Handling Student Errors

We all make mistakes and learn from them. Do you show your own mistakes and talk about them with your students? This is the first step: the awareness by all that errors are inevitable and needed. The next step is to ask, what is the purpose of the activity? If we are working with a student who is learning English as a second (or third, or fourth) language, the big goal is usually effective communication. If that is the case, it is important not to interrupt your student when they are communicating, as well as to not correct them above their level (because what good does that do?). 

If the goal is accuracy in a specific email that the student will be sending in real life, then that is entirely different and might go through a writing process with editing and correction as the final step. If the entire class is struggling with a specific area, then it makes sense to approach that as a mini-lesson for everyone without singling anyone out.

Since we also want students to be able to spot their own mistakes, then wait time, or pausing, also matters. If this is difficult, can we point them in the direction of where a mistake might be, be it in spoken or written communication? 

What about when students ask to be corrected? Check out the resources below to reflect on this important question!

Note: The above tips are based on the Macmillan Education blog by Sarah Hillyard "Let Them Speak: Tackling Oral Error Correction" that you can listen to or read here: Let Them Speak: Tackling Oral Error Correction. You can read or listen to it here.