APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English
FEEDBACK AND ERROR CORRECTION
Responding to oral errors
Error correction should be positive to encourage students to concentrate on what they have got right. Teachers have to praise students for correct answers, even for partly correct answers, so as to make them feel they are making progress. Teachers should avoid humiliating students or making them feel that making a mistake or an error is bad. Doff (1993) emphasizes that a good teacher should be aware of the effect on each individual learner of correcting the errors, that is why s/he should be flexible and use different strategies according to the kind of error, the ability and personality of the student, the kind of activity, the general atmosphere in the class. First the difference between mistakes and errors has to be clarified, because the kind of error will determine what correction strategy is to be employed.
Several teachers consider oral correction more difficult than written correction because they have to make decisions quickly about correction, as they cannot spend too much time correcting errors, because it gives them too much importance and holds up the lesson. Teachers have to consider several factors:
- what to correct (the nature of the error or mistake),
- when to correct (students purpose in speaking, concentrating on fluency or accuracy),
- how much to correct (selection of errors to be corrected, individual or common problem,
- the ease with which the error or mistake can be corrected, avoidance of overcorrection)
- how to correct (indication of the error, person providing correction, personality and ability
of the student).
Very little time is to be spent on mistakes, as students are usually able to correct themselves either unprompted or with some guidance. Errors are to be dealt with, because the student may think that what he is saying is correct, or does not know the correct form or even if he knows what should be the correct answer he cannot get it right.
The issue of when and what to correct is related to what the focus is at the time: accuracy or fluency. It depends on the kind of the activity we are doing and the aim of the activity: we want students to produce accurate language or whether we want them to express themselves freely and develop fluency.
