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Session #8

The document discusses the beliefs and attitudes of language teachers and students regarding mistakes and corrections in language learning. It emphasizes the importance of understanding when, what, and how to correct mistakes, advocating for a positive approach that encourages learning through errors. The text also highlights the shift in the role of teachers from authoritative figures to facilitators of independent learning.

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Javier Acevedo
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9 views

Session #8

The document discusses the beliefs and attitudes of language teachers and students regarding mistakes and corrections in language learning. It emphasizes the importance of understanding when, what, and how to correct mistakes, advocating for a positive approach that encourages learning through errors. The text also highlights the shift in the role of teachers from authoritative figures to facilitators of independent learning.

Uploaded by

Javier Acevedo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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T E AC H I N G G RA M M A R: N E W P E R S P E C T I V E S , N E W V I E W S

WEEK 8

MISTAKES &
CORRECTION

P R E PA R E D BY L I C . V I R G I N I A
M AY 2 0 2 3
LO P E Z G R I S O L I A
BELIEFS
Strongly held beliefs and prejudices by
language teachers and students:

How we learn
HOW WE LEARN

How we should teach a foreign


language

How we should correct


HOW WE SHOULD
CORRECT
M I S TA K E S
Deeply-rooted beliefs
Wh
Tim at d
et oy
o r ou
efl th
ec ink
t! ?

What do teachers believe? What do students


believe?
Students’ deeply-rooted beliefs

• Correct every single word I


• Don’t let mistakes go uncorrected!
say wrongly, no matter when,
no matter what.

• Do your job as a teacher and • If my classmate makes a mistake


correct me all the time and at and the teacher doesn’t correct
all times! them, I may learn English the wrong
way.
Teachers’ deeply-rooted beliefs

• If I allow students to make mistakes, I will reinforce the


errors they’re making.

• If I allow mistakes to get away with it, other sts in the


class might learn the wrong version.

• If I allow mistakes to go uncorrected, students will


probably feel I don’t know enough.

• If I allow mistakes to go by, I feel guilty because as a


student my teachers used to correct me all the time.
BELIEFS

1 2 3

One of the fields


Many of these They may be were most people
beliefs are just strongly held but have strong beliefs
that – beliefs not they have no firm is the role of
facts basis CORRECTION in
LANGUAGE
LEARNING
How to
manage This talk is an invitation
mistakes to think about your own
attitudes to correction
using a and eventually to
positive teaching and learning

approach
O
U THE BACKGROUND THEORY
• What’s language?
R • What’s the role of the teacher?
• How do we learn a foreign language?
• ELF
AG
E WHAT'S A MISTAKE?

N
D ORAL MISTAKES
• When?
A • What?
• How?
• Who?
The background theory

How you react to a mistake


is part of your whole vision
of what a language is, what
learning is and what a
teacher is
Discuss in pairs: Which mistakes would you correct?

1) The situation is getting more worse every day.

2) If we’d have found a problem there, we’ d have told you.

3)There’s seven of them.

4) Which of these two jokes do you think is best?

5) Less people like meat now.

• If I llow mistakes to go uncorrected, students will probably


feel I don’t kow enough.
6) Book’s for sale- 5$ each.
What is language?

Language in the mind is a single unified body of rules,


but in real use there are varieties of ENGLISH, not just one
English

ELF & Global Englishes

Different “Englishes”

Regional/Dialectal - Formal/informal
Old-fashioned/modern - Colloquial/careful

A spectrum of likelihood with some forms being more or


less likely to occur
What is a good language user?

A good COMPREHENSIBILITY
communicator
vs.

PERFECTION
What is a teacher?

Shift FROM the • TO an adviser,


teacher • linguistic doctor.
• as a superior on a • superiority still
pedestal, manifested through
• as an oracle, mistakes.
• highly regarded by • T finds the mistake
students,
and corrects it, just
• as the one who has
like a doctor.
the knowledge which
• relationship is still
must be passed on
superior/inferior
T
O 1. Teaching is now seen as letting students
learn

D 2. Learning is a long term venture, it never

A
stops!!!

Y
3. The teacher will not always be there

4.Surrendering power and empowering sts to


become independent learners!
I wish I knew!!!!

How do we
learn a
second
language?
⚬Learning the grammar formally
⚬Listening to songs
how ⚬Watching TV

⚬Having a very good teacher


Having a veryod teacher

we ⚬Practising a lot

⚬Going to a country where the language is


learn spoken and picking it up on the street
⚬Liking the lifestyle and culture
MISTAKES:
Friends or foes?
Mistakes
are good!
Why are mistakes good?

Learners sub-consciously form


ideas or hypotheses about how the
Exposure
language works

With more exposure, they change the


original ideas, & try them out again
Trying out language

MISTAKES ARE EVIDENCE OF LEARNING


Language development is not
linear, it fluctuates

She is more nicer than him

The acquisition of “more” for comparatives is over-


generalised and then sts get mixed up with the rule
about the -er morpheme.
• Hypothesis formation
• Errors as a part of the natural
order of acquisition
• INTERLANGUAGE
• ELF
INTERLANGUAGE

The version of the language


that the learner has at any one
stage of development and
which is continually re-shaped
as students move towards full
mastery
WHEN TO CORRECT?
Accuracy Time

Fluency Time
FLUENCY TIME

• No T intervention or interruption in mid-fl ow

DEFERRED or
DEL AYED or COLD
CORRECTION

• Communicative activities are a trigger or switch


to help learners transfer “learnt” language
to the “acquired” store.
• Sts are attempting to get their meaning
across.
• Don’t get in the way of conversation. Don’t
intrude
• React to content not to form
ACCURACY TIME

• Teacher intervention
• SPOT or HOT CORRECTION
⚬The T stops the activity to make a
correction
⚬ Self-correction
⚬ Peer correction WHO?
⚬ Teacher correction
Some tips

Lots and lots Don’t leap on a piece


of INPUT of language that
happens to be wrong

I don’t can’t open the


door.
What’s this mistake
evidence of?

Leave room for sts’ Don’t criticize the


experimenting with product, aid the
the language process!
What is a teacher?

Provide feedback
and help students
in the re-shaping
process rather
than telling them
off because they’re
wrong.
How to correct?

• Let them discover mistakes: let them grow!

• Be nice, gentle and respectful. Use humour, not sarcasm

• Never get angry, it’s not something they do to you!

• Don’t just stop at error analysis. GO ON into:

REPETITION PRACTICE

RECYCLING & IMPLEMENTATION of the


REINFORCEMENT ERROR ENVELOPE
A stage in the
INTERLANGUAGE
path
COMPETENCE
in EFL

Learners’ mistakes
are products of an
incomplete
mastery of the
correct, native
speaker language
Not a fossilized
interlanguage by learners
failing to conform to the
COMPETENCE conventions of Inner Circle
native norms, but a
in EFL legitimate use of English in
its own right, an inevitable
development of the
globalization of English

Barbara Seidlehofer (2011)


“The so called errors are
considered like that just
because they diverge from
COMPETENCE ENL norms.
in EFL
An ELF-aware mindset
suggests developing the
capability for exploiting
linguistic resources

Barbara Seidlehofer (2011)


“For EFL, native speaker
competence provides the
yardstick against which
COMPETENCE NNESs’ use is measured,
and whenever it differs from
in EFL native use, it’s considered
deficient, the result of L1
interference or
fossilization… “
Jenkins. Global Englishes, 2015: 45
“For ELF, successful
intercultural
COMPETENCE communication is the
in ELF goal, and differences
with native English are
regarded not as
E N
deficiences, but as
G
HU CT O evidence of linguistic
A W E
P
IM OW LD adaptability and
H OU creativity...”
SH IEW ES
V AK Jenkins. Global Englishes, 2015: 45
I ST
M
“…EFL communication
assumes that NNESs learn
English to use it with NESs”

EFL vs ELF Jenkins. Global Englishes, 2015: 45

Different
Objectives “….ELF exchanges assume
that NNESs learn English to
communicate successfully
in intercultural encounters,
which may, but often do not,
include NESs.”
Wrapping up today’s talk...

Bearing in mind the ELF paradigm, how would you react to these
statements?

1. Correction needs to take place, it’s an integral part of the teaching/learning process
2. Don’t correct erratically, don’t correct like a robot.
3. Correction will depend on learners’ needs.
4. Correction of politeness mistakes (Pragmatics) should take precedence over grammar
mistakes
5. Mispronunciation can very often hamper successful communication
6. Insistence on invoking a deficit model of learning, i.e. the idea that learners are
forever failing to match SE and are always being judged as errorful, definitely goes
against multilingualism.
Wrapping up today’s talk...

• REFLECT!! Make informed decisions!

• What should be seriously and professionally


considered is:
⚬WHEN to correct
⚬WHAT to correct
⚬HOW to correct
⚬WHO should correct
Food for thought…

Feedback on students’ work probably has more


effect on achievement than any other single
factor. Such formative assessment is believed to
be at the heart of effective teaching. It’s
important to make sure that the feedback we give
is appropriate to the sts. and to the activity
they’re involved in. Recognize feedback as a
crucial part of the learning process.
Mistakes
teach you
important
things
Thank
you!
Lic. Virginia Lopez Grisolia
[email protected]

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