Error Correction with ELLs Is Topic Of My Latest BAM! Radio Show
Effective Strategies For ELL Error Correction is the headline of one of my Education Week Teacher columns.
I’ve been doing some research on the controversial issue of error correction (primarily grammar-related) and English Language Learners. In my book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, I talk about some of the research. In it, I share my belief in using little overt correction with individual students and, instead, collect examples of student errors and use them in regular classwide inductive learning and game activities (without identifying who made the errors). In addition, I talk about the use of Dialogue Journals and “recasting” student errors.
In my upcoming ELL book, I talk a bit more about the topic, too.
I thought readers might find it useful to see links to some of the research on the topic that’s available online, including ones that take a different perspective on the topic than I do.
Feel free to offer additional suggestions in the comments section, including your own practice and experience with error correction.
Here are my choices for The Best Resources On ESL/EFL/ELL Error Correction:
Dr. John Truscott is well-known for his critiques of over grammar error correction. This page has a number of links to his online papers.
I particularly like his article in The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching.
Principles and Practice In Second Language Acquisition by Stephen Krashen talks a lot about error correction.
How do you deal with fossilized errors and help students improve their accuracy? is a summary of a great ELT Chat.
I always value what EFL teacher Dave Kees has to say about any subject, including error correction.
Error Correction in ESL: Learner’s Preferences is an article from the TESL Canada Journal.
Deciding What and When to Correct is from An ELT Notebook.
This Better Or Worse comic illustrates the dangers of error correction.
Here’s an Error Correction story I’ve previously posted.
Making Mistakes & Error Correction is from TEFL Geek.
Error Correction Preferences in Written Work of Higher Secondary Students: an Evaluation is a good summary of some ESL/EFL/ELL research.
“What are errors and how should we deal with them in our classes?” is a collection of responses from ESL/EFL teachers around the world.
Delta Notes 1: Error Correction is by Lizzie Pinard.
Oral corrective feedback is from the ELT Journal, and gives a pretty good overview of related research.
Correcting writing: 8 practical ideas is from TEFL Reflections.
Teacher talk – Error correction is a video from The British Council.
Error Correction 1 is from The British Council.
Error Correction 2 is from The British Council.
George Chilton – We all make mistakes is from The British Council.
ESL/ELL error correction – Yes, No or Maybe? is my post at the British Council.
Correcting students’ errors is from French Teacher.
Deferred Self-Correction is from TESOL.
Activities for correcting writing in the language classroom is by Cristina Cabal.
Why asking our students to self-correct the errors in their essays is a waste of time… is from The Language Gym.
More on Error Correction is from TESOL.
Error Correction is from the British Council.
‘Quizzifying’ feedback on error – four ways to spice up the correction of your students’ writing is from The Language Gym.
7 Ways to Error Correct is nice infographic from ELT Connect.
My students’ favourite error correction activity is from JellyBeanQueen.
Research Bites: Corrective Feedback – A Meta-Analysis is from Anthony Teacher.
Why marking your students’ books should be the least of your priorities is from The Language Gym and is one of the best pieces I’ve ever read about error correction.
When ELs Make Oral Errors, What Can Teachers do? is from Tan Huynh.
Focused Error Correction – how you can make a time-consuming necessity more effective and manageable is by Gianfranco Conti.
Error correction in the ELT classroom is from Breakout English. I’m not sure I agree with everything in it, but it does make a lot of useful points.
Error Correction is (Still) a Waste of Time is from The Backseat Linguist.
Delayed Error Correction: A Springboard for Teaching
Corrective feedback chart. I personally use recasting and elicitations the most. I am still trying to figure the most appropriate approach. https://t.co/AqxNd8OCH7 @CLASE_UGA #ellchat_bkclub #esl #eal #ell #eld #esol #tesol pic.twitter.com/zaAReNDuHp
— Tan Huynh (@TanELLclassroom) February 18, 2020
Correct me if I’m wrong is from International House.
🤳Scan the QR code on the infographic’s right hand corner OR 🔗 To original article:https://t.co/ASoD7R4Wzd
— TESOLgraphics (@tesolgraphics) May 5, 2023
🔗 To infographic pdf:https://t.co/3lYjGLZWQN
— TESOLgraphics (@tesolgraphics) May 5, 2023
“Agentic Feedback” Is A Useful Term – & Practice – For Teachers
Corrective feedback and learner uptake is a classic research paper.
Error Correction By Alice Goldstein
The Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback in SLA: A Meta‐Analysis
🔗 To infographic pdf:https://t.co/COpVeGf4Ub
— TESOLgraphics (@tesolgraphics) November 3, 2023
Oral Corrective Feedback in Secondary Classrooms is from The Seidlitz Blog.
ISLA research inequivocably and consistently shows that Focused Corrective Feedback (i.e. corrective feedback which targets one or two persistent problematic errors at a time) is much more effective than less selective corrective approaches. pic.twitter.com/dbKzshhHoZ
— Dr Gianfranco Conti (@gianfrancocont9) June 22, 2024
What’s the Big Idea? Part 3: Feedback, Error Correction, and Language Teaching is from Stacey Margarita Johnson.
Rod Ellis et al (2019) on why corrective feedback, with younger learners, need to occur immediately and contiguously to the utterance containing an error in order to be effective. That's what makes oral corrective feedback more powerful than written corrective feedback. pic.twitter.com/IQrAfvGBdZ
— Dr Gianfranco Conti (@gianfrancocont9) July 19, 2024
🤳Scan the QR code on the infographic’s
right hand corner OR 🔗 To original article:https://t.co/ASoD7R5uoL— TESOLgraphics (@tesolgraphics) August 30, 2024
As always, feedback is welcome.
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Happy Labor Day, Larry! with time to read your post on the day it pops up in my Inbox.
My error correction story: It was my second term of teaching beginning writing. After our first in-class writing activity, I took the 28 writings home to correct. (Adjuncts do homework/class followup at home – more comfortable than sitting near the trunk of my car – my “office” at the time. I digress.) The next morning, I wrote a couple of sentences on the chalkboard that were examples of common grammar mistakes I had found in the writing. Class discussion proceeded. After class, a quiet Japanese teenager waited after class. (I am still thankful that I didn’t rush him.) After a few false starts, his eyes teared up (and you know how rare that is!) and he thanked me for not pointing out that HE had written those sentences. Then he hung his head. I don’t know if he believed me when I told him that the mistake-laden sentences were the same across the class, but they were.
Since then I’ve bent over backward not to publicize the “owner” of a mistake. I do have two categories of mistakes, however, so I am heard to say, “That’s a GOOD mistake. You’re close. Think about …. ” and “Hmmm. Let’s see. (to another student) What do YOU think?” and then I ask three or four other students, even if I hear the “right” answer on the second try. I’m hoping that by the time three or four have answered, the mental focus is on the issue, not the student.
Thanks for what you do every day, Larry. Do you sleep?!?
Rosemary,
Great story! Thanks for sharing it. Yes, I do sleep 🙂 A great family, a great school, and a lot of basketball-playing gives me energy….
Larry
Hello Larry,
I just found your blog while doing a little research for esl/efl error correction. I have been teaching a TOEIC Speaking class at a university in Korea for the past year and have started ‘pre-correcting’ students on errors I know they are going to make. I am not sure if this approach is effective (in the literature) or if it has been in my classroom. I would like to do a small study next semester comparing two classes – one in which I pre-correct and one in which I do not. From my initial online research I have found a lot of papers on error correction, but nothing (so far) on pre-error (pre-emptive?) error correction. Is this a gap in THE literature or my searching? Any thoughts or esources would be appreciated. th
Charles,
Sorry, I haven’t heard of it and am not even sure what it might look like in practice.
Larry
Thanks for your reply,
Looks like I might have a new ‘field’. In monolinguistic/monocultural Korea it is quite possible to ‘know’ what errors students will make before they make them. I have really noticed this with the TOEIC Speaking class/test. I have started pre-teaching/trying to preempt these errors, as I said I am not sure of the effectiveness, but hopefully a little action research next semester will lead to some answers and a paper.
Thanks again.
You mentioned Dr. Krashen’s book but not his principles on the transformative power of extensive reading to naturally acquire correct English. The solution to wrong output is more correct, compelling, comprehensible input. Output an obsession we need to let go of. Input is all that matters.
Great list here. Just wondering when it was last updated since you posted in 2011.
For anyone interested, there are a number of excellent articles by Conti on his blog, too:
https://gianfrancoconti.com/category/error-correction/
I revise and update all “Best” lists regularly
HI,
The following link takes the user to an inappropriate site. You might want to delete or update.
Dave Dodgson has written about error correction. I especially like his suggestion of the teacher writing a paragraph incorporating common student mistakes and then having them correct it in small groups.
Thank you! I’ll delete it now.