Professional Documents
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■ Key concepts
What kinds of mistakes do learners make?
Here are some examples of the ways in which we can categorise learners’ mistakes.
Mistakes can of course be oral or written. We can see some further examples of them
in these extracts.
Oral mistakes
Here is an example of spoken learner discourse from the classroom. Two students are
checking their answers from a listening activity. The mistakes are underlined.
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Unit 29 Categorising learners’ mistakes
Student A: What you have for this one? I have ‘the supermarket’. He wants food and
drink.
Student B: Yes, supermarket. And number two? I think it is his birthday, but he talks
for the birthday of friend also.
Student A: Yes friend’s birthday. He is sixty. (/ۉsiksti/)
Student B: Sixty (/ۉsiksti/) …? I think they are friends in school.
Student A: No, sixty (/ۉsiksti/) … as me and you …
Student B: (laughing) Sixteen (/siksۉti:n/) … not sixty (/ۉsiksti/) … you speak bad.
Student A: That’s nokind … number three … I have …
34 Green Street
Brighton
BN4 2QA
22 May
Dear Janet
1 Thanks for your letter. I’m absolutely excited that you are coming to visit me in
2 Brighton. I hope you can stay for a week for I want to show you the town.
3 There are a lot of things to do in Brighton. I like shoping. We’ve got all the
4 big, famous shops here and there are also many small shops. You like classic music
5 I think. I will look after a concert for us to see.
See you soon.
6 Yours sincerely
Sarah
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Module 3
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Unit 29 Categorising learners’ mistakes
REFLECTION
Think about these comments from teachers. Which do you agree with and why?
1 I find it hard to categorise my learners’ mistakes. I know something is wrong but I
can’t explain to the learners what it is.
2 It’s very confusing for learners when we talk about inappropriate this or incorrect that.
When something’s wrong, it’s wrong!
3 I can identify when there’s a problem with word order but I don’t always know why
it’s wrong.
DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES
1 Correct some of your learners’ written work, and identify which are the most
common types of mistake and categorise them. Think about why they might be
making these mistakes. Which might be a result of L1 interference and which
might be developmental? Write about what you have learned in your Teacher
Portfolio.
2 Audio-record a short extract of your learners doing a task in the classroom.
Identify the common mistakes and categorise them, as you did for activity 1.
Reflect on the reasons for their mistakes and note your ideas in your Teacher
Portfolio.
3 For more information on categorising learners’ mistakes, look at:
Chapter 9, Section 4 of Learning Teaching (Second edition) by Jim Scrivener,
Macmillan 2005
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/error-correction-1
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/error-correction-2
Also look at ‘Correcting written work’ at:
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/tkt
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Module 3
Areas of grammar
A adverbs
B articles
C verb forms
D prepositions
Learners’ mistakes
1 My sister wants to be dentist when she grows up.
2 If I seen him, I would have told him.
3 He is very keen of becoming a musician.
4 My sister and her husband always arrived lately.
5 I’m looking for accommodation to live on next year.
6 One of the students were late for class today.
7 I really want to visit the Oxford University next week.
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