Mistake correction

Keith Johnson

The aim of this article1is

to explore what a particular
view of language,
language
learning,
and language
teaching suggests with regard to a
specific language-teaching
problem - the
problem
of what to do when
students get things wrong.

Language

as ski//

The particular
view of language,
of language
learning,
and of language
teaching
that is presented
in this article is one which is prepared
to make a
parallel
between
language
and other complex
skills like playing
tennis,
piloting an aircraft, or playing a musical instrument.
The justification
for
such a parallel is that all these behaviours,
including
language
use, involve
performing
complex
sequences
of activities.
The type of knowledge
the
performer
needs to develop for all these behaviours,
including
language
use, is knowledge
concerned
with how to (what Anderson
1980 calls procedural knowledge),
rather than knowledge
about (what he calls declarative knowledge).
The knowledge
of a skilled language
user and the
knowledge
of a skilled oboe player have in common that they both involve
forms of procedural
knowledge.
The view of language as skill, of language acquisition
as skill acquisition,
and of language
teaching as skill training,
will offend many, who may find
the comparisons
this article makes between language learning and learning
(for example)
how to ride a horse, inappropriate
if not offensive. The view
certainly
needs more justification
than can be given here.2 What may be
said here is that it is by no means a new view, though it is one which has
gone rather
out of fashion
in recent years (hence
perhaps
feelings
of
inappropriateness
and offence). It has gone out of fashion
doubtless
largely
through
the influence
of Chomsky
and the view that language
is unique
acquired
in a unique
way by means
of a
among
human
behaviours,
language-specific
acquisition
device (the LAD) which does not appear to
contribute
much towards the acquisition
of other, non-linguistic
skills. This
view of language
as unique and uniquely acquired
strongly suggests that if
we wish to know anything
about how languages
are learned, we shall get no
useful information
from looking at how other skills are learned. According
to this view, the proper study of language
acquisition
is indeed language
acquisition.
Of course, this Chomskyian
view both can be and has been challenged.
As Anderson
(1980:398) says: little direct evidence
exists to support
the
view that language is a unique system. And once language is deprived of its
unique status, then the acquisition
of skills other than language becomes an
area of study likely to be of interest
to the language
teacher.
Under
the
Chomskyian
influence,
such interest
has waned somewhat;
this article is
part of an attempt
to show how looking at language
learning
in terms of
skills may be fruitful in both theoretical
and practical
terms.
ELT Journal

Volume 42/2April

1988

Oxford University

Press 1988

articles

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welcome

Errors

Feedback

The concept of feedback

is central in the literature
on skill acquisition.
It is
recognized
that though there is a place in training for initial guidance
in
skill learning? there is also an important
place for feedback
(viewed as the
provider
of information,
rather than as a reinforcer).
It seems intuitively
true that a great deal of learning how to serve in tennis for example,
comes
after any initial guidance
the teacher might give, when the learner picks up
the ball, serves, and notes the outcome. The sequence of events, in this case,
is not learn perform, but learn perform learn. This sequence
correctly
suggests
that when we speak about feedback,
we are speaking
about something
that potentially
contributes
to the learning
process. For
lengthy discussion
on the concept of feedback,
see Annett (1969).
Though the situation is better today, much language teaching of the past
exemplifies
the learn - perform sequence.
We teach, and the students
learn; they then perform,
exemplifying,
we hope, the learning
that has
taken place. During or following performance,
error correction
is used to
plug the holes. But approaching
language
teaching
as skill training
suggests that feedback
may have more of a role to play. A central aim of this
article is to suggest that more attention
should be given to the issue of how
we can best provide feedback.
That more attention
needs to be given to this issue is further suggested
by
what most teachers
will see as the comparative
failure of the feedback
measures
we employ. Our students
leave the s off the third singular of the
simple present; we put it back on for them, and at the next opportunity
they
leave it off again. One of my problems
as a novice horse rider is that I lean
forward on the horse; the teacher tells me to sit up straight; a moment later I
am leaning forward again. In these cases our methods
of feedback
do not
seem to meet with much success.

and mistakes

To consider how things might be improved,

we might begin by asking why
it is that students
get things wrong. There are at least two reasons.3 One is
that the student
either does not have the appropriate
knowledge,
or has
some false knowledge.
He or she may either not know how a tense of English
works, or have the wrong idea. In this case, we may say that the students
interlanguage
knowledge is faulty. The result is what Corder
(1981) calls an
error.
There
is, however,
a second reason for a student
getting
something
wrong. It may be a lack of processing ability. I know I should not lean forward
on the horse, and when simply trotting round the paddock
I do not do so.
My problem comes when approaching
a small jump.
My feet may fall out of
the stirrups,
the horse may begin to get difficult, and one result (there may
be other more painful ones!) is that I lean forward. It is not my knowledge
that is at fault here; it is my ability to perform my competence
(the phrase
is taken from Ellis 1985a) in difficult operating
conditions.
The result is
what Corder (1981) calls a mistake.
In recent years a number
of writers, dealing with different
areas in the
language
learning/teaching
field, have made distinctions
which can be
related
to Corders
between
errors and mistakes.
Bialystok
(1982), for
example,
takes the area of language
testing
as her starting
point. She
observes
that we have tended to assess language
mastery
quantitatively,
providing
statements
that the learner simply knows more or less of the
language,
or knows some of the formal properties
and not others (p. 181).
But we should also, she argues, ask qualitative
questions,
about the conditions under which these formal properties
can be correctly
manipulated.4

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Two examples,
one from a non-linguistic
skill and one from language
use, will illustrate.
A footballer
may, in normal circumstances,
be a good
goal scorer. But when we assess his mastery,
we will need to take into
account
circumstances
which are far from normal.
Can he, for example,
score in the Mexico World Cup, at an altitude of six thousand
feet, against a
good side, knowing
that spectators
at home will bay for the blood of the
defeated?
Similarly, when we come to judge a students linguistic ability, we
would be foolish to pronounce
that she has mastered
the present
perfect
tense simply on the grounds
that she has managed
to use it correctly
in a
gap-filling
task, done under ideal conditions.
Can she, one would need to
ask, use the tense correctly over a bad intercontinental
telephone
line, with
all attention
focused on getting the message across in the shortest possible
space of time?
Returning
now to the error/mistake
distinction,
having noted that it is
one manifestation
of a more general
distinction
between
knowledge
and
processing
ability,
one might claim that we have paid more attention
in
language
teaching
to errors than to mistakes.
What is less arguably
true is
that techniques
(like, perhaps,
explanation)
for handling
errors spring
more readily to mind than techniques
for handling
mistakes.
It may further
be the case that we have tended to treat mistakes
as if they were errors.
Since the two are different,
it seems likely that they will need to be handled
in different
ways.
Corder
(1981: 10) argues that mistakes
are of no significance
to the
process of language learning.
But if we use the word mistake to describe a
malformation
due to inability
to process under difficult sets of operating
conditions,
then it is likely that a good percentage
of our students
malformations are mistakes and not errors. If this is the case, the subject of mistake
correction becomes
an important
one in language
teaching.
Mistake

correction

How can mistakes

eradicate
a mistake,

be eradicated?
One might propose
that in order to
a student
will need at least four things. These are:

a. The desire or need to eradicate

the mistake. It is likely that a number of
mistakes do not get eradicated
simply because students
know they can get
by without
eradicating
them. The simple present
s (which has little
communicative
value) probably
falls into this category.5
b. An internal representation
of what the correct behaviour
looks like. The
student
needs, in other words, the knowledge
that makes the malformation a mistake and not an error. It is unlikely, of course, that the knowledge
is possessed
in a form in which the linguist will possess it; which is why it is
referred
to here as an internal
representation
(begging
the question
of
what that internal
representation
will look like).
c. A realization
by the student that the performance
he or she has given is
flawed. The learner needs to know that a mistake has occurred.
Some form
of feedback
will provide this.
d.

An opportunity

to repractise

in real conditions.

In learning
how to serve in tennis, then, the
badly needs (a) a desire to serve properly,
(b)
looks and feels like, (c) a realization
that the
chance to practise
again.
This article will not deal with the first of

learner who has just served

to know what a good service
service was bad, and (d) the
these

conditions,

important

Mistake correction

91

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though it is. It will consider

the classroom.

Providing internal
representation

Realization of flawed
performance

how the remaining

three

might

be provided

in

Initial guidance
should help the student to form an internal representation
of what the behaviour
is like (for example,
how a particular
structure
operates and is used in English).
How such guidance is best given is another
area where the skills literature
has much to offer. There
is extensive
discussion
(for instance,
in Holding
1965) on the relative merits of explanation and demonstration,
and a look at the techniques
used by trainers
of
non-linguistic
skills is likely to offer the language
teacher exciting and fresh
perspectives.
There is, for example,
the Suzuki method
of violin playing
where the learner is at an early age saturated
with violin music, providing
an internal
representation
of the behaviour
which can be proceduralized
later. A further method is discussed
in Gallwey (1971) where it is suggested
that learning to become a good tennis player may be helped by mimicking
the movements
and even the idiosyncracies
of a great player. Pretending
to
by Jimmy
Connors
may in part help one to play tennis like Jimmy
Connors.
Full discussion
of initial guidance
techniques
is beyond the scope
of this article, but there is much wisdom to be gleaned from the practices
of
the skill trainer.
Though
initial training
may help to provide
internal
representation,
much can also be done after the event -after,
that is, the learners
have
performed
the behaviour
for themselves.
One technique
which models
after the event is reformulation.
This technique,
discussed
by Levenston
(1978), Cohen (1983), and Allwright
et al. (1984), is usually used for the
teaching
of writing.
There are several versions
of reformulation,
but the
basis is that a native speaker rewrites
a student
essay, as far as possible
preserving
the intended
meaning.
Reformulation
is different
from reconstruction,
which is what most of us do to student essays. In reconstruction,
errors and mistakes are simply corrected.
The result will be sentences
free
from gross malformations,
but ones which may not remotely
resemble
sentences
a native speaker
would produce
to express the same content.
Because reconstruction
focuses on errors and mistakes, it may well provide
the learner with information
on where he or she went wrong. What reformulation
offers, and reconstruction
fails to offer, is information
on how a
proficient
speaker would have said the same thing. Reformulation
provides
a model of what the behaviour
should look like; and though its clearest use
is for writing,
there is no reason why spoken language
should
not be
reformulated.6

It is interesting
to note that according
to Bartlett
(1947:879),
maybe the
best single measure
of mental skill lies in the speed with which errors are
detected
and thrown out
.... Knowing
what has been done wrong (and
what to do about it) is something
which, for example,
distinguishes
the
skilled tennis player from the novice. Six points will be made about this
stage:
1 It cannot automatically
be assumed
that the learner will be aware of
having made a mistake.
The very conditions
which produce
the mistake
may prevent its detection.
The fact that I have so many things to attend to
at the jump, on a difficult horse, with feet out of the stirrups,
may make me
lean forward;
it may also prevent
me from knowing
that I have leaned

92

Keith Johnson

articles

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forward.
aware.

Therefore

some

positive

action

needs

to be taken

to make

me

2 The positive action of being told by the teacher is probably

not enough.
Learners
seem to need to see for themselves
what has gone wrong, in the
operating
conditions
under which they went wrong. There are various ways
of achieving
this. My leaning forward on the horse is brought
home best
when I see a video of myself doing it. As a second best, it is useful for me to
see others making
the same mistake in the same conditions;
and where
other learners are not available,
teachers often provide the information
by
mimicking
the learner to indicate what is being done wrong. Monitoring
yourself in difficult operating
conditions
suggests
putting classroom
language on tape or video.
3 Explanation
is probably
not the best way to give mistake
feedback.
There is evidence in the skills literature
(for example, in Holding 1965) that
explanation
is a procedure
to be used warily anyway. Performance
can be
positively
harmed
by elaborate
explanation,
as when the tennis coach
provides
a lengthy lecture on how to hold the racket during service; the
result may simply be to inhibit the novice who, trying to serve, attempts
to
bear in mind all the points of the explanation
(cf. Gallwey 1971). One might
further argue that any benefit that explanation
might provide would be for
errors rather than mistakes. The defining characteristic
of a mistake is that
the student
knows what should be done; explanation
could therefore
be
seen as providing
what he or she already has.
4 It may again be that the best way of providing
the necessary
realization
is
by confronting
the learner with the mismatch
between flawed and model
performance.
This again points to reformulation.
I want to see what the
teacher looks like going over the jump on a difficult horse (i.e. in full operating
conditions - -the
importance
of this will be touched on later), then to compare
this with what I looked like, in fuU operating conditions.
5 When reformulation
takes place, it may be that the most useful feedback
comes from those areas of mismatch
which students
are themselves
able to
identify,
because
those areas will accord with the stage of their skill (or
interlanguage)
development.
A further example from riding; I was having
problems
doing a good trot, and the teacher was demonstrating
what it
should look like. During her demonstration,
I noticed something
about the
position of her legs which she had never drawn my attention
to; it was not
on her teaching
programme.
Once I held my legs in the same position,
several of the things which I was getting wrong and which she had drawn
my attention
to suddenly
became
right. In that situation
I was learning
something
she had not set out to teach. Language
teachers may find in their
experience
similar examples of where point learned is at odds with intended teaching
point; one of the benefits of reformulation
is that if, without
comment,
one merely presents
students
with a model performance
to be
compared
with their flawed performance,
it is left up to them to note and
learn what they will from the comparison.
6 But in conjunction
with (5) above a further point needs to be made.
There is one sense in which language skill is like ice skating. In ice skating,
learning the rudiments
of surviva l-being
able to stand up, move forward,
turn etc., without falling over -is
a comparatively
small part of becoming
an accomplished
performer.
A large part of the task involves learning
to
Mistake correction

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conform to an accepted
model, established
over time by tradition,
of what
good skating looks like. In terms of getting by on ice many details of the
accepted
model (how the legs and body should be held, for example)
are
mere frills. The same is true of language,
and the rudiments
of linguistic
survival can be met by a form of pidgin. The learner who says Please give
beer is unlikely to go thirsty; but he or she will have failed to conform to
externally
imposed norms about language behaviour,
norms which in pure
survival terms are frills. The skills literatures
distinction
between intrinsic
and extrinsic
feedback
(cf. Annett
1969) is relevant
here. Intrinsic
feedback, springing
from the situation
itself, is likely to provide information
on
whether the rudiments
of survival have been met; it occurs when the skater
falls over or the learner fails to get his beer. But such feedback is unlikely to
provide
information
on whether
externally
imposed
norms
have been
adhered
to. For this, extrinsic feedback
(from an outside source) is needed,
and to provide
it the teacher
will find it necessary
to draw conscious
attention
to mistakes
and errors.7
Opportunity to practise
again, in real operating
conditions

94

in this article is one of mistake occurrence

There
is some evidence
in the skill
literature
(e.g. Annett 1969) that the relationship
between the second two is
important.
In terms of time: for example,
it may be more important
how
soon retrial takes place after corrective
action than how soon after mistake
occurrence
corrective
action occurs. We therefore
need to speak not just
about feedback
after performance,
but also about feedback
before retrial.
It seems important
that real operating
conditions
should be present in
retrial. The following
exemplifies
why, first in relation to a non-linguistic
skill, then in relation to language.
A novice pilot may well be able to land in clear weather when the plane
has no mechanical
defects. The problem
may be landing the plane in fog
and when the flaps are not working correctly.
In this situation,
to practise
landing in clear skies in a perfect plane is clearly of restricted
value. What
the pilot needs to practise is, precisely, landing in fog with faulty flaps. For
this an aircraft simulator
is provided.
What the simulator
offers is various
configurations
of operating
conditions.
The student
may be able to form the present perfect correctly
in a gapfilling task. His or her problem
may be with getting
it right over the
intercontinental
telephone
line referred to earlier. In this situation,
simply
giving more gap-filling
tasks is of as restricted
a value as landing in clear
weather. What the learner needs is some form of present perfect simulator
which will vary the operating
conditions,
to simulate just those types of
conditions
which are presenting
difficulties.
What does a present perfect simulator
look like? Perhaps work like that
of Brown et al. (1984) -which
may be interpreted
as an attempt
to identify
some parameters
of difficulty in operating
conditions -will
provide a way
of grading
tasks in terms of operating
condition
complexity.
Whether
or not
this is so, it is clear that in important
respects, free practice offers a form of
present perfect simulator.8
What free practice provides is ready-made
sets
of operating
conditions;
these will vary from moment
to moment,
and will
place variable
demands
on the learners ability to process. Sometimes
the
interaction
will require speedy response,
sometimes
not; different interactions will involve different
amounts
of language;
the demands
of message
(and hence the degree of attention
the learner must give to what he or she is
saying rather than how he or she is saying it) will change. There will be other

The sequence

corrective

being

discussed

action -

retrial.

Keith Johnson

articles

welcome

types of variation,
not least in affective conditions
(the degree of anxiety
felt, attitude
towards
interactant,
etc.) which will affect the performers
processing
efficiency.
Bad conditions
along parameters
like these are the
language
users equivalents
of fog and faulty flaps. Free practice will go a
long way towards simulating,
over time. the operating
conditions
in which
mistakes
occur.
The stages of corrective action and retrial are both seen as crucial to
mistake eradication.
It is optimistic
to suppose that once corrective
action
has been taken, a mistake (as opposed perhaps
to an error) will disappear.
Part of learning
to land in fog involves landing in fog; part of learning
to use
the present perfect on an intercontinental
phone involves phoning intercontinentally
and using the present perfect. It is, however, equally optimistic
to
suppose that retrial alone will efficiently eradicate
mistakes. Both stages are
seen as necessary
but not, taken alone, sufficient for mistake eradication
to
occur.
Conclusion

This article begs many questions.

It may be said merely to switch the focus
of attention
from initial learning
to feedback.
The question
of how to
provide successful feedback is no less perplexing
than the question of how to
facilitate successful initial learning.
But perhaps a willingness
to pursue the
metaphor
of language learning as skill learning will provide interesting
new
perspectives
on both these questions
and many others.

Received

January

1987

Notes

1 This article arose out of talks I gave at the University of Lancaster and at Ealing College of Higher
Education. Many useful points made during discussion after these talks have been incorporated
into
this version.
2 Johnson
(1986) attempts
to provide
such a
justification.

3 This point is made by Bialystok and Sharwood

Smith (1985), who use the terms knowledge and control to describe the distinction discussed here. See
Note (4) below for further reference to their work.
4 Many of the issues discussed in this article directly
relate to issues arising in the literature
on variability
in interlanguage -e.g.
in Tarone
(1982 and 1983).
Bialystok
(1982).
Ellis (1985b)
and Bialystok
and
Sharwood
Smith (1985), among others.
It is by no
means
the case that all these researchers
would
support
the position
being developed
here. This
position
is closest
to Bialystok
and
Sharwood
Smiths,
though
they avoid association
with any
general
model of skill acquisition.
specifically
the
one which informs this article -the
model of Anderson (1982).
For discussion
of interlanguage
variability
within
Andersons
framework
for skill
acquisition,
see Johnson
(forthcoming).
5 The literature
on pidginization
and fossilization
contains
relevant discussion
on this point. See Smith
(1972) for the idea that pidgins
are simplified
and
reduced
because
used
for restricted
functions.
Selinker and Lamendella
(1978) discuss the occur-

rence of fossilization
when communicative
needs are
being adequately
met.
6 The suggestion
that reformulation
might be used for
spoken language
does raise some practical,
logistical
problems
which would need discussion.
7 This similarity
between
language
and ice skating
was pointed
out to me by Dick Allwright,
whose
comments
on a number
of points
made in this article
are gratefully
acknowledged.
8 The term free practice
is here intended
in a general
sense to refer to the kinds of activity
which Byrne
(1976) associates
with the production
stage.
A
central characteristic
of such practice
is that learners are given considerable
freedom
to choose what
they say and when they say it. Many kinds of role
play and simulation
exercises
are free practice
in
this sense.

References

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wright.

R. L., M-P. Woodley, and J. M. All1984. Investigating

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1984.
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Psychologiral Review 89/4: 369-406.
Annett, J. 1969. Feedback
and Human Behaviour.
Harmondsworth:
Penguin
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The author

Keith Johnson
lectures in the Department
of Linguistic Science
at the University
of Reading.
He was a
founder
member
of the Centre for Applied
Language
Studies at the University
of Reading,
where his work
included
materials
production,
presessional
course
organization,
and teacher
training.
He has published
in the area of communicative
language
teaching,
and is
at present
interested
in viewing
language
teaching
within a cognitive
skills framework.

Keith Johnson

articles

welcome