Attitude to error/mistakes

Here's a little task for you:

Think about the following statements and decide which one you agree with. You must agree with the whole statement, if not, rewrite it until you all agree.

1. The student should be trained to learn by making as few mistakes as possible right from the start.

2. Provided students communicate effectively, they should not be given a sense of failure because they make mistakes.

3. Making mistakes is an important and positive part of learning a language so they should be dealt with.

Case Studies

Think about the following situations. Decide on how or when to correct. In some cases, you may have to decide how a situation could have been avoided.

1. You have set up a pair work activity. Your intention is note down ss’ errors and discuss these with the whole class once the activity is over. However, the second pair you come to ask you something related to the language you have presented. Once you’ve dealt with it, the class has finished the activity.

2. It’s the start of the year. You’ve asked a Lower Intermediate group to write a report on a business trip they went on last week. Normally you underline errors in red but you receive a report which is so full of errors it would be all red! What do you do?

3. Here are some sentences spoken by students. What gestures could you use to help the student correct themselves?

“Yesterday I go to the school early.”

“Where he is working?”

“He live in London.”

“An aeroplane is more faster than a car.”

“This coat is too big. Do you have a smaller?”

4. List as many ways as you can of correcting homework (done in a workbook) in class.

Case Studies POSSIBLE ANSWERS

Think about the following situations. Decide on how or when to correct. In some cases, you may have to decide how a situation could have been avoided.

1 You have set up a pair work activity. Your intention is note down ss’ errors and discuss these with the whole class once the activity is over. However, the second pair you come to ask you something related to the language you have presented. Once you’ve dealt with it, the class has finished the activity.

· Deal with the problem later

· Another pair doing errors

2 It’s the start of the year. You’ve asked a Lower Intermediate group to write a report on a business trip they went on last week. Normally you underline errors in red but you receive a report which is so full of errors it would be all red! What do you do?

· Give students guidelines and do it again

· Give a skeleton and they have to fill it in

· Recast (teacher rewrites then explains)

3 Here are some sentences spoken by students. What gestures could you use to help the student correct themselves?

“Yesterday I go to the school early.”

“Where he is working?”

“He live in London.”

“An aeroplane is more faster than a car.”

“This coat is too big. Do you have a smaller?”

4 List as many ways as you can of correcting homework (done in a workbook) in class.

· Book swapping

· Signalling errors

· Blockbusters

· Grammar auction

· OHP presentation