ACCURACY AND CORRECTING MISTAKES

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ACCURACY AND CORRECTING MISTAKES

• Penny Ur
• ETAI Mini-conference, 2011
• Ohalo College, Katzrin

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A. How important is it to be accurate?
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What do you think?

• Would you agree or disagree with the following
  statements?
• Its not important for students to spell English
  words correctly, as long as their meaning is
  clear
• Its not important for students to pronounce like
  a native speaker, as long as they are easily
  comprehensible.
• Its not important for students to use correct
  grammar, as long as they are getting their
  message across
• If you answered disagree to any of the above
  can you say why?

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Accuracy is important because

• From the point of view of the hearer/reader,
  inaccuracy, even if it doesnt affect meaning, is
• distracting
• uncomfortable
• may lower respect for the speaker/writer

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And because

• from the point of view of the speaker/writer,
  inaccuracy may
• lower self-respect as a language user
• lower prestige in eyes of others

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And because

• from the point of view of the teacher,
  professionalism means teaching the language as
  best we can, not compromising on careless or
  unacceptable usage.

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Achieving accuracy(Prevention is better than
cure)
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Research indicates that to achieve accuracy,
learners need...

• communicative language use
• some explicit discussion of form or rules
• practice

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There are various theories about how accuracy is
achieved

1. Comprehensible Input (Krashen, 1982)
2. Rule-based practice (traditional, e.g. Murphy,
   1985)
3. Consciousness raising (Ellis, 2001)
4. Task-based learning (Skehan, 1996)

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Probably the optimal answer is a combination of
these

• Communicative tasks, with time out for focus on
  form, including practice exercises
• Rule explanation, leading into both mechanical
  and communicative practice
• But also time for
• Communication on its own
• Focus on form on its own
• Language play (songs, chants, rhymes)

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Communication ( accuracy)Task-based instruction

• The basis of the lesson is a communicative task.
• We may teach bits of grammar / vocabulary /
  spelling before, during or after but the focus
  is always on the communicative task.
• Example

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A communicative task

• Discuss how far you agree with the following
  statements
• The teacher should correct me when I make a
  mistake.
• Agree .Disagree
• The teacher should ask other students to correct
  me when I make a mistake.
• Agree .Disagree
• The teacher should get me to correct myself.
• Agree .Disagree
• The teacher should make me rewrite essays after
  shes corrected them.
• Agree .Disagree
• The teacher should not only correct me, but also
  explain why what I said was wrong.
• Agree .Disagree

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• Meaning-focused
• Pair/group work
• Full-class summary and discussion
• Form-focused
• modal should
• object / reflexive pronouns (correct me/myself)

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2. Accuracy ( communication)

• We start with a grammatical rule or set of
  vocabulary items, or spelling rule or whatever
• We do some mechanical exercises, then progress
  to more communicative work.
• We assess the learning of the language items
  through a test.

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Practice activities move from attending to
accuracy towards attending to fluency

• form-focused-----------------------?meaning-focuse
  d
• make sure
  make sure you its correct---------------------
  -------------?communicate
• controlled----------------------------------------
  -----?free
• decontextualized ---------------------?contextuali
  zed

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ExampleThe Present Perfect

• Conventional form-focus
• Nina is looking everywhere but she cant find her
  keys. She (lose them)
• Peter weighs only 50 kilos. Last month, he
  weighed 60. He (be on a diet)

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ExampleThe Present Perfect

• 1. Focus on meaning, but controlled form
• Find someone who...
• ...has slept in a cave.____________
  ____________
• ... has eaten caviar ____________
  _____________
• ... has visited India ___________ ____________
• ... has been in a car accident ________
  _________

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• 2. Focus on meaning, semi-controlled form
  (sentence completion)
• Since this time last year, I have .
• 3. Focus on meaning, free sentence-making
• Think of a situation (using the present perfect)
  that would produce the reaction
• 1. Oh dear! 2. Wonderful! 3. What a surprise!
• 4. Congratulations! 5. Help!
  6. What a relief!
• 7. What a pity 8. Thank you! 9. What a
  pity!
• 10. Im sorry! 11. Oh no!
  12. (sigh)

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4. Focus on meaning, full paragraph writing
Today is picture B. What has happened since
yesterday (picture A)?
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• 5. Focus on communication
• Group discussion
• You are a committee of experts who have to
  interview candidates for a specific course or
  profession.
• Your candidate is requesting
• to become a marriage counsellor
• to become a kindergarten teacher
• to join the police force
• to work on a summer camp for teenagers
• to become an ambulance driver

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3. Communication only

• Just getting learners to use the language for
  understanding or conveying messages.
• No following language work.

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• Receptively
• listening to stories,
• listening and responding,
• reading stories,
• reading and responding,
• watching movies
• Productively
• talking, communication games
• exchanging information,
• creative or transactional writing

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4. Accuracy only

• Talking about the language or doing
  activities that focus on getting it right
• Examples
• Tip of the day isolated language points.
• Grammar explanations
• Learning lists of vocabulary for a test
• Dictations
• Drills
• Pronunciation work

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5. Language play

• Language work based on learning things by heart
  and performing or reciting
• May or may not be communicative
• The learning is based on chunks.
• Examples chants, dialogues, songs

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Interim conclusions

• If we wish our learners to become both accurate
  and fluent in English, we need to provide
• explicit and implicit teaching/learning
• meaning- and form-focus
• unthinking and cognitively demanding language
  production
• serious transactional language and language
  play.

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And we need to organize these within a balanced
methodology that includes different teaching
processes because

• Learners are different
• Language items are different

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C. CORRECTION WHENPREVENTION HASNT WORKED!
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Various issues

1. Does it help?
2. What different kinds of correction are there? And
   which is the most effective?
3. What are learners preferences?
4. When should we NOT correct?

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1. Does it help?

• Truscott (1999, 1996) claims that correction in
  both oral and written work does not work
• teachers correct inconsistently, sometimes
  wrongly
• students are sometimes hurt by being corrected
• students may not take corrections seriously
• correction may interfere with fluency
• learners do not learn from the correction

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But

• teacher intuitions
• learners themselves claim it does help (Harmer,
  2005)
• there is some empirical evidence in support of
  the hypothesis that learners do learn from being
  corrected (Doughty and Varela, 1998)

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2. What different kinds of correction are there?
And which is the most effective?

• Which types of correction, on the whole, lead to
  better uptake? (Lyster and Ranta, 1997 Lyster,
  1998)

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Types of correction Recast Elicitation Clarificat
ion request Metalinguistic feedback Explicit
correction Repetition
Frequency of use 55 14 11 8 7 5
Uptake 18 46 28 45 36 31
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RESULTS

• Simple recast was most often used, but least
  uptake!
• Recasts may not be perceived as correction at
  all!
• The best results are gained from corrective
  feedback some negotiation.

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Further thoughts

• Within communicative interaction, we try to make
  our corrections unobtrusive because we dont want
  to disturb the flow so we use quick
  recasts, and dont demand self-correction
• But many of these may not be perceived as
  corrections, or even noticed, so may be a waste
  of time!
• If we correct, we need to make sure uptake has
  occurred, even if this slows things down a bit.

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What are learners preferences?
When I make a mistake in oral work I think it's very good / good / not very good / bad if the teacher... Very Good Good Not Very Good Bad
... doesn't correct me at all.
tells me there's a mistake, but doesn't tell me what it is, so I have to correct myself.
..tells me a mistake and also tells me what the correct form should be.
tells me there's a mistake, tells me the correct form, and makes me repeat it.
tells me there's a mistake, and gets another student to correct me.
corrects my mistake and also explains why it was wrong.
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What are learners preferences?
When I make a mistake in written work I think it's very good / good / not very good / bad if the teacher... Very Good Good Not Very Good Bad
doesn't correct me at all.
indicates there's a mistake, but doesn't tell me what it is.
indicates there's a mistake, and gives me a hint what kind of mistake it is.
Indicates there's a mistake and writes what the correct form should be.
Corrects me in any of the ways indicated above, and doesn't make me rewrite.
Corrects me in any of the ways indicated above, and makes me rewrite.
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Main points

• Learners want to be corrected.
• Learners feel corrective feedback is valuable
  (Harmer, 2005).
• Learners prefer explicit correction (but maybe
  not adults and more advanced learners, Harmer,
  2005).
• Learners understand the value of repeating /
  rewriting the correct form.
• Learners do not, on the whole, like to be
  corrected by peers.

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When should we NOT correct?

• Perhaps we should not correct when a learner is
  focusing on communicating?
• Because
• non-communicative, inauthentic!
• not appropriate to the aims of the task.
• distracting, disturbing

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But

• Some evidence that learners want to be corrected
  at the moment they make the mistake (Harmer,
  2005)
• We need to balance the benefit against the
  damage which is more important
• preserving the fluent process and communicative
  nature of the interaction?
• or
• providing corrective feedback where it is needed
  to help learners improve their accuracy?

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No easy answer to this one!

• But it is clear that
• there is no absolute rule about when not to
  correct
• our decision will involve a lot of different
  considerations specific to the learner
• the importance of encouraging fluency
• the importance of encouraging accuracy
• the confidence and self-image of the learner
• the sheer number of mistakes

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D. Summary and conclusions
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Accuracy-oriented as well as communicative
teaching of language

• We need to do all we can to make sure that as
  students are learning new language they learn it
  correctly so we should provide opportunities for
  students to
• learn rules
• talk about the language (language awareness),
  including contrast with L1
• practise accurate as well as meaningful
  production
• learn chunks by heart
• as well as lots of communicative work
• exposure to (correct) spoken and written language
• communicative speaking and writing tasks

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Effective corrective feedback

• If after all this learners are still making
  mistakes, corrective feedback can help improve
  accuracy.
• Corrective feedback may be provided during
  communicative tasks.
• But recasts on their own are probably
  ineffective.
• The most effective corrective feedback occurs
  when learners actively participate in negotiation
  of the correction, to make sure that there is
  uptake.

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Thank you for listening!

• pennyur_at_gmail.com