ERROR CORRECTION
Students make
mistakes, even during carefully planned lessons using well-designed
instructional materials. They answer incorrectly, give incomplete answers, or do
not respond at all. The importance of providing feedback when students make
errors is well documented (e.g., Brophy, 1986; Christenson, Ysseldyke, &
Thurlow, 1989). Nevertheless, relatively little experimental research on error correction
exists, and what does exist is inconclusive. Teachers are left knowing the
importance of correcting student errors but receiving little empirically
supported guidance for how to do so.
What to do when student make a
mistake?
Don’t Let Students
Practice Errors during the Acquisition Stage of Learning
For
example: “Excellent, Robin. You removed all of the leaves with dark spots. But
there’s still too much sand on them to serve to our customers. Let me show you
again how to wash it off. Then you can show me.” For behaviors that produce a
permanent product (e.g., a completed workbook page, a sanded piece of wood), it
is usually not critical that feedback occur within a few seconds or minutes of
a student’s response. Feedback received even a day or two later may still be
helpful as long as it occurs before the student must respond again. Teachers
can ensure that students receive feedback after each response by using
instructional strategies such as these:
• Collaborative learning. Use a peer tutoring
system or small-group activities in which peers provide feedback to one another
after each response (Miller, Barbetta, & Heron, 1994).
• Learning centers. Use instructional materials and computer
software that provide feedback after each response.
• Self-correction. Teach students to self-score their work
and self-correct any errors before proceeding to the next problem or item
(Goddard & Heron, 1998; Morten, Heward, & Alber, 1998).
• Homework. Avoid assigning homework or independent seatwork
activities that do not contain self scoring and self-correcting components
until the student can perform the target skill with some accuracy.
When
Errors Occur, Provide Effective and Efficient Error Correction
When
handled properly, errors can provide good opportunities for teaching and
learning. But too often error correction is carried out ineffectively (the
student is still wrong the next time) and inefficiently (it is time-consuming
and reduces the total number of learning trials that can be conducted during
the lesson). Although much remains to be learned about how teachers should
respond when students make mistakes during instruction, the combined results of
several experimental studies provide some guidance. Research suggests that
error correction will be more effective and efficient when it includes these
four characteristics:
Now Instead of Later. Errors
should be corrected before going to the next item or problem. Teachers may
hesitate to delay instruction when a student errs during group instruction,
preferring instead to work individually with her after the lesson. But this may
allow the student to make the same mistake for the rest of the lesson. Two
recent studies compared “right now” and “end-of-the-lesson” error correction
during sight-word lessons with primary students with mental retardation and
science vocabulary lessons with upper elementary-age students with learning disabilities.
Error correction immediately after each error was more effective, even when the
post lesson error correction consisted of repeated trials (Barbetta, Heward, Bradley,
& Miller, 1994; Kleinman et al., 1994).
Direct. Error correction is direct when the
feedback focuses on the target skill. Several studies have shown that the
effectiveness of error correction is improved when students are provided with
complete information or a direct model of the missed item (Barbetta, Heward,
& Bradley, 1993; Espin & Deno, 1989). That is, instead of offering
incomplete or indirect feedback, tell, show, and/or guide the student through
the correct response.
Brief. The teacher should rapidly tell, show,
and/or demonstrate the correct response (e.g., “This word is ‘circus.’ ”).
Correcting an error in 3 or 4 seconds is better than engaging in an extended
discussion of the student’s mistake. In trying to help students understand
their error, teachers often spend a great deal of time talking. Although
detailed explanations are sometimes necessary and helpful, often students just
get confused or lose interest. Time would be better used conducting several
more complete learning trials.
Ends with the Student Making the Correct Response. When a student
errs, teachers often hint, probe, tell, show, and eventually provide the
correct response or ask another student to answer. The student who made the
original error passively observes. Results from several studies show that feedback
is more effective when the student who erred is given an opportunity to emit
the corrected response (Barbetta & Heward, 1993; Dalrymple & Feldman,
1992; Drevno et al., 1994). For example, Barbetta, Heron, and Heward (1993)
examined the effects of active student response during the correction of errors
made by primary students with mental retardation during sight-word lessons. Half
of each week’s set of 20 unknown words were taught with “no response” (NR)
error correction (after each error, the teacher modeled the correct response
while the student looked at the word); the remaining 10 words were taught with “active
student response” (ASR) error correction (the student repeated the word after
the teacher’s model). ASR error correction was more effective for all six
children on all five measures of performance: number and percentage of correct
responses during instruction, same-day tests, next day tests (see Figure A),
maintenance tests given 2 weeks after instruction, and words read in sentences.
The error
correction episode should end with the student making the correct response.
Instead of providing or showing the correct response and then asking the
student, “Now do you understand?” have the student repeat the correct response
(e.g., teacher: “No. This word is ‘circus’. What is this word?” student: “Circus.” Teacher: “Good.”).
Error Correction Techniques.
A really important skill
for ESL or EFL teachers is error correction. There is a fine balance needed to
maintain lesson flow and develop student’s confidence. It is easy to tip this
balance and the results are disastrous for your students. Over-correction will
result in students losing confidence and then always speaking hesitantly, often
“stuttering” and always looking to the teacher for confirmation.
Under-correction will result in students developing bad habits and not learning
proper grammar, forms, usage; eventually decreasing communicative ability.
The first step is learning
whether to correct or not. A key to developing this skill is to understand the
difference between ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’ (TESOL and TEFL courses focus a lot
on this differentiation). A mistake is a slip up: you know the correct thing to
say, but by accident said the wrong thing. Often mistakes result in fun
statements and students can get a kick out of them. Mistakes are not critical
to correct. If you identify that it was a simple mistake, let it go. If it is
repeated too often, it has become an error. Errors are when the student does
not know the correct form, term, or usage. Errors need to be corrected for
students to develop their skills and to avoid developing bad habits.
Once an error has been
identified, teachers need to consider the type of error and how best to deal
with it.
Jim Scrivener (1994)
writes:
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 the 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.
In order to make the
decisions above, we must hone our skills. The bigger our knowledge base, the
easier to make these decisions, the better we can deal with them. Some
suggested error correction techniques are explained below.
On the Spot (Selective)
On the spot can be
dangerous to your students’ confidence. Do so with caution and not too often,
and choose an appropriate technique that doesn’t slow down the pace too much.
Be careful not to ‘jump’ on one student for making a mistake.
Echo the Error: Quick and easy, be an echo to your student’s error.
Ask for Repetition: Just say “please repeat” or “please say that again”.
Repeat up to the Error: Echo up to the error; let it hang for students to finish...
Ask a Question: Highlight student’s error by asking a question that will expose the
error.
Provide Options: Without stopping the flow of the lesson, write options on the board.
Gestures: Especially useful with phrasal verb and preposition mistakes.
Write on the Whiteboard,
Underline: The standard whiteboard technique. Highlight the error with an
underline.
Delayed Error Correction (After)
At an appropriate stop in
the lesson, do some error correction. A good place to do this is at the end of
a section, practice, or activity (error correction makes a nice transition
between parts of the lesson). Don’t make student’s feel bad about their errors;
they often don’t know the correct thing to say. Instead of saying “You said ~”,
say “I heard ~” or just simply write the error(s) on the board. When possible,
change the sentence for anonymity; we don’t want to embarrass students.
Echo the Error: “I heard ~”
Ask for Reformulation
(questions): Can you change this
question to get the same answer?
Repeat up to the Error: good for vocabulary errors, write the sentence on the board up to the
error, have students finish the sentence. This can be done with all students,
thus re-enforcing the correct form to be used by hearing several variations.
Ask a Question: Good for concept checks and getting students to repeat a section where
they made an error, simply ask them a question that will bring up the error.
The question can be directed at any student or all students.
Repetition of the Correct
Answer: Once the error has been corrected, have students repeat the correct
answer. This technique works best with low level students or when the error
seems to have become a bad habit.
Provide Options: Write the error on the board and provide several options. Have students choose the option
they think is best.
Use a Visual Aid: Draw a timeline, pie chart, picture or other visual aide on the board
to help students to understand the error. Have them self-correct.
Write on the Whiteboard,
Underline: The standard white board technique. Highlight the error with an underline.
Highlight the Issue:Rather than bringing up a
specific error, when you notice repeated errors of the same type, highlight
this issue and discuss. If necessary, mark students’ files and teach the
appropriate curriculum item as soon as possible.
Other Technique Notes
Here are a few other notes
to help you develop your error correction techniques.
Anonymous Error Correction: With delayed error
correction, try to make the correction anonymous. For a grammar mistake, try
changing the nouns so that the sentence is unidentifiable by students but still
helps them learn their mistake. For example: if a student said “Yesterday, I go
to Kyoto”, change it to “Last week, I go to Daimaru”. Also say “I heard…,”
rather than “Mr Suzuki said….” This anonymity will help students feel more
confident by not highlighting a specific student’s mistake in front of peers.
All students will benefit from this consideration as all students will be
curious to fix the mistake, not knowing who made it originally.
Self Correction: As much as possible try to
encourage self-correction. If students can fix their own mistake, it shows that
they understand and allows them to feel more confident in their knowledge.
Confident self-correction habits lead to students depending less on others
(i.e. their coach) and thus speaking more freely, knowing if they make a
mistake they can correct it themselves. They will become more confident
speaking outside of the classroom, which is the true goal of ESL and EFL
education.
Peer Correction: Above we saw numerous
techniques which allow students to work together to correct errors and avoid
individual error correction. Coaches should further encourage students to
correct each other (peer correction). Peer correction will increase student
talk time and also increase student interaction. This is particularly easy to
do with homework and written work, but can be done on the spot and with delayed
correction on the board.
REFELECTION:
Error Correction is not a difficult part in our lessons, but not also is easy. We know many error correction techniques, so we can use it our classes, but we have to keep in mind that we must find the way and the moment to do the correction. Students will feel confortable if they know that makes error is normal in their learning.
