ERROR CORRECTION FOR SPEAKING: AN EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH

Christopher Smith

Chris Smith started his talk with a bit of information about the history of error correction. He mentioned how different approaches viewed error correction. He gave the example of Audiolingualism, where the teacher used to correct everything and Humanistic approaches where the notion is to correct nothing . Chris did point out that these statements -correct everything/nothing- are a simplistic /caricature view of how the approaches dealt with error correction. He then moved on to talk about Krashen and Terrel’s approach towards error correction. According to them, error correction did not work due to the affective filter (students got scared and embarrassed and this hindered their learning). This kind of attitude affected communicative language learning greatly.

BUT research shows that error correction does work. Students who receive error correction improve.

Chris Smith then moved on to the main part of his talk which was his research. He  carried out research regarding error correction on speaking.

Chris Smith’s research

Learner Profile

200 EAP students (pre-master’s students). 2/3 of the learners were Chinese and the rest from the Middle East, Iraq. Kazakhstan. Most learners were in their mid-twenties. Language level: upper-intermediate.

Chris’ research started with general statements/research questions about error correction.

1). I believe error correction helps me improve.

Very strong agreement.

2). I want more error correction than what I get.

Agree (students, in general, want more error correction than what they receive).

But some people say you have to be careful with the amount of error correction you give. You might scare/upset your learners. This lead to Chris’ third statement/research question.

3). Being corrected by a teacher about speaking is embarrassing.

Strong disagreement.

Techniques for Error Correction

What kind of error correction technique do students prefer?

Student to student dialogues: Suggested techniques

• Interrupting students and giving error correction.
• Emailing students with error correction.
• Writing errors on the board and then doing group error correction.
• Giving bits of paper with individual feedback.

The most popular technique was giving individual feedback on bits of paper.

Recommendations on how to do that:

• Use Postit notes so they can stick the bit of paper somewhere and because it is neat.
• Cover the whole class. All the students must receive individual error correction on a Postit note.

What kind of error correction technique do students prefer?

Student to teacher dialogue: Suggested Techniques

• Teacher elicits self-correction.
• Open the error correction discussion to the whole class.
• Repeat with the correct feedback.
• Stop, correct and explain.

The most popular technique was to stop, correct and explain. Students prefer direct correction. Eliciting answers came third and the least popular technique was opening error correction to the whole class. According to Chris’ findings for these students, it is OK for the teacher to correct, but if the teacher tells another student to correct a mistake, this may mean that the mistake was a simple one, a mistake that another student can correct. This may make a learner feel more embarrassed.

Recommendations

Final thoughts

The teacher needs to think of the time s/he will do error correction, plan it and use the most suitable techniques. Error correction does work and students want more of it!!

Chris Smith works at the English Language Center of Sheffield University. You can watch his talk here More Iatefl 2015 posts Donald Freeman’s talk Joy Egbert’s talk   Till next time……….