13.5.2
Correcting errors in written work

This is a topic that few tutors pay much attention to, often simply adopting techniques they have experienced themselves as students. Yet, if we believe that errors are central to the way students learn a language, it is a crucial area that deserves our attention. Before looking at different approaches, it will be helpful to clarify your current approach.

Activity 4

Which of the following fits most closely your approach to correcting errors in students' writing?

  1. The tutor underlines and corrects only those errors which are the most serious or which impede communication of the message.

  2. The tutor underlines errors and writes in correct versions above the line.

  3. The tutor indicates that an utterance is inaccurate by underlining the error and then corrects it in oral feedback to the class.

  4. The tutor indicates that an utterance is inaccurate by underlining the error but leaves the student to correct it.

  5. The tutor indicates that an utterance is inaccurate by underlining the error, gives a further prompt, eg by writing in the margin what sort of error it is (word order, tense, agreement, etc), and then corrects it in oral feedback to the class.

  6. The tutor indicates that an utterance is inaccurate by underlining the error, gives a further prompt, eg by writing in the margin what sort of error it is (word order, tense, agreement, etc), but leaves the student to correct it.

Click on 'Commentary' for feedback on these options.

Apart from these traditional approaches to error correction, you might consider a number of classroom activities such as the following, which aim to develop the ability to self-correct by encouraging analysis of errors and reflection on their cause.

  • Give students back their corrected work and have them analyze their errors to decide which of the following three categories they belong to:
    1. mere 'slips' of the pen or silly mistakes;
    2. 'mistakes' they could have corrected themselves if they had been prompted;
    3. something they were sure was right (ie an 'error').
  • Get students to work in pairs or groups on uncorrected pieces of FL writing (not their own); their task is to identify errors and correct them. The exercise might be varied or made a little easier by telling them there are, for example, five errors in paragraph 1, seven in paragraph 2, etc.
  • Give students an essay with the errors underlined and annotated, as in points 5 and 6 in Activity 4; they have to find the correct forms.
  • Hand out an unmarked piece of work and ask students to identify a specific number of errors - eg six problems with word order, ten with agreements, three wrong tenses, etc.
  • Give the class a piece of unmarked but incorrect FL writing, along with a corrected version. By comparing the two versions, students have to identify the errors and decide what sorts of error they are. Subsequently, they have to speculate on why the error might have been made.

(See also Module 9, section 9.4.2 on 'Exploring alternatives to correction'.)

 
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