your teaching situation. Use different colours to underline mistakes and examples of appropriate language. Correct errors by writing the correct forms in their place. Use codes in the margin to identify the type of errors (e.g. Sp = spelling error). Learners then make corrections themselves. Put crosses in the margin for the number of errors in each line (without identifying the type of errors). Learners then try to identify the errors and make corrections. Put learners into pairs/groups. They correct each other’s work using one or more of the techniques above. Collect some common and recurring mistakes in learners’ writing, write them up on the board and discuss with the whole class. From time to time, give learners an individual breakdown of recurring problems in their written work.

Recommended reading: Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Brown, H. Douglas, 3rd Edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents, 1994, p – a summary of Krashen’s (1981) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. English Language Teaching series. London: Prentice-Hall – an article on different kinds of errors and some practical ideas – a second part of the article dealing with error correction – a forum where teachers share their views on error correction – a somewhat ironic article about how teachers often get themselves into a state over their learners’ mistakes questions/methodologyfossilized-errors/ article – Scott Thornbury’s excellent article on fossilised errors and some tips on how to deal with them management/classroommanagement-speaking-correction-techniques/ article – a lot of ideas on how to correct mistakes, especially how to make non-intrusive correction during speaking activities, including an extensive list of correction symbols (gestures) – variations on a popular error correction game