The session on error correction and use of L1 was so spot-on, full of good points and smart tips.
The session on error correction and use of L1 was so spot-on, full of good points and smart tips.
I did find the survey findings on students‘ views on error correction interesting, they showed the effective ways to approach students. I feel that teachers’ judgement and intuition proved right when reflecting students‘ preferences.
I’d like to share a few ideas and raise some questions as well.
ERROR CORRECTION
I absolutely agree that as teachers we have to bear in mind that error correction is not a one-off thing, it works partially and gradually. So patience and techniques are our tools.
To deal with a range of learner types you need to try different techniques and see which works most. Combining tips suggested in our session works.
Error correction developed as a habit or routine in class creates the atmosphere of security and support. Once students know when, why and how they are corrected, they tend to cooperate and are more open to deal with their weak points. It's such a sensitive issue to be corrected in general, we need to acknowledge the feeling of insecurity and to support the students a lot.
Students absolutely prefer correction from their teacher as he/she is the most reliable resource for every student, which logical and reasonable.
Justifying the importance of self-correction and peer correction at times is one of the important roles of the teacher towards their students. It’s okay to be lead by the teacher on one hand but learner autonomy and interaction with other students in communication are the key elements in language development.
I feel that peer correction should be encouraged as a balance to error correction by teacher only approach. Learning from mistakes of other learners is valuable and interactive. If there are two groups or pairs of students performing some activity focused on target language practice, I believe the students find it encouraging to present their answers to the other group/pair, compare and give feedback on what they’ve heard. The teacher can collect and summarise views from both groups/pairs and analyse mistakes together in class.
Penny could you elaborate on the subject of error correction in one-to-one classes, please? There wasn’t time during the session and I would appreciate your input on that if you don‘t mind.
L1
Using L1 depends on a learner profile largely. Some students need more reassurance and some are more autonomous in their learning.
Classroom language introduction works well at the beginning of the course, once rules are established and enforced, the students respond well and require L1 only if necessary.
I believe L1 saves time and avoids confusion when learning key words.
Some of my students were never lead to search for translations in their mother tongue and when they reached an intermediate level, they were really confused and had only a vague idea of meanings of many words. This meant a lot of frustration in speaking, listening and writing activities. I need to do a lot of direct translation to provide them with some copying mechanisms, show them how to use both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries to boost their confidence in learning.
Ideally students should be exposed to both native and non-native teachers, their role in learner development is different.
On one hand students benefit from fluency focus with native teachers and comparative analysis of L1 and English on the other hand.
Using interference to explain how your mother tongue and English function is really helpful for the students. Word order, false friends and collocations for example are easier to grasp for the students when they are provided with the logic behind.
For example, direct translation really works in grammar practice as Penny pointed out in our session last week.
I believe that we need to use L1 when there’s a good reason for it.
I did find the survey findings on students‘ views on error correction interesting, they showed the effective ways to approach students. I feel that teachers’ judgement and intuition proved right when reflecting students‘ preferences.
I’d like to share a few ideas and raise some questions as well.
ERROR CORRECTION
I absolutely agree that as teachers we have to bear in mind that error correction is not a one-off thing, it works partially and gradually. So patience and techniques are our tools.
To deal with a range of learner types you need to try different techniques and see which works most. Combining tips suggested in our session works.
Error correction developed as a habit or routine in class creates the atmosphere of security and support. Once students know when, why and how they are corrected, they tend to cooperate and are more open to deal with their weak points. It's such a sensitive issue to be corrected in general, we need to acknowledge the feeling of insecurity and to support the students a lot.
Students absolutely prefer correction from their teacher as he/she is the most reliable resource for every student, which logical and reasonable.
Justifying the importance of self-correction and peer correction at times is one of the important roles of the teacher towards their students. It’s okay to be lead by the teacher on one hand but learner autonomy and interaction with other students in communication are the key elements in language development.
I feel that peer correction should be encouraged as a balance to error correction by teacher only approach. Learning from mistakes of other learners is valuable and interactive. If there are two groups or pairs of students performing some activity focused on target language practice, I believe the students find it encouraging to present their answers to the other group/pair, compare and give feedback on what they’ve heard. The teacher can collect and summarise views from both groups/pairs and analyse mistakes together in class.
Penny could you elaborate on the subject of error correction in one-to-one classes, please? There wasn’t time during the session and I would appreciate your input on that if you don‘t mind.
L1
Using L1 depends on a learner profile largely. Some students need more reassurance and some are more autonomous in their learning.
Classroom language introduction works well at the beginning of the course, once rules are established and enforced, the students respond well and require L1 only if necessary.
I believe L1 saves time and avoids confusion when learning key words.
Some of my students were never lead to search for translations in their mother tongue and when they reached an intermediate level, they were really confused and had only a vague idea of meanings of many words. This meant a lot of frustration in speaking, listening and writing activities. I need to do a lot of direct translation to provide them with some copying mechanisms, show them how to use both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries to boost their confidence in learning.
Ideally students should be exposed to both native and non-native teachers, their role in learner development is different.
On one hand students benefit from fluency focus with native teachers and comparative analysis of L1 and English on the other hand.
Using interference to explain how your mother tongue and English function is really helpful for the students. Word order, false friends and collocations for example are easier to grasp for the students when they are provided with the logic behind.
For example, direct translation really works in grammar practice as Penny pointed out in our session last week.
I believe that we need to use L1 when there’s a good reason for it.
Katarina -thanks for this posting, some important points, and interesting!
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I can't help you with one-to-one correction, as I have virtually no experience one-to-one teaching. Can one of the other participants with experience in this area come in to advise Katarina? Thanks!
In one to one classes I find it much easier to learn the students preferred correction method, to remember those persistent errors, and of course, there is more class time to correct errors or digress for a mini lesson. So if you recast and the student doesn’t notice, you can stop and give more explicit correction or even halt the activity and do some work focused on the error. I often will target some frequent errors in homework as well. And you get to know how tolerant of error correction your student is.
ReplyDeleteKatarina Brezani I teach only one-to-one these days and as I believe the most important advantage of classes like this is personalised and detailed feedback from the teacher, I do a lot of error correction. With Speaking my go-to method is a table with four columns (Grammar, Words & Phrases, Pronunciation and Appropriacy), which I found in The Practice of English Language Teaching by J.Harmer, I think. When I am listening to the student, I note down both errors and examples of good language and then there are many ways to use this data. I can read out / write down on the board examples based on the errors and ask to correct. I can make a self-correction task to do at home. I can choose to revise some vocabulary or grammar and do some drilling. In the end it all depends on the student's needs. As for Writing, I believe in 'process writing', so I check and highlight / write comments on some points of the work and give it back to the student. They consider it at home and make improvements (at times they are able to correct most of the errors) and then we take another look in class. However, I tend to correct those grammar, vocabulary, etc point which we have not covered in class yet. Sometimes I ask students to re-write, but in fact, I prefer to give another task similar to the previous one and see if they can do it better.
ReplyDeleteWhat about you? What kind of error correction do you use in one-to-one classes?