Pearson ELT Professional Development

TWENTY
Nick Dawson

Pearson ELT Professional Development
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 Pierres 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 Pierres 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 Alis 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 teachers 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 Pierres 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 J apanese.]
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 dont laugh at our
classmates mistakes.
We learn from our mistakes.
Lets all get better and
better!
We demonstrate our positive attitude to mistakes by rewarding both
success and (like Kyoko) attempts to communicate. We dont 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 dont 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 teachers action will demotivate the learners and
encourage them to feel that English is too difficult for them.
Correction
When we watch quiz shows, we dont remember all the correct answers
given by the quizmaster. When the teacher corrects a learners 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 learners 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.
Dont make a big song and dance about this repetition, dont 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 learners 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 partners
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 its
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 computers 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.