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The
constant dilemma: to correct and encourage accuracy or not
to correct and encourage fluency. Interrupting your students
when they make mistakes risks making them nervous and hesitant
speakers. Not doing so may deprive them of a valuable learning
opportunity.
In general, it is often worth avoiding interrupting students
as much as you can. Immediate correction can be useful when
you are interacting with the class but when students are involved
in pair or group activities, delayed correction is better.
Listen while the students are working and make mental notes
of the most important mistakes. Let them complete the activity.
Then you draw attention to the mistake and invite the student
to correct it. Most mistakes in speaking are what we call
'slips'. Slips are mistakes which the student can correct
if you draw attention to the mistake.
The techniques below may be used for both immediate and delayed
correction.
1.
Asking for repetition without indicating the mistake.
Many teachers
use a rolling movement of the hand to ask the student to repeat
without indicating where the mistake falls. In many cases
students will be able to self-correct when you have indicated
there is a mistake.
2.
Drawing attention to mistakes and prompting self-correction.
Many teachers
use their fingers to indicate the position of mistakes and
prompt the student to self-correct. For example, if a student
wants to say:
'The
motorcycle was invented in 1885.'
but
the student actually says:
'The motorcycle was invent in 1885.'
The teacher
puts up three fingers and touches the first finger and says
IN, then touches the second finger and says VENT,
and finally touches the third finger and looks at the student
with a questioning facial expression.
Or, if
the student is trying to say:
'Mount Everest was first climbed in 1953.'
And the student actually says:
'Mount Everest was first clime bed in 1953.'
The teacher first indicates where the problem exists:
The teacher
then indicates the link between the two syllables, saying
'clime-bed' and then bringing the two fingers together.
3.
Peer correction
Sometimes the student cannot self-correct (although they should
always be given the opportunity). In this case you can prompt
another student to provide the correction. After doing this,
return to the original student to get the self-correction.
Beware of allowing two or three students in the class to become
the ones who always provide peer correction. Correction of
mistakes should be a task shared by all the students in the
class.
[Illustrations from Mistakes and Correction
by Julian Edge - Longman 1989, now out of print.]
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