Error Correction

One of the main dilemmas for teachers is error correction. It’s always tricky to know when and if to correct students and how to go about it. The danger of over-correcting is that students will lose motivation and you may even destroy the flow of the class or the activity by butting in and correcting every single mistake. There are times when this is appropriate but most students want to have some of their mistakes corrected as it gives them a basis for improvement.

I observed the lesson for this purpose. And I realised that there are lots of errors that children make. The important point is to know where to correct them in order not to avert their eagerness.Here is a chart of the errors , teacher’s correction methods and the phases of the lesson in which those errors occured, below:

LEARNER ERROR	TEACHER RESPOSE	LESSON PHASE	ACCURACY/FLUENCY
“Yes, there are.”	“Yes. there ………”(says half of the pattern with an intonation , emphasizing the wrong part of the answer,waits Ss to say the rest of the sentence in the correct form)	Presentation	Accuracy
“No, there isn’t.”	“No, there isn’t or no, there aren’t?” (asks this question)	Practice	Accuracy
“Yes, she can.”	“Is our hero a boy or a girl? “(asks this question to make Ss aware of their mistake.)”So what do we use for a boy: he or she?”	Production	Accuracy
“No, you can’t.”	“No, you can’t?” (Teacher repeats the question again )	Practice	Accuracy
“There is a boots.”	“There is a boots!” (Teacher repeated student’s answer emphasizing the wrong pattern with intonation .)	Practice	Accuracy
“There is flying cape.”	“If the word is singular, we should put “a” in front of it as you know.Don’t forget this an!”	Practice	Accuracy
“There is a flying cape /cayp/”	“There is a flying cape . Cape-flying cape- there is a flying cape” students repet after each pattern.( teacher repeats the sentence again emphasizing the word “cape” )	Practice	Accuracy

There wasn’t a particular focus in the lesson. Teacher corrected the errors in various points of view such as “fluency and accuracy”. She made immediate correction where it is necessary. She created opportunities for both teacher correction,and peer correction, and for self correction too. She didn’t do correction unnecessarily, she did it where it will really work.

Furthermore , she applied different methods for each correction just as written in the chart above.In the first mistake, she said half of the pattern with an intonation emphasizing the wrong part of the answer and waited Ss to say the rest of the sentence in the correct form. Here students understood that they have to change the rest of the sentence that teacher didn’t said. In the second one, he asked a question using their own answer(which is wrong) and the correct answer. She asked Ss to choose the right answer with her intonation and gesture.Here she encourages self correction. She gave a confidential explanation for the third mistake.She wanted to get the answer by directing them with the question “Is our hero a boy or a girl” students reponse: “ boy” , By this way teacher made ss aware of their mistakes.And she got what she wanted with this last point: “ so what do we use for a boy “ he or she” ? In the fourth mistake, she repeated the question again with an intonation and warning gesture on her face, here intonation and gesture helped students to realise and correct their mistakes. Teacher repeated student’s answer emphasizing the wrong pattern with intonation and gesture in the fifth one. As a result of these methods, teacher created a positive classroom atmosphere for peer correction.As soon as teacher directed students after each error, all of the students attended to correct them.

Apart from all these methods, teacher explained the rule in the sixth error.All of the errors above are accuracy based errors.But the last one is a fluency error.The student mispronounced the word then teacher repeated the sentence again emphasizing the word which they mispronounced, then she divided the word into syllables and made a repetiton drill for the whole syllables of the sentence especially for the word that they have a pronunciation problem.

Generally, intonation and gestures were used effectively for error correction in this lesson. If we discuss the achievement of goals (error correction goals) , I can say that it really worked , because students didn’t repeated their mistakes again in the same lesson.