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Teach English in Sanjiang Zhen - Bazhong Shi

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HOW TO EFFECTIVELY CORRECT ERRORS? Correction is an essential part of the teaching and learning process. This area needs the best abilities of teachers and facilitators which are develop over time through teaching experiences and exposure to a diverse range of students. As a teacher, you'll have to correct your students when they make errors and mistakes. Correction is really important and can't be ignored. A teacher who fails to do so risks losing the opportunity to effectively ‘teach’ the learners. However, overdoing it can be demotivating and may lead to reluctance to try out new language or even to try to speak at all. One of the biggest dilemmas of teachers is to know when and if to correct students and how to do it. Bearing in mind that everyone makes mistakes, even great speakers of their own language finds it difficult or sometimes lost for words when speaking, we expect errors will be present through out the course of study. What is important to consider is how to effectively correct the errors the students are committing without destroying their confidence. WHO CORRECTS IN THE CLASS? There are several factors in the classroom setting that we can control. But we can’t control the number of mistakes our students make. And we all know that sometimes mistakes can really hinder the flow of the lesson and even cause delays. Mistakes also affect students’ self-esteem and their ability to communicate. So, how can we correct mistakes in a way that is less threatening? Self-correction and peer-correction are here aside from the generally known teacher correction. 1. Self- correction is the opportunity of the students to reflect upon the errors and mistake they have done and to correct them. It helps them to take responsibility of their learning and allows students to gauge their own problem areas. Some might come to realize where they always make mistakes and see where is the need for improvement. It also helps the students gain better awareness of the language and become increasingly independent as the teacher will not be there to correct them all the time. However, teachers must be very keen when executing student’s self-correction. Students need to have a very high degree of consciousness so they can be able to analyse the errors that they have made. Students can be undecided also if they haven’t received feedback from the teachers. They may have doubts if the correction they made is the correct answer. Other student also maybe a bit cheeky when they mark their own papers or activity sheet. They might pretend to get all correct answer at the beginning not admitting the errors they had committed. 2. Peer-correction is often useful and a good technique because most of the time students can correct to each other and this creates a positive and collaborative atmosphere. The students will realize that teachers are not the only source of correction and could be a source of encouragement to work harder and help other students. It encourages student’s involvement and responsibility and focuses on the development of the student’s judgement skills. Nevertheless, the process has the risk with respect to the reliability of peer to apply correction as friendship may influence the correction. Some students may feel they are not equipped to undertake peer-correction and feel reluctant to make judgement regarding peers. CORRECTION TECHNIQUES A student that receives great feedback during the lesson walks out of the door feeling confident and motivated to keep improving. A student that receives poor feedback will feel the opposite, and might even end up dreading the next class. Giving effective feedback is a skill that every teacher must acquire. Teachers must put into consideration that at least the students are trying to read, write, speak and listen to English language. This means that by making errors students are experimenting with language as part of the learning process. 1. Two star and a wish One effective way is to give ‘two stars and a wish’. Teacher will take note of at least two positive feedback in whatever activity and proceed to the ‘wish’ which is the correction or the areas to improve. In this way, the students know the teacher recognizes their strong points and not focusing only on their mistakes and errors. This encourage them to work on the correction the teacher has made. 2. Think about timing Proper timing is very important in making correction. The timing of your feedback can be the difference between students learning from their mistakes or bringing destruction to the students. Some may want to elect a period of time for correction to deal with problems and issues arose during the class depending on the activity. Some may want instant correction as soon as they are made however you have to take account that you do not want to destroy the flow of the class by constantly correcting errors made by students. It is necessary also to take into consideration the nature or the culture of the students when making corrections. Some may be ok with very vocal and straightforward corrections while others may need to be discreet and more personal correction. 3. In Writing Have you ever stopped to consider how a student feels when you hand back their creative writing assignment covered in red ink? Probably not very good. Try this instead, focus on major mistakes first or the objective of the written task. For example, if the goal of the writing assignment is to write about an event in the past, correct all of the mistakes that are not related to the past tense, like spelling or prepositions. Make a note on the margin that states the number of mistakes they’ve made, which they need to correct. See if they find them all. Teachers may also assign symbols or colours the class will be officially using to correct all their writing exercises. The student must know and understand what those symbols are for to effectively change the errors committed. Some symbols maybe SP= for spelling or GR= for grammar. In this way the paper will not be covered with red ink and the student will not feel degraded. One thing to emphasise is to always check back what the teacher has written as correction, some student will ignore and move on. This may lead to repeated errors. 4. Recording Some teachers choose to record speaking sessions/conversation classes and make notes of any mistakes from this. This will be a good activity as well for listening skills. Teachers may replay the recorded speaking task and the student will spot the error while listening- promoting guided peer and self- corrections. This method, whilst encouraging fluency, involves a lot of extra work and is probably only worthwhile with a small class size. While doing the correction on the recorded speaking task focus on the areas of concern only one at a time. For example, the teacher would like to check the pronunciation and then afterwards you may use the same recorded material for checking the unnecessary ‘to’ (I must to go) in their sentences. Feedback at the end of every lesson is the best time to arrest any possible errors or mistake the students encounter. The teachers must be able to know what is the most effective correction techniques in the class. They may discuss this point and ask students ideas and opinions about it before lesson commences. Don’t forget to encourage the students to ask questions too and as much as possible erase any confusion.


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