Fossilisation - an #eltchat summary

This is a summary of the second chat on Wednesday 11th September.  The full title of the chat was:

How can we tell if fossilization has set in and how do we prevent it or get out of such a state?

 

The chat was expertly moderated, as ever, by @Marisa_C, @Shaunwilden and @theteacherjames.  There were very few participants in the chat and this was definitely the shortest transcript I've ever had to summarise (only five pages!).  Let's think of it as quality over quantity and perhaps this summary can provoke further discussion on the #eltchat Facebook page.

 

The suggestion for the topic was prompted by Scott Thornbury's new blog, The (de-) fozzilization diaries, where he discusses his problems with acquiring Spanish as a second language.  I re-produce a definition of fossilisation from Scott's blog here:

 

Selinker (1972) noted that most L2 learners fail to reach target-language competence. That is, they stop learning while their internalized rule system contains rules different from those of the target system. This is referred to as ‘fossilization’. It can also be viewed as a cognitive process, whereby new learning is blocked by existing learning. It remains a controversial construct with some researchers arguing that there is never a complete cessation of learning.

(Ellis, R. 2008. The Study of Second Language Acquisition [2nd edition]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 963)

@Shaunwilden commented that it's not just an L2 thing - he has fossilised errors in his L1 from too much exposure to students' errors!!  I think most of us could relate to that!

 

What are the causes of fossilisation?

• Poor instruction - whilst poor teaching can not generally be blamed for fossilisation, and is clearly not the only cause, in my context in Vietnam where there is a very non-communicative approach to language learning, it was certainly a major factor.  Students came to university having had 10+ years of poor teaching and had errors so fossilised that they were very difficult to correct.
• Students reach a stumbling block in their interlanguage.
• Lack of exposure to authentic English - this is a particular cause of fossilised pronunciation errors.
• When students feel they can be understood, they stop learning.
• Lack of student motivation.

How do we know fossilisation has set in?

• @Shaunwilden suggested that, as teachers, we instinctively know.
• @theteacherjames said that he looks for inappropriate errors for the level - confusing he and she or unvoiced word endings, for example.
• For me, it's when usual error correction is totally ineffective.

Does fossilisation matter?

 

The consensus here was that if it prevents effective communication, then it does matter; otherwise, perhaps not.

 

How do we get out of the fossilisation stage?

 

As @naomishema pointed out, it's much more difficult to 'unlearn' something than it is to learn something new.  Students often realise their mistake immediately after they make it, but they still make it because it's so ingrained.  They can be aware of their own fossilisation, but unable to self-correct or fix the errors.  So, how can teachers help:

• Talk about the problem openly and honestly.
• Be strict with your students (in a nice way!) - via @theteacherjames.
• Drill your students, especially if the errors are with pronunciation.
• Display 'Our favourite errors' posters in the classroom - these should be created by the students with some teacher input if they don't recognise all their errors.  @Marisa_C suggested using post-it notes which could then be removed when the error was fixed.
• Encourage peer correction.
• Record activities and play them back a couple of months later to track progress and uncover fossilised errors.
• Make a checklist of common errors and have some students monitor and keep count of how many times they are made in order to raise awareness.
• Use a writing correction code to encourage students to find their own errors.
• Have students keep a portfolio of their work which can then be used in a one-to-one tutorial.

So there you have it, a short but sweet #eltchat which I sincerely hope will prompt further discussion.

 

Links

• Wikipedia definitions via @Marisa_C

 

The 'orror of herrors - a webinar summary

What follows is a summary of a recent webinar on errors and error correction by Robin Walker.

Causes - the origin of learner errors

1. Carelessness
2. Mother tongue interference - for example, a Spanish learner might say 'John is ill since four days' as a direct translation from his native language.  A Vietnamese learner is likely to omit the verb 'to be': for example, 'I tired'.
3. Teaching materials/methods used - these can force students to make errors.  For example, 'She told she was on holiday.'  This confusion between say and tell could be a result of the way it was taught.
4. Overgeneralisation - students may over-use the rules they've learned.  For example, the insistence on third person s can lead to errors such as, 'She must goes soon'.
5. General order of difficulty
6. Risk-taking/creativity - the more creative a student is, the more errors he will make.

Correcting students' written errors

As teachers, we are far too ready to put a red pen through something.  In reality, we can't second guess our students and it is presumptuous of us to correct their writing to what we think they were trying to say.  Look at this example of a student's writing:

• Festival, we'll have hake with crap sauce. - Here the teacher might be tempted to correct so that it reads, 'At the festival, we'll have hake with crab sauce'.   The correction of 'crap' to 'crab' is a fairly safe assumption and it was, indeed, what the student meant.  However, on questioning him, the teacher discovered that what he wanted to say was, 'First of all, we'll have hake with crab sauce'!

We feel so duty-bound to correct that we over-correct, but any error correction is ineffectual if we don't know for sure what the student wanted to say or what caused the error.  

It's a good idea to use a writing error correction code to encourage students to self-correct.  This is the one we use in my institution:

Writing correction code from Andrea Wade

Whichever code we use, we must remember to use the ? more!!  If we're not sure what the student meant, then we need to simply use a ? and ask our student to explain what they were trying to say.

Classifying errors

What can we gain from classifying errors?  Well, it certainly helps to concentrate our minds.  We could, for example, consider two types of error:

LOCAL - e.g. 'They fly to all of the countrys in that area.' - We can ignore local errors.

GLOBAL - e.g. 'What to have abridgement about of the what I did last week.' - These errors impede comprehension.  We should put a ? and go back to question the student.

This scheme of two types of errors doesn't work, though - it's not sophisticated enough.

Here's an alternative:

This is the scheme to have in your head when you're monitoring around the class or when you're marking writing.

Correction methods

a)  Repeating the error

b)  Writing the correct version above the error

c)  Using error codes to indicate the type of error

d)  Reformulation/recasting

e)  Using some sort of gesture to show where the error is

f)  Leaving a slip of paper with the error written on it

g)  Making a note of errors and treating them later

h)  Treating common errors at the end of the class

i)  Limiting correction to certain types of error

j)  Ignoring the error

	On the spot	Later
Oral	a)  d)  e)  i)  j)	f)  g)  h)  i)  j)
Written	Don’t do this because students can correct their own work later!	b)  c)  g)  h)  i)  j)

Strategies to use in the classroom

 

1.  Laugh at mistakes

• Don't laugh at students, but laugh at mistakes together!

2.  Have it back!

• Give work back without correcting anything.
• Ask for a re-write before marking anything.

3.  Peer correction

• Students choose a classmate to check their work before they hand it in to the teacher.
• The person checking the work signs it.
• This makes all the students think carefully about mistakes.

4.  Four pen dictation

• The teacher chooses a 150-word text from a previous unit and dictates it to the class.
• The student writes what he hears in pencil.
• When finished, the student checks his writing for mistakes and marks them in blue.
• The student then passes his paper to a partner who corrects any further mistakes he finds in green.
• The teacher then corrects in red, or, alternatively, puts the accurate text on the board for students to correct themselves.

5.  Error auction

• Put the students in teams and give them 'money' to buy correct sentences.
• Use sentences containing the students own mistakes.
• Which team 'bought' the most correct sentences?

6.  Error maze

• I wrote about this in an earlier post on communicative learner-centred grammar.

7.  Error lists

• Students make lists of their repeated errors so that they become more conscious of them.

8.  Flavour of the month

• Errors that are really irritating to the teacher are displayed on a poster in the classroom.

9.  Error evaluation

Students categorise their own mistakes as follows:

• A mistake I'm always making and it really irritates me!
• A mistake I made this time that I thought I'd stopped making.
• A mistake that I've not made before, but I know how to correct it.  (Great!  Congratulations!)
• A mistake that I haven't made before and I don't know how to correct it.  (Tell them - it might be from a future lesson.)

Final thought

The three Cs - CCC

Charity - learning implies making errors

Care - as to when and how to correct

Confidence - learner attitude is key

Correcting Speaking Errors

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.

‘There is clear evidence that corrective feedback contributes to learning.’                    ‘THE STUDY OF SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION’

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’.