Writing and grammar errors

Writing and grammar errors. When writing we do not have the chance to rephrase or clarify what we are saying.

Our message must be clear the first time. Written errors are also less tolerated than spoken errors outside the classroom. Look at this model for correcting written work and evaluate it for your teaching situation. 1. Comprehensibility Can you understand the output? Are there areas of incoherence? Do these affect the overall message? Does communication break down? 2. Task Has the student addressed the task? 3. Syntax and Lexis Are they appropriate to the task? Are they accurate? The role of planning Giving students time to plan not only results in a wider range of language being used, it also helps students to avoid some of the following Inappropriate layout No paragraphs Lack of cohesion Inappropriate style Whichever style of plan linear notes or a mind map these questions will help students to plan their writing ? What am I going to write? An informal letter etc What layout do I need What information am I going to include How many paragraphs do I need What grammar vocabulary am I going to use What linking words because, and etc. am I going to use? Practical techniques ideas for correcting writing Training students to edit Even though they have invested time in doing a writing task, students often don t spend a few more minutes checking their writing.

The following activities not only help to develop students editing skills in a fun way, but also enable the teacher to focus on key errors without individual students losing face Grammar auctions From Grammar Games by M.Rinvolucri CUP Students receive a number of sentences taken from their written work. Some are correct, some wrong.

Students in groups have to try to buy the correct ones in the auction.

They have a limited amount of money. The team with the most correct sentences wins Mistakes mazes From Correction by Bartram and Walton Thomson Heinle. Students have a list of sentences. Their route through a maze depends on whether the sentences are right or wrong. They follow white arrows for correct sentences and black ones for incorrect ones. If they have identified all the sentences correctly they escape, if not they have to retrace their steps and find out where they went wrong.

Correction techniques It can be difficult to decide on what and how much to correct in a student s piece of writing. Students can develop a negative attitude towards writing because their teacher corrects all their errors or if the teacher only corrects a few, they might feel that the teacher hasn t spent sufficient time looking at their work. Evaluate the following techniques and decide which would be appropriate for your teaching situation.

Underline inappropriate language in a piece of writing using a specific colour Using a different colour from above, underline examples of appropriate language Correct errors by writing the correct forms in their place Use codes in the margin to identify the type of error s, for example, VOC a lexical error.

Students have to identify the error s and if possible make a correction Alternatively put crosses in the margin for the number of errors in each line. Students then try to identify the errors and make corrections Put students into pairs groups. They correct each other s work using one or more of the techniques above From time to time give students an individual breakdown of recurring problems in their written work. According to James 13, p.120 errors in writing such as tenses, prepositions and weak vocabulary are the most common and frequent type of errors that are committed by learners.

Since grammar is seen only as a means to an end, some learners tend to re-emphasize its importance and in the process, they make many more errors. The learners usually face difficulties in learning the grammatical aspects of the Target Language TL , such as in subject-verb agreement, the use of preposition, articles and the use of correct tense.

Such errors can be seen clearly in the learners written performance 15, p.89 . The problems that the students are bound to encounter would be weak vocabulary, inappropriate use of grammar in sentences etc. For correcting written works, it is accepted that the teacher should not correct the students mistakes directly but instead, should put marks indicating there is something wrong with that sentence, word, or punctuation. There are symbols to show the kind of mistake that teachers use. For example, it is better to write sp for spelling mistake near the wrong word, to write rw for the sentences need to be written once again, etc. than writing the correct form. Thus, students are able to correct themselves looking for the source of their mistakes.

Errors based on the overgeneralization of learning strategies were seen in the usage of the simple past tense form of a verb Appendix 3 . Several types of errors were noticed in the broad categories of regular Type 1 , and irregular verbs Type 2 . Type 1 was categorized into six sub-types.

The first sub-type 1 was the omission of the past marker -ed, as in Ex. I think I like English at that time. line 02 Sub-type 2 involved the auxiliary do in negation, for example, I don t like school English but I liked line 12 Sub-type 3 consisted of be verb before an adjective, as in Ex I met one English teacher. He is very hard teacher line 14 Sub-type 4 seen as be verb before a noun, such as Ex. When, I went to Australia, my teachers are school teachers. line 18 Sub-type 5 involved a verb preceding the to-infinitive, as in Ex. I began to listen music of song by English and want to read line 20 The last sub-type 6 consisted of the modal can, for instance, I enjoyed listening class, so we can watch line 31 These sentences represent a past context through the time orientation italics 9, p.48 however, the present forms of the verb underlined are employed to convey the past context, a very common tendency in this error pattern.

Other sentences such as I like her oral communication class. line 03 , and but I don t dislike him. line 13 are superficially correct at the sentence level, however, if the context, that is pastness, is taken into account, they are incorrect see other examples in lines 07-09, 16, 25, 28-29, and 34-35 . Another type of error was the production of past forms of irregular verbs by merely adding-ed see Type 2 such as feeled line 38, 40 , including a rare case of an adjective like harded line 37 . 2.2 Spoken errors 15 ways to correct spoken errors 1. Collect the errors for later You can then correct them later in the same class with a game like a grammar auction or just eliciting corrections from the class or in a future class for example writing error dictation pairwork worksheets or using the same techniques as can be used in the same class. Make sure you give positive reinforcement as well, e.g. Someone said this sentence, and that is really good. Useful language Here are some things that people said in the last activity I heard several people say this one Can anyone correct this sentence? It has one missing word one word missing You need to add one word The words are in the wrong order You need to change the words around change the word order mix the words up This is a typical mistake for students from Don t worry, even native speakers make this mistake sometimes every nationality makes this mistake This mistake is something we studied last week 2. Facial expression For example, raise an eyebrow, tilt your head to one side or give a slight frown.

Most people will do this naturally, but there is a slight chance a teacher s expression will be too critical or too subtle for your students to pick up on, and you can amusingly practice facial expressions in a teaching workshop by participants communicating certain typical classroom messages move over there to work with this person, work in pairs etc. using just their heads and faces, including feedback on spoken errors in that list. 3. Body language The problems with using body language to show errors could also be that it is taken as very serious criticism or that it is too vague.

Possibilities include using your hands rolling a hand from side to side to mean so-so attempt making a circle by moving your index finger to mean one more time or a cross with fingers, open palms or even forearms to show a very clear no or wrong - probably only suitable for a team game etc where the responsibility is shared, head tilted to one side to mean I m not sure that sounds correct, or shoulders hunched to reinforce I don t understand what you are saying. Again, practising this in a teaching workshop can be useful, as can eliciting other body language teachers could have used after an observation. 4. Point at the correct language If you have something on the correct form easily accessible on the whiteboard, in the textbook or on a poster, just pointing at it can be a subtle but clear way of prompting students to use the correct language.

What you point at could be the name of the tense or word form they are supposed to be using, a verb forms table or the actual correct verb form, a grammatical explanation, or another grammatical hint such as future, prediction or polite. Useful language Have a look at your books the board The correct version is somewhere in this chart poster table You copied this down earlier.

Have a look in your notebooks 5. Repeat what they said This can mean repeating the whole sentence, one section of it including the wrong part, the sentence up to the wrong part, the sentence with the wrong part missed out with maybe a humming noise to show the gap that should be filled or just the wrong part. You can illustrate that you are showing them an error and give some hint as to which bit is wrong by using a questioning tone for everything you say or just for the wrong part. This method is overused by some teachers and can sound patronising if used too often or with the wrong tone of voice, so try to mix up the different versions of it described here and to alternate with methods described in the other tips. Useful language The man GOED to the shops? The man GOED? GOED? 6. Just say the right version The students can then repeat the correct version or tell you what the difference between the two sentences was and why their version was wrong.

Because the students don t do much of the work in this way of being corrected, it might not be as good a way of remembering the correction as methods where you give more subtle clues.

Its advantages are that it is quick and suits cultures, classes and students that think of elicitation as shirking by the teacher.

It can also be more face-saving than asking them for self-correction, as trying to correct themselves risks making even more mistakes.

The right version could mean the whole sentence or just the correction of the part that was wrong.

In the latter case, you can then ask them to put it into the sentence in the right place and repeat the whole thing.

Useful language I understand what you are saying, but you need to say We studied this last week. Hardly has a different meaning to hard, so you need to say ? The past of say is pronounced sed. So your sentence should be ? 7. Tell them how many mistakes This method is only really suitable for controlled speaking practice, but can be a very simple way of giving feedback in that situation. Examples include Most of the comparatives were right, but you made two mistakes and Three words are in the wrong position in the sentence are mixed up. Make sure you only use this method when students can remember what you are referring to without too much prompting.

Other useful language Very good, but you made just one mistake with the passive For a tongue twister Good attempt Getting better, but in two places you said sh where it should have been s. Can you guess which words? 8. Use grammatical terminology to identify the mistake For example, You used the wrong tense , Not the Present Perfect , You need an adverb, not an adjective or Can change that into the passive indirect speech? This method is perhaps overused, and you need to be sure that the grammatical terminology isn t just going to confuse them more. Other useful language Because that is the present simple, you need to add the auxiliary verb do Say the same sentence, but with the comparative form 9. Give the rule For example, Since usually takes the Present Perfect or One syllable adjectives make the comparative with er, not more adjective This works best if they already know the rule, and you at least need to make sure that they will quickly understand what you are saying, for example by only using grammatical terminology you have used with them several times before. 10. Give a number of points This is probably best saved for part of a game, especially one where students work together, but you can give each response a number of points out of 10. The same or other teams can then make another attempt at saying the same thing to see if they can get more points.

If you don t want students to focus on accuracy too much, tell them that the points will also give them credit for good pronunciation, fluency, politeness, persuasiveness and or originality of ideas.

Useful language Very good fluency and very interesting, but a few basic mistakes, so I ll give your team a score of IELTS 5.5. Practice your script in your team again for 5 minutes and we ll try it one more time You got all the articles right this time, so I ll give you 9 out of 10 11. Just tell them they are wrong but nicely Positive ways of being negative include nearly there, getting closer, just one mistake, much better, good idea, but , I understand what you mean but, you have made a mistake that almost everyone does that s a very common mistake, we haven t studied this yet, but and much better pronunciation, but With lower level and new classes, you might have to balance the need to be nice with the need to be clear and not confuse them with feedback language that they don t understand, perhaps by sticking to one or two phrases to give feedback for the first couple of months.

It can also be useful to give them translations of this and other classroom language you will use, for example on a worksheet or a poster. 12. Tell them what part they should change For example, You need to change the introduction to your presentation or Try replacing the third word with something else 13. Ask partners to spot errors This is a fairly well-known way of giving feedback in speaking tasks, but it can be a minefield if the person giving feedback has no confidence in their ability to do so or in how well the feedback i.e. criticism will be taken, and even more so if the person receiving the feedback will in fact react badly.

This method is easier to do and easier to take when they have been told specifically which language to use while speaking and so to look out for when listening, usually meaning controlled speaking practice tasks.

The feedback can be made even simpler to give and collect and more neutral with some careful planning, e.g. asking them count how many times their partner uses the target form as well as or instead of looking for when it used incorrectly. 14. Try again! Sometimes, students don t need much help at all but just a chance to do it again.

This is likely to be true if you have trained them well in spotting their own errors, if there was some other kind of mental load such as a puzzle to solve that was distracting them from the language, or if they have had a chance to hear someone else doing the same speaking task in the class or on a recording.

Useful language One more time but think about the grammar more this time but concentrating on making less mistakes instead of speaking quickly Give it another go Do you want one more chance before you get the final score 15. Remind them when you studied that point For example, Nearly right, but you ve forgotten the grammar that we studied last week or You ve made the same mistake as everyone made in the last test. What Corder points out below summarizes the view of error correction in language teaching 7, p.112 Language learning is not parrot learning we do not learn or practice examples. They are the data from which we induce the system of the language.

Skill in correction of errors lies in the direction of exploiting the incorrect forms produced by the learner in a controlled fashion.

Firstly, by error analysis, teachers will get an overall knowledge about the students errors.

Foreign language learning is a process of hypothesis and trial and error occurrence is inevitable.

So the teacher should learn to tolerate some errors, especially some local errors. Secondly, errors can tell the teacher how far towards the goal the learner has progressed and consequently, what remains for him or her to learn.

So students errors are valuable feedbacks. We can do some remedial teaching based on their errors. Thirdly, errors are indispensable to the learners themselves, for we can regard the making of mistakes as a device the learner employs in order to learn. Finally, some errors need to be handled otherwise, they will become fossilized. In a sense, error analysis theory together with other theories have enriched the second language learning theory in that learning involves in a process in which success comes by profiting from mistakes and by using mistakes to obtain feedback from the environment.

With the feedback they make new attempts to achieve the more closely approximate desired goals. Certainly, error analysis is significant, but it also has its limitations. First, there is a danger in too much attention to learners errors and in the classroom teacher tends to become so preoccupied with noticing errors that the correct utterance in the second language will go unnoticed.

While the diminishing of errors is an important criterion for increasing language proficiency, the ultimate goal of second language learning is the attainment of communicative fluency in a language. Another shortcoming in error analysis is the overstressing of production data. Factually language comprehension is as important as production. It also happens that production lends itself to analysis and thus becomes the prey of researchers, but comprehension data is equally important in developing an understanding of the process of language acquisition.

Thirdly, it fails to account for the strategy of avoidance. A learner who for one reason or another avoids a particular sound, word, and structure or discourse category may be assumed incorrectly to have no difficulty therewith. The absence of error therefore does not necessarily reflect native like competence since learners may be avoiding the very structure that poses difficulty for them. Finally, error analysis can keep us too closely focused on specific languages rather than viewing universal aspects of language.

CONCLUSION This study has been devoted to introduce what error analysis is and what sort of relationship it has with language teaching, and what contribution it provides for language teaching studies. The aims of the studies regarding error analysis can be summarized as follows Error analysis identifies the strategies that language learners use. It looks for the answer of the question why do learners make errors? It determines the common difficulties in learning and helps teachers to develop materials for remedial teaching.

In short, error analysis has twofold aims including theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretical objectives contribute to the linguistics studies and the most obvious practical use of the error analysis is to the teacher. Errors provide feedback about the effectiveness of his teaching techniques and show him what part of the syllabus he has been following needs further attention. They enable him to decide on whether to move on to the next item or not. Studying the learner language in terms of the errors is something that teachers have always done for very practical reasons.

Through the results of tests and examinations, the errors that learners make are a major element in the feedback system of the teaching-learning process.

For this reason, it is important that the teacher should be able to not only detect and describe the errors from a linguistic view, but also understand the psychological reasons for their occurrences. Therefore, the diagnoses and treatment of errors is one of the fundamental skills of the teacher. Correction of errors is as important as identification and description of them. In fact, the last two are preliminary for error treatment. The sources and the sorts of the errors are determiners for the sort of feedback. In conclusion, the inevitable existence of errors has led researchers to study on them and find out the natural steps for language learning.

Findings of error analysis function as facilitator in language teaching in many ways only if the teacher is aware of them and able to make use of them in the teaching process appropriately. After teaching English for several years, teachers become able to detect errors easily in their students pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, use and appropriacy, and their ability to get the intended message across.

The use of Error Analysis and appropriate corrective techniques can aid effective learning and teaching of English It is understood that learning a FL is a gradual process, during which mistakes are to be expected in all stages of learning. In fact making mistakes is a natural process of learning and must be considered as part of cognition. As a result, errors must be viewed positively. Teachers have to recognize that learning ability varies from person to person. In addition, all language learning is based on continual exposure, hypothesizing and, even with the correct hypothesis, testing and reinforcing the ideas behind them. This study has shed light on the manner in which students internalize the rules of the teaching language.

It further shows that error analysis can help the teachers to identify in a systematic manner the specific and common language problems students have, so that they can focus more attention on types of errors.

Error analysis is closely related to the study of error treatment in language teaching. Today, the study of errors is particularly relevant for focus on form teaching methodology. Summary За результатами тестів та іспитів, помилки, які роблять учні є основним елементом у системі зворотнього зв язку в навчально-освітньому процесі. Використання aналізу помилок і відповідних коригувальних методів, можуть сприяти ефективному навчанню і викладанню англійської мови. Зрозуміло, що навчання іноземних мов являє собою поступовий процес, при якому помилки слід очікувати на усіх етапах навчання.

Насправді, помилки є природним процесом навчання і повинні розглядатися як частина пізнання. Вчителі повинні визнати, що здатність до навчання варіюється від людини до людини. Аналіз помилок дозволяє викладачам з ясувати джерела помилок і прийняти педагогічні запобіжні заходи по відношенню до них. Таким чином, аналіз мови учня став нагальною необхідністю подолання деяких питань і вироблення рішень із різних аспектів. Він тісно пов язаний із вивченням корекції помилок у викладанні мов. Виправлення помилок також є важливим, як ідентифікація так і їх опис, яке стало одним з необхідних процесів навчання.

Неминуче існування помилок привели дослідників до їх класифікування і створення природних етапів вивчення англійської мови. Сьогодні, вивчення помилок особливо актуальне для фокуса на формі методики викладання.