Dr Jarosaw Krajka, 2009/2010

ERRORS AND FEEDBACK 1. Arguments for or against error correction? - Advanced students need loads of correction, beginners hardly any. - The jury is out on the question of whether correcting students, however you do it, has any positive effect on their learning. There is some evidence, though, that time spent on correcting learners may be wasted. - There is little point correcting learners if they dont have a fairly immediate opportunity to redo whatever they were doing and get it right. - Lots of learners and teachers think correction is important. - The problem with some learners is they dont make enough mistakes because they choose to give minimal contribution. - Teachers spend too much time focussing on what students do wrong at the expense of helping them to get things right. - the fact that the teacher gives feedback on student performance implies a power hierarchy, the teacher above, the student below - correction is potentially humiliating to the person corrected - teacher should give their students only positive feedback, in order to encourage, raise confidence and promote feelings of success, negative feedback demoralizes - giving plenty of praise and encouragement is important for the fostering of good teacher-student relationships - very frequent approval and praise lose their encouraging effect, and lack of praise may be interpreted as negative feedback - teachers should not let students correct each other's work, as this is harmful to their relationships 2. Types of errors - the criterion of language subsystem: - phonological, spelling, lexical, grammatical - the criterion of communicativeness - errors which obstruct communication (global errors) and which concern only the form, without much influence on the meaning (local errors) - interpretive errors misunderstaning of a speaker's intention or meaning - pragmatic errors failure to apply the rules of conversation - the criterion of frequency: - pre-systematic errors constant errors indicating gaps in the linguistic competence, results of a random guessing - systematic errors infrequent, irregular errors signaling inadequate habit formation, produced while testing out hypotheses - post-systematic errors (slips of the tongue) minor shortcomings, proving inadequate production, and not competence, caused by carelessness or fatigue - the criterion of the source of errors: - L 1 transfer/interference negative influence of the students' native language - L 2 transfer/interference negative influence of the target language, when students mistake different TL structures or when they apply the rule recently learnt in inappropriate contexts - errors caused by the learning process spelling errors caused by strong influence of pronunciation - errors caused by the teaching process overusing "ing" ending due to strong emphasis on it and lack of proper balancing - deliberate errors the learner knows that something is not correct, but this is the only chance for them to try to get the message across - developmental errors errors showing the development of the habit, showing the progress of learning - performance errors errors in performance and production, not in competence - overgeneralization errors errors caused by trying to use a rule in a context where it does not belong - simplification errors where the learner decides to simplify the structure, omit parts of the sentence, where all verbs have the same form regardless of person, number or tense - the criterion of teacher reaction (Edge, 1989) - slips - if the teacher thinks that a student could self-correct a mistake - errors - if a student cannot self-correct a mistake in his or her own English, but the teacher thinks that the class is familiar with the correct form, - attempts - when the teacher knows that the students have not yet learned the language necessary to express what they want to say, when it is not clear what the students want to mean, or what structure they are trying to use, 3. Typical Polish learners errors in English (Zybert, 1999)

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Lexical errors: Lexical calques - These types refer to idiomatic expressions which are characteristic for the target language. They derive from incomprehensibility and may lead to misunderstanding keep thumbs ( keep fingers crossed) trzyma kciuki; high foot of life ( high living standard) wysoka stopa yciowa. Categorical errors - These errors derive from similarity of some lexical items, however, they are different words with different meanings. Nudny, znudzony boring, bored; duy, duo big, much/ many; znaczy, znakowa mean, mark. Foreignization errors - A learner coins a new word borrowing similar from the mother tongue and adopting it. They have remonted their flat. ( remontowa redecorate). He went to ubication ( ubikacja lavatory). Grapho-phonemic errors - Making this type of an error, a speaker changes phonology of an L2 word husband/ husbent. Articles errors - Since Polish does not have these forms of speech, a Polish speaker often omits them while speaking.(under-representation) Morphological errors: Derivational errors: a learner coins a new word using a suffix with a stem similar to the one in English. Music ( PL muzyk) musician; biologer ( PL biolog) biologist. Concord errors: A speaker uses a wrong form of a verb which does not agree in the category with the noun. Police is always brutal. Cattle is. Money are. News are. A dangerous crossroads. Verb-form errors: The errors are caused by the wrong usage of a verb form and verb ending I want going home; I want go home; He want go home. Syntactic errors: Omissions: A speaker omits an important element in a sentence as the item is redundant in the mother are two bathrooms; Its a place where is always clean tongue. In my house Additions: A speaker adds an unnecessary element because it is used in L1 I go to home (preposition); Lets enter to the home. Misordering: A speaker ignores the basic word order of an English sentence Subject + Verb + Object This book I have from my sister; She went to the biggest in the city department store. Syntactic calques: The errors appear when a sentence is literally translated from Polish into English I suggest him to go. 4. Effects of transfer on the learners production Facilitation - This process is positive and results from similarities between L1 and L2.The similarities that exist between the languages cause that the learner does not concentrate on the structures which seem to them to be easy but focuses on those which are new. This approach helps accelerate the learning process, which concentrates mainly on searching for mother similar grammar structures in the target language. Avoidance - In this process transfer is difficult to be noticed. The learner tries not to use structures which are new and difficult for them as coming from the differences between the languages. Over-use - Over-use, often called over-production, reflects in more often usage of some structures than it is done by a native speaker. This type of transfer is connected with the influence of both the languages, which causes the appearance of the error. When the learner acquires a new structure they sometimes overuse it in an inappropriate context. 5. the notion of interlanguage (Selinker): - learner language is a system in itself, not an imperfect imitation of the target language system - it has some characteristics of the learner's native language, some of the second language and some characteristics which tend to be general and occur in all or most interlanguage systems - interlanguages are systematic, dynamic and continually evolving as learners receive more input and revise their hypotheses about the second language 6. The attitude to errors over the history of language teaching: - spotting errors, interrupting, eradicating, overlearning GTM, ALM, TPR if errors are made, it is always the teacher who supplies students with the correct answer (GTM) errors must be instantly eradicated by overlearning, learners should be prevented from making errors, as they lead to the formation of bad habits - ALM - allowing errors not interfering with communication CLT, CLL errors of form are tolerated and seen as a natural outcome of the development of communication skills, and students success is determined as much by their fluency as it is by their accuracy. the teacher distinguishes local errors (that do not obstruct communication, which are left uncorrected) and global errors (that make communication exchange incomprehensible, in which case the teacher is going to intervene) - CLT

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language learning is the inevitable trial-and-error process, hence some errors should be left uncorrected CLT, TPR, Suggestopedia - errors are the signs of making progress, of attempts to extend the meaning of a form - DM the teacher should refrain from too much correction, and should not interrupt to inhibit the speech of children. the teacher is tolerant of errors and will only correct major ones, while even the major ones are corrected unobtrusively, but as students get more advanced, teachers can fine tune correct more minor errors TPR errors are not corrected immediately, at least at the beginning levels as the emphasis is on students communicating their intended meaning. when errors of form do occur, the teacher uses the form correctly later on during the class - Suggestopedia - error correction must not be done in a way that would make the learner develop negative attitudes towards the learning process TPR, CLL error correction is done in a nonthreatening way, such as for the teacher to repeat correctly what the student has said incorrectly, without calling further attention to the error - CLL - a learner is encouraged to self-correct, to develop their inner criteria for correctness SW, DM self-correction facilitates language learning, and the teacher employs various techniques to get students to self-correct whenever possible DM the teacher uses student errors to decide where further work is needed, and actively works to get students to self-correct, signalling errors and giving hints to elicit correct forms. if the student is unable to self-correct, then peer correction is encouraged; if still unsuccessful, they the teacher would supply the correct form as a last resort - SW 7. Error correction in CLT - pre-communicative activities vs. communicative activities: - not allowing errors in the initial pre-communicative stage, where the main focus is on form - focusing on errors straight away to develop students' linguistic competence - accepting errors in communicative activities, where the goal is fluency and passing on the message - correcting only the ones that interfere with understanding the main text, when the error is grave or repetitive - leaving errors for the time being and focusing on them later to develop communicative competence - leaving some errors altogether, without correction at all 8. Who to correct? - correction by the teacher: + instant, competent, clearly seen and noticeable for all the students, quick and economical during the lesson - increases T dominance over the classroom, does not stimulate the error-making student to thinking, does not show T what kind of error it is (systematic or sporadic) - correction by other students: + involves the whole class, makes sure that students listen to utterances of others, stimulates creative thinking and problem-solving of students, increases the cooperation in the classroom - not fully reliable, as other students may also make mistakes; making the error-making student embarrassed; having detrimental effect on the relations in the classroom - self-correction: + the most beneficial for an individual student; - possible only when the student is able to correct themselves; only in case of sporadic errors and slips of the tongue; 9. Indicating the error in oral work the teacher repeats the students' utterance to the last correct word the teacher echoes the students utterance with an emphasis/rising intonation the teacher asks a question about the content of the wrong sentence the teacher asks a one-word question (eg Tense? Past?). the teacher gives a set of forms to choose from the teacher gives a quick hint the teacher shows the error with a gesture/facial expression/sound (surprise; frown);

the teacher makes a gesture combined with facial expression (eg worried look and hand outstretched to hold the sentence you wont let the class move on until they deal with the sentence you are holding).
the teacher repeats the students utterance with the error corrected, but WITHOUT making any focus on it the teacher gives the correct form when talking about themselves

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the teacher tells students there is an error in the sentence 10. Correcting the error - error correction techniques during accuracy work: - the teacher makes a correct sentence and asks the student to repeat - the teacher chooses a student-observer who is to spot and correct errors - the teacher rephrases the sentence and makes a focus of the error - the teacher asks a question (Do others think it was correct?) and elicits correct versions from others - the teacher draws a timeline to expose the problem - the teacher exploits the humor in the error (eg Student:The doctor gave her a recipe. Teacher: So

she made a nice cake? Student: Oh not the right word? Another student: Prescription.)
- error correction techniques during fluency work: - much greater tolerance of error than in more-controlled form-focused activities - gentle correction (prompting or reformulating) if communication breaks down completely - providing translation or sentence completion - classifying mistakes (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, appropriacy), recording them and focusing on them after the task completion - giving whole class feedback session on mistakes - select the errors which were more frequent/more representative of a greater number of students - providing both correct and incorrect forms to improve Ss discrimination - put the incorrect forms on the board and ask Ss to correct/recognize the problem - implement a remedial teaching session - focus on the error in a summative way, without pointing out the error-making student 11. What is feedback? - the information given to the learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance - is composed of assessment (the learner is informed how well or badly he or she has performed), and correction (some specific information is provided on aspects of the learner's performance) - using the criteria to assess and give feedback: - criterion-referenced: how well the learner is performing relative to a fixed criterion - norm-referenced: how well the learner is performing relative to the group - individual-referenced: how well the learner is performing relative to his or her own previous performance, or relative to an estimate of his or her individual ability 12. Giving feedback - feedback during oral work: - individual or group feedback - meaningful, informative, constructive feedback - positive or negative reinforcement - formative (instantly interrupting) or summative (after-task) - suited to the focus, type and aim of the activity (non-communicative activities, focused on form and communicative activities, focused on content) - correcting and not offending 13. Error correction and feedback in written works: - correct all the mistakes o the traditional approach to the correction of written work o time-consuming for the teacher and discouraging for the students o there must be some doubt about how effective this form of correction is o some students learn nothing from it; others are more interested in why something is wrong rather than the correction itself - correct mistakes selectively o do not attempt to correct all the mistakes in a piece of writing, but only those in certain areas, such as tenses or articles o T does this because this is where the students particularly need help or because you have decided to focus attention on these for a while. o more positive than total correction - indicate mistakes so that the students can correct them. o normally done by underlining the mistakes and using some kind of symbol to focus the attention of the students on the kind of mistake they have made - feedback on written work: - feedback on content:

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comments written by teachers on drafts that usually point out problems and offer suggestions for improvements on future rewrites. Students are usually expected to incorporate information from the comments into other versions of their papers. - feedback on form: o outright teacher correction of surface errors, teacher markings that indicate the place and type of error but without correction, and underlining to indicate only the presence of errors o coding mistakes with a uniform marking code o teaching students the correcting procedure o implementing the idea of writing as a process o suiting the correction difficulty level to the situation a staged approach: Stage 1 Underline the mistake and diagnose it by writing the appropriate symbol in the margin/use different colours/symbols to underline different kinds of mistakes Stage 2 Underline the mistake but do not diagnose it. Stage 3 Diagnose the mistake by writing the symbol or code in the margin but do not show where it is in the line. Stage 4 Put a cross in the margin (for each mistake). Stage 5 Put a cross against each line with a mistake but do not indicate how many mistakes there are. o

14. Sample written works coding systems Symbol C P // S PS (part of speech) lub WF S/P C lub Agr T /\ [] A Znaczenie capitalisation wielka litera wrong punctuation za interpunkcja new paragraph needed potrzebny nowy akapit incorrect spelling za pisownia wrong form za forma wyrazu wrong singular or plural form za liczba concord, subject and verb do not agree niezgodno podmiotu z orzeczeniem verb tense mistake zy czas uyty something has been left out co zostao opuszczone something is not necessary niepotrzebne sowo wrong or omitted article zy lub brakujcy przedimek rewrite word order zmie szyk wyrazw word order mistake zy szyk wyrazw lub W O / R-O separate these words, new sentence needed zacznij nowe zdanie run-on sentence zbyt dugie zdanie should be one word (combine sentence) powinno by jedno sowo/zdanie rewrite, unclear meaning niejasne znaczenie ? lub M Symbol WW WF WO MW Tense Gram. Spell. Art. Prep. Punct. Sense Good; Well done; I like this! dobra robota, podoba mi si. Znaczenie Wrong word niewaciwe sowo Wrong form niewaciwa forma wyrazu Problem with word order problem z szykiem wyrazw Missing word brakujce sowo Ze uycie lub konstrukcja czasu Inny bd gramatyczny (np. niezgodno liczby rzeczownika i czasownika) Spelling ortografia Article zy przedimek Preposition zy przyimek Punctuation interpunkcja Sense niezrozumiay sens zdania

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15. Post-error teaching: Let the students identify and correct their own mistakes. This is not a procedure that you are likely to be able to follow all the time. Occasionally, however, you should be prepared to hand over the whole business of correction to the students - which they will generally do scrupulously and with enjoyment. - Explain a mistake. For example, you can write a comment in the margin or at the end of a piece of written work. This procedure is especially useful for drawing attention to recurrent mistakes in a particular area and when you are able to look at students' work in class. - Indicate to the students that they should consult you about a mistake. This may be used as an alternative to the solutions above. Very often the students themselves can suggest the correction when their attention has been drawn to a mistake. - Use the mistake as a basis for remedial teaching. This procedure should be followed if a sufficient number of students in the class have made a mistake to warrant general correction. Alternatively, you can set individual remedial work. Remedial teaching may take the form of

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an explanation, where this is felt to be sufficient, or exercises, oral or written, whichever seems to be appropriate, designed to correct the mistake.

Five teacher decisions to be made when working with oral errors in class: 1 Decide what kind of error has been made (grammatical? pronunciation? etc). 2 Decide whether to deal with it (is it useful to correct it?). 3 Decide when to deal with it (now? end of activity? later?). 4 Decide who will correct (teacher? student self-correction? other students?). 5 Decide on an appropriate technique to indicate that an error has occurred or to enable correction.
ISSUES TO REFLECT UPON IN ERROR CORRECTION A. LEARNERS AND TEACHERS' FEELINGS: How does the learner feel when corrected? How did you feel as a learner when', there was no error correction (in fact, no feedback at all)? Which error correcting style did you prefer? How did you feel when the teacher became so involved in the activity that they forgot to correct errors? How did you feel towards the teacher who ignored you? As a teacher, does it embarrass you to correct? How much does correcting errors worry you as a non-native teacher? B. TIMING OF ERROR CORRECTON: Should there be any difference between error correction techniques at different stages of learning (e.g. beginners compared with advanced learners)? When is the best moment to correct am error? Are there any times when we might correct immediate1y a mistake is made? When, might we NOT correct an error? Which errors, and why? C. AMOUNT OF CORRECTION: How much should we correct our learners? Any difference in amount according to level? Any difference in amount according to task? Should teachers allow any errors to go un-corrected? If so which and why? How much monitoring should there be? D. STYLE OF CORRECTION.' What type of error correction did you prefer? What type of feedback is useful and appropriate (language/content)? What strategies can we use to correct without discouraging our learners too much7 What are the advantages and problems of learn-era correcting each other? What are the positive and/or negative aspects of student-to-student correction? When to correct 1 Please rank these activities from 1 to 7; during which one would you be most likely to correct (1) and during which one least likely to correct (7)? a substitution drill practising the past simple ___ role-play with students working in pairs ___ group problem solving activity with no particular language focus ___ closed pairs activity practising new functional language with one student avoiding use of the new language ___ class chat at the end of the lesson ___ dialogue repetition ___ teacher led Q and A session based on going to future which students have just learnt ___ 2 Please put a tick for situations where it is important to correct and a cross X for situations where it is less important or even inappropriate to correct. the error is complex and difficult to correct ___ the error affects the whole of what the student is saying ___ the error is frequently made by this student ___ the error causes misunderstanding (Ive been married for five years; hes divorced) ___ the error is made by a student who lacks confidence ___ the error is localised to a small part of what the student is saying ___ the error is a slip ___ the error is one of cultural inappropriacy (I get a beer) ___ the error doesnt prevent communication (He work for Audi) ___