Unit 32 · Correcting learners

We correct learners when they have made a mistake and we want to show them that something is wrong. There is a range of correction strategies and techniques we can use to indicate a mistake, and the ones we choose depend on factors such as the aim of the activity and the age and language level of the learners.

◆How do we correct learners?

We correct learners sometimes when they have made a mistake and we want to show them that something is wrong. There is a range of correction strategies and techniquesThe particular ways a teacher does things in class, e.g. presentation techniques or correction techniques. click to keep open · see glossary we can use to indicateTo show, point out, make known; e.g. a teacher can indicate that a learner has made a mistake by repeating the mistake with rising intonation. click to keep open · see glossary (show) that there is a mistake, and the ones we choose depend on a number of different factorsSomething which has an effect on the result of a situation or event; e.g. motivation is one of many factors which have an effect on whether someone learns a language successfully or not. click to keep open · see glossary, for example the aimAims are not the same as procedures. click to keep open · see glossary of the activity, the age of the learners and the language level of the learners.

◆Key concepts — oral correction

What strategies and techniques can we use for correcting learners’ oral and written mistakes, and when do we use them?

Oral correction

1. Time lines. We can draw a time line on the board to show learners the relationship between the use of a verb tense and the time or aspect. This technique is particularly useful for mistakes such as I have seen that film two weeks ago. The time line to show this mistake might look like this.

   Past ←———	Now	———→ Future
   x = two weeks ago

   This reminds learners that, because the event is in the past and the time is specified, they cannot use the present perfect. The correct sentence is I saw that film two weeks ago.

2. Finger correctionSee correct. click to keep open · see glossary. This shows learners where in an utteranceThe preposition for after talk is incorrect click to keep open · see glossary they have made a mistake. We can indicate where the mistake is without speaking and promptTo help learners think of ideas or to remember a word or phrase by giving them a part of it or by giving another kind of clue. When a teacher suggests a word that the learner hasn’t remembered, e.g. Learner: I want to …… in an office. Teacher: Work? Learner: Y… click to keep open · see glossary learners to self-correct. We show one hand to the class and point to each finger in turn as we say each word in the utterance. This technique is particularly effective when learners have left out a word in an utterance, because we can indicate that something is missing and they can see where in the utterance the missing word should go. It is also helpful when we want them to use a contractionA shorter form of a group of words, which usually occurs in auxiliary verbs, e.g. you have = you’ve; it is = it’s. See abbreviation. click to keep open · see glossary, for example I’m working rather than I am working. We bring two fingers together to show that we want them to bring the two words together. (See illustration on page 168.)
3. Gestures and/or facial expressions are useful when we do not want to interrupt learners, but still want to show them that they have made a slipSee error. click to keep open · see glossary. A worried or questioning look from the teacher is often enough to indicate to learners that there is a problem with what they have said. As well as using facial expressions, it is possible to use gestures to indicate different kinds of mistake. One gesture that teachers often use to remind learners that a past tense is needed is to point back over their shoulder. The gestures that teachers use depend on what is appropriateLanguage which is suitable in a particular situation; e.g. it might be appropriate to say Hi in one situation but Good morning in another. See inappropriate, formal language, informal language, register. click to keep open · see glossary for their culture and teaching situation.
4. Phonemic symbolsThe characters we use which represent the different sounds or phonemes, e.g. /ɜː/, /tʃ/, /θ/. Words can be written in phonemic script (usually the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA), e.g. /dɒktə/ = doctor. See phoneme, phonemic chart, phonemic transcripti… click to keep open · see glossary. When learners are familiar with phonemic symbols, we can use them to focus on mispronounced sounds by pointing at the relevant symbols on the phonemic chartA poster with phonemic symbols click to keep open · see glossary or writing the relevantA connection with a situation or the subject you are thinking about or discussing. For example, verbs and tenses are relevant to grammar. click to keep open · see glossary symbol on the board. For example when a student uses a long vowel1. A sound in which the air is not blocked by the tongue, lips, teeth etc., e.g. /i:/ (eat), /ə/ (about), /e/ (egg), /ʌ/ (fun). Movement or vibration is felt in the throat because the voice is used. See consonant and diphthong. 2. In the alphabet, the letters … click to keep open · see glossary /u:/ when they should have used a short one /ʊ/, or when they mispronounce a consonant1. A sound in which the air is partly blocked by the lips, tongue, teeth etc., e.g. /θ/ in ‘thing’, /b/ in ‘boy’. See diphthong and vowel. 2. Any letter of the English alphabet which represents consonant sounds, e.g. d  /d/, c  /k/. click to keep open · see glossary.
5. Echo correcting means repeating what a learner says with rising intonationThe way the level of a speaker’s voice changes to show meaning such as how they feel about something; e.g. the level of your voice when you are angry is different from the level of your voice when you are pleased. Intonation can be rising or falling or both. click to keep open · see glossary. Repeating with rising intonation will show the learner that there is a mistake somewhere, because the rising intonation sounds like a question. This technique is effective when learners have made small slips which you feel confident they can correct themselves.
6. Identifying the mistake. Sometimes we need to identifyTo recognise somebody or something and be able to say who it is or what it is. For example, a teacher can find out what fruit vocabulary learners know by giving them pictures of different fruit and asking them to identify the fruit by matching words to the pic… click to keep open · see glossary the mistake by focusing learners’ attention on it and telling them that there is a problem. This technique is more commonly used with errors. We might say ‘Are you sure?’ to indicate that there is a problem. We could then go on to provide the correct versionA particular form of something, e.g. a learner's own version of the second language, called interlanguage. click to keep open · see glossary.
7. Delayed correction. Sometimes it is best not to indicate or correct mistakes at the time they are made, for example when learners are taking part in role-plays or other oral fluencySee fluency. click to keep open · see glossary activities. As we monitor1. To watch and listen to learners when they are working on their own or in pairs or groups in order to make sure that they are doing what they have been asked to do, and to help them if they are having problems. For example, while learners are doing a role-pl… click to keep open · see glossary fluency activities we can make a note of any serious mistakes we hear. At the end of the activity, we can say the mistakes or write them on the board and ask learners what they think the problems are, and to suggest corrections without telling learners who made which mistakes.
8. Peer and self-correctionSee correction. click to keep open · see glossary. Peer correction involves learners correcting each other’s mistakes. Self-correction is when learners correct their own mistakes. Sometimes we need to indicate that there is a mistake for the learners to correct it. We can provide learners with prompts, for example repeating part of the utterance and stopping just before the part we want them to correct. Other prompts we can use are gesture and facial expressions. Sometimes learners notice the mistake themselves and quickly correct it. Peer and self-correction help learners to become independent of the teacher and more aware of their own learning needsThe language, language skills or learning strategies a learner still has to learn in order to reach their goals, which are the things they want personally and professionally which are connected to their learning. For example, a learner might need to have good … click to keep open · see glossary.
9. Ignoring errors. We ignore errors that are above the learners’ language level. For example, an elementary learner telling us about what he did at the weekend might make an incorrect guess about how to talk about past time in English. We do not correct this mistake because the past simple is not a tense the learner has been taught yet. We might reformulateTo reword a sentence or phrase to improve it, e.g. when a teacher corrects what a learner has said by repeating the sentence correctly, but without drawing the learner’s attention to the mistake. This is usually the way parents ‘correct’ their young children’s… click to keep open · see glossary (see 10 below) part of the learner’s utterance but we do not expect the learner to correct the mistake. We may also decide to ignore mistakes made by a particular learner because she is weak or shy. Finally, we often also ignore slips as learners can correct these themselves.
10. Reformulating. This is a technique which parents use when their young children make language mistakes. They correct the mistake by repeating the utterance correctly, without drawing the child’s attention to the mistake. For example the child says ‘We goed to the zoo yesterday’ and the parent responds ‘Yes, that’s right, we went to the zoo yesterday’. We can also use this technique in the classroom, particularly when we do not want to interrupt a learner or stop the flow of the interaction.
11. Recasting. Sometimes we recast a student utterance by rewording it and saying it back to the learner in its improved form, for example the student says ‘I am not of the same opinion as my friend’ and the teacher says ‘Oh, you mean you don’t agree with him’.
12. Giving the rule and an example or definition. In some situations, it can help learners if we provide the grammar rule and then give or elicitThis is a teaching technique. When a teacher thinks that some learners know a piece of language or other information, he/she asks targeted questions or gives clues to get or prompt them to give the target language or information rather than simply providing it… click to keep open · see glossary an example and a definition. This would not be appropriate in a class of young learners but might be appropriate in a class of adult learners at a high intermediate language level.

◆Key concepts — written correction

Written correction

Look at this story written by a learner. In the margin, there is a code written by the teacher to show different kinds of mistakes. Can you work out what the code means?

The teacher has used a correction codeA series of symbols a teacher may use to mark learners’ writing so that they can correct mistakes by themselves, e.g. P = punctuation mistake, T = tense mistake. click to keep open · see glossary to indicate the types of mistakes that the learner has made. This enables learners to make their own corrections. Here is an explanation of the letters and symbols:

Other examples of symbols in a correction code are:

We can correct students’ written work using other techniques. For example:

• Teacher correction. The teacher corrects the learners’ mistakes by writing the correct word(s) on the learners’ work.
• Peer correction. The learners read each other’s written work, in a draftA draft is a piece of writing that is not yet finished, and may be changed. A writer drafts a piece of writing – that is, they write it for the first time but it is not exactly as it will be when it is finished and they might change it or have to make correcti… click to keep open · see glossary or final version and give feedback. Learners can also correct each other’s work or discuss possible corrections with each other.
• Self-correctionSee correction. click to keep open · see glossary. The learners, usually with the help of a guidance sheet on what types of mistakes to look for, find and correct mistakes in their own work. This is helpful for developing learner autonomyWhen a learner can set his/her own aims and organise his/her own study, they are autonomous and independent. Many activities in coursebooks help learners to be more independent by encouraging them to find out more about things in the book and helping them to o… click to keep open · see glossary and for helping learners develop the ability to editTo shorten or change or correct the words or content of some parts of a written text to make it clearer or easier to understand; e.g. learners might edit the first draft of a text they have written to correct the mistakes. See process writing. click to keep open · see glossary and re-draftWhen a piece of writing is changed with the intention of improving it. A writer’s first draft may be re-drafted. Many teachers encourage learners to write a first draft quickly to get their ideas down on paper, then to go back and re-draft the text, correcting… click to keep open · see glossary their own work. It is an important technique for examinations.
• Ignoring the mistake. As in 9 above, sometimes we choose to ignore mistakes that learners make in their written work.

When using a correction code or marking students’ written work, we rarely correct all the mistakes that students make because correcting all of them can be demotivating and confusing for students. We correct mistakes which are the focus of the piece of work and mistakes which we do not expect students of this level to make (e.g. structures and lexisIndividual words or sets of words, e.g. homework, study, whiteboard, get dressed, be on time. Lexical means connected with words or sets of words. See lexical approach, lexical set, lexical unit. click to keep open · see glossary they are already very familiar with).

◆Key concepts and the language teaching classroom

Read these tips and tick the ones which are most important for you:

• It is important to be aware of the range of correction techniques and strategies available in the classroom. We choose the technique appropriate for the teaching approach, the learning purpose, the activity, the learner and the context1. The situation in which language is used or presented; e.g. a story about a holiday experience could be used as the context to present and practise past tenses. Photographs can help to provide a context for a magazine article. 2. The words or phrases before … click to keep open · see glossary.
• Over-correction can result in learners not wanting to say anything in class because they are afraid of making mistakes. So we choose carefully what to correct and what to ignore.
• Indicating mistakes and slips to learners so that they can self- or peer-correct will help them become more autonomousSee learner autonomy. click to keep open · see glossary in their learning.
• We can try to extend our range of correction techniques and strategies. If we use the same technique all the time, for example echo correcting, learners will not have opportunities to correct themselves or become aware of their own errors.
• Concept questionsA concept question is a question asked by the teacher to make sure that a learner has understood the meaning of new language, e.g. teaching the new grammatical structure ‘used to’, using the example He used to live in Paris concept question – Does he live in P… click to keep open · see glossary can be a way of checking if learners have made an error of use rather than formThe form of a grammatical structure is the way it is written or pronounced and the parts which combine to make it; e.g. the present perfect simple (grammatical structure) is made up of have + past participle (this is the form). click to keep open · see glossary. For example, the learner says ‘I’ll go to the beach at the weekend’. This is grammatically correct, but if we think the learner has already planned the trip and should be using the present continuous or going to future, we can use concept questions such as ‘When did you decide to go to the beach? Did you decide now or before?’ to check.
• When several learners make the same significant mistake during one or more lessons it sometimes means that the class needs further practice with that area of language in future lessons. If they are minor errors, this is probably not necessary. If only a few learners make the error, we can provide those learners with individual written or oral practice.

✎Follow-up activity

💡Reflect

🔍Discovery activities

✎TKT practice tasks

These multiple-choice tasks are exactly as in the book, but interactive: pick your answers, check your score, and retry anytime. The scoring uses the official answer key from the back of the book.

📖Glossary terms in this unit

Key terms highlighted in this unit — study them on the flashcards page.