Three Tips for Correcting Errors in the ESL Classroom

“He live now in London, and work with the company office there.” My student began his story quickly, not noticing that he’d forgotten the patterns of subject-verb agreement we’d spent so much time covering in class.

Then suddenly, mid-sentence, he stopped. Processed. “Wait. He lives now in London,” he backtracked, slowly and deliberately.

Then, “Jenna, why didn’t you correct me?”

Unprepared for the pointed demand, I found myself thinking, shaping my response just as slowly and deliberately in my head. I pointed out that he hadn’t needed a correction from me, because he’d done it himself. But my student still wasn’t satisfied. In his mind, I was the authority when it came to the English language, and he was paying for English classes in order for his mistakes to be corrected.

But as a teacher, one of the first lessons I’ve learned about error correction is that it’s not always a concrete and delineated process. Like learning a foreign language itself, it’s not black and white. Correct students too much, and they get frustrated and overwhelmed; thinking too much before speaking can lead to paralysis. But on the other hand, not correcting enough leads to stagnation in the learning process, and their skills don’t improve.

Error correction is like walking a tightrope, balancing between those two extremes. Here are three tips that I always keep at the back of my mind, guiding my decisions about when to correct students’ errors, and when not to.

1.  Be aware of the goals of the lesson, and the students’ levels.

I’ve found that students gain the most from error correction when it’s focused on a particular goal, which I always tie to the main learning objective of the lesson. For example, if the goal of a lesson is to learn the irregular forms of past tense verbs, and we do a speaking activity to reinforce that aim, I will correct mistakes connected to the use of those particular verbs. In this controlled setting, I’ve found that students tend to remember their specific mistakes from one lesson to the next.

Likewise, I am always reminding myself of the students’ levels, and what they should and shouldn’t know. If a student is making mistakes with a structure that I know they haven’t been introduced to yet, I usually won’t correct it, because chances are, they won’t retain it. On the other hand, when higher level students struggle with structures and patterns that they’ve learned once, twice or even multiple times, I will focus on correcting those errors.

I’ve found that even upper-intermediate students sometimes say “he live”, instead of “he lives”, a structure they’ve learned and been aware of for ages. Though mistakes like this don’t usually hinder their ability to communicate, which is always the heart and ultimate goal of my lessons, it is an obstacle to be overcome on the path to greater fluency. I think it’s important to remember, though, that mistakes like this only demonstrate how difficult it is to learn a foreign language, and how long it truly takes to absorb its nuances.

2.  Encourage self-correction.

Encouraging self-correction puts the learning process into the hands of the students, and allows for learning to happen beyond the confines of the classroom. Often, when a student makes a mistake, I will only point out that a mistake has been made, and wait for the student to find it and correct it herself (often with the help of her classmates). For example, if an intermediate student says, “He go to the store,” I will stop the student by repeating what he has said. “He go?”  “He go?”  My aim is to draw attention to it, leading the student to re-think what he has said. I’ve found that, after making the mistake a few times, they’ll begin to catch themselves.

3.  Be aware of timing, and how to correct.

More than once, a student has told me a story or related an experience, and gotten so caught up in the act of telling it – finding the right words to articulate his feelings and experiences – that even the most basic grammar structures that he’s known for months, or even years, fly out the window. But generally, I won’t stop a student in the middle of the story (unless the goal for the lesson itself is narrating stories). I don’t want to inhibit their flow of ideas, and in some cases, even the passion with which they’re telling the story. The communication itself is, to me, the most important, and I don’t want to discourage it.

In cases like this, I will often try to note down some basic or central mistakes, and bring them up later. One tactic I’ve used is to write example sentences on the board, containing some of the same mistakes, and have students find and correct them. This approach ties in the method of self-correction and puts the learning process back into the hands of the students.

Jenna Makowski is the ESL Editor for Wandering Educators.  She has taught in the United States and Russia, and she currently lives and works in Poland.  Follow her adventures on her blog: http://jennagmakowski.com/

Feature photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldendragon613/253197048/, used with Creative Commons License.