Chris Esson

Error Correction in the English Language Classroom

With the focus on fluency in Communicative Language Teaching there is a corresponding
change in the understanding of mistakes and their correction. In contrast to previous
methodologies or approaches, in CLT [f]luency and acceptable language is the primary
goal: Accuracy is judged not in the abstract but in context (Finocchiaro and Brumfit
1983:91-93, quoted in Richards & Rogers, 2001:157). The context of student errors depends
on intelligibility, discourse and appropriateness and mistakes are not viewed as failings but
as signs of an ongoing process.
We learn a language through using it, rather than learning it first before being able
to use it: not so much learning to speak as speaking to learn. Mistakes are visible
evidence of the invisible process of learning (Bowen & Marks, 1994:47)
Of course, error correction is still an integral part of CLT, and the response of teachers to
students' errors is an important site of of potential learning. However, we might ask, as
Julian Edge does: If making mistakes is a part of learning, and correction is a part of
teaching, how do the two of them go together? (1989:1).

For my observation instrument I have chosen to focus on error correction. It is an area of

my teaching that I often engage in without much self-criticism, except on occasions when
certain (often repeated) student errors cause me to question my approach. While I make
use of different correction techniques, I am occasionally unsure of which technique might
be best suited to which contextual error. I am also interested in observing other teachers '
to differing responses to student errors: which errors are corrected on the spot?; which
errors can be corrected at the end of a task?; which errors do teachers choose not to
correct?
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Chris Esson

Julian Edge suggests we revise our ideas about mistakes, and call them instead learning
steps (1989:14). This revision is dependent first on our relation to students' production of
language. If in CLT teachers are not considered gate-keepers of language, but are there
instead to encourage students in their development, then our response to student errors
can only be as learning steps - opportunities for students' learning. The revision of
mistakes for learning steps also then depends on the teachers response to them. While a
language students' learning does not depend exclusively on their teacher, good teaching
will maximise opportunities for mistakes to become genuine learning experiences.

It is because of the potential for learning experiences in error correction that I am

interested in observing this technique in a variety of English language classrooms. Students
often express their desire for more error correction and are surprised that they are not
corrected more by non-teaching native speakers. This first of all shows that outside a
classroom, formal mistakes will often go unnoticed if the message is clear (Bowen &
Marks, 1994:50), but also demonstrates students' awareness that it is through recognition
of errors that they might make progress. Often too, when students are made aware of
errors they engage actively in attempts to reformulate their own and other students
mistakes. This potential for self-correction and peer-correction is something that I would
like to observe specifically in order to best exploit it in my own teaching.

Julian Edge categorises student errors as: slips, which a student could self-correct; errors,
which the class may know the correct form of even if an individual cannot self-correct; and
attempts, which a student makes without having the necessary form for expression
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Chris Esson
(1989:9-11). I have made this and a more specific description of the context of students'
mistakes the basis for my observation instrument as I wish to draw connections between
student errors and the correction techniques used by teachers. I have also included fields
for the method and medium of corrections.

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Chris Esson
Bibliography
Bowen, Tim & Marks,

Inside

Teaching.

Jonathan (1994)

Oxford.

Edge, Julian (1989)

Mistakes and Corrections. Addison Wesley Longman Limited,

Heinemann

Englsh

Language

Teaching,

Edinburgh.
Harmer, Jeremy (2001)

The Practice of English Language Teaching. Pearson Education

Limited, Edinburgh.

Richards, Jack C. &

Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge

Rogers, Theodore S.

University Press, Cambridge.

(2001)

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