What follows is a summary of a talk Scott
Thornbury gave during a recent webinar on error correction. He proposed that there are at least ten ways
to correct an error in spoken English.
Let’s take as an example the common mistake:
‘My
sister’s very beautiful. She has got a
long hair.’
1. ‘No. She has got long hair.’
2. ‘No.’
3. ‘No. Anyone?’
4. ‘No. She has got ………?’
5. ‘No. ‘Hair’ is uncountable.’
6. ‘Oh, a long hair? Where is it?
On her nose?’
7. ‘Oh, she has got long hair, has
she?’
8. ‘Oh, really? My sister has got short hair.’
9. ‘Sorry?’
10.
‘Good.’
Methods
1 – 5 are explicit error correction, where the student is clearly told that
they have made an error. Methods 6 – 9
are implicit error correction, where the students are not actually told that
they’re wriong, but their error is implied.
Number
6 is correction through humour (or sarcasm!), perhaps reinforced through
drawings or mime.
Number
7 is recasting or reformulation – a benign way of giving the learner a chance
to correct themselves.
Number
9 indicates misunderstanding and invites self-correction. Another way to do this would be to make a
clarification request.
Number
10 is the humanist approach – that is, to ignore the error completely!
Dismissing
the last method as being totally ineffective in the language classroom, which
of the others have merit? Well, all of
them to some degree. Over the last 20 or
30 years of EFL teaching, implicit methods of error correction have been
favoured because they are more like original language acquisition. However, current thinking is that we need to
be more direct as teachers and that explicit correction is best.
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‘There is clear evidence that
corrective feedback contributes to learning.’
‘THE STUDY OF SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION’
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So, in
conclusion, when your students are wrong, tell them!
And a
final tip from Scott – have students write their errors down in their notebooks
to focus their minds on them: ‘My Favourite Errors’.
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