Correcting oral error

Typical types of error

• Pronunciation: phoneme, word stress, intonation

• Lexis: wrong word / collocation
• Grammar: tense, subject-verb agreement, word order
• Register

Possible causes of error

• Overgeneralisation of a rule e.g. She runned for the bus but not catched it.
• L1 interference e.g. I check spelling with my dictionary because he knows all.
• They were incorrectly taught it by a previous T e.g. I had dinner with my mother. She’s a
good cooker.
• New language/new rule not yet fully assimilated e.g. I haven’t never been to Egypt.
• They just don’t know the right word (although circumlocution can be excellent tool for ss)
e.g. My father is a fisher.
• Learner knows the rule but perhaps is just tired

Factors influencing when and how to correct

• The lesson objectives

• Aim of activity – fluency v. accuracy
• Type of activity/lesson stage: productive skills focus v. receptive skills focus, lead-in, filler,
social etc
• The cause of the error – mistake or error?
• Is it a priority for the level of the learner?
• Does the error interfere with communication?
• How quickly can the error be dealt with?
• Is it an issue for an individual or the whole class?

Review: agree or disagree?

1. Errors need to be avoided at all costs.

2. Students’ errors are evidence that learning is taking place.

3. Correcting student errors is embarrassing and de-motivating for the students.

4. You should correct mistakes as soon as students make them.

5. You should correct every mistake that students make.

6. The best way to correct mistakes is to provide the correction yourself.

Teacher: Rachel Hay

 Techniques for correcting error

1. Tell students there’s an error (eg ‘There’s an error in that sentence’).

2. Use facial expression to indicate an error: frown, raised eyebrows etc.

3. Use a gesture combined with a facial expression (eg pointing over your shoulder to indicate use of
the past tense).

4. Use finger correction (eg use your fingers to represent each word in a sentence and point to your
third finger to indicate an error with that word).

5. Repeat the sentence up to the error (eg ‘They looked for a .....?’).

6. Repeat the sentence with changed intonation or stress to indicate where the error is.

7. Ask a question (eg ‘Was this last week?’ – highlighting that past tense should have been used).

8. Ask a one-word question (eg ‘Tense?’ ‘Past?’).

9. Draw a timeline on the board.

10. Draw spaces on the board representing the words in the sentence and indicate which word in the
problem.

11. Write the problem sentence on the board for discussion.

12. Use the phonemic chart to point to an incorrect phoneme.

Can you think of any more?

Teacher: Rachel Hay