Correcting Learners Flashcards
Finger correction
This is a way of drawing attention to where a learner has made a mistake. The
teacher counts out the words a student has said on her fingers. The fingers represent
words and the teacher can show clearly in which word (finger) the mistake was made.
A teacher may use her fingers to show that a mistake has been made with word or
sentence stress, word order, grammar, pronunciation, etc.
Peer correction
This is when teachers ask learners to correct each other, rather than correcting
them herself.
Delayed correction
In fluency activities, teachers may decide not to correct learners at the time that
the mistake is made, but may prefer to leave the correction till later in the lesson.
Reformulation
A method used when a teacher corrects what a student has said by repeating the
sentence correctly, but without drawing the students’ attention to their mistake.
This is usually the way parents ‘correct’ their young children’s language mistakes.
Echo correction
A method used when students make a mistake and the teacher repeats the
mistake with rising intonation, encouraging students to correct themselves, e.g.
Student: He don’t like it. Teacher: Don’t? Student: He doesn’t like it.
Immediate correction
When a teacher corrects the error as soon as it is made. This is usually in
activities where the focus is on accuracy
Self correction
When students are able to correct language mistakes they have made, perhaps
with some help from the teacher.
Time line
A diagram that shows learners the relationship between tense and time. It is often
used in language teaching to correct learners when they use tenses wrongly.
Correction code
A series of symbols a teacher may use to mark students’ writing, so that they can
correct mistakes by themselves, e.g. P = punctuation mistake, T = tense mistake.
