It may be a surprise to many, but based on my experience, adult ESL students prefer (even demand!) to be corrected every time they make a mistake. Not correcting students promptly can even result to low teacher ratings, diminished motivation from students, or a stern reprimand from your boss.
In online teaching, not only do you correct verbally but you also are expected to board it — to type the correct form on the screen or whiteboard. Some students would even pause from completing a sentence and ask “Teacher, are my words correct? Did I pronounce ______ right? Are you listening?”
Some tips:
- Usually, when it’s a roleplay, I remind students that my corrections would be discussed AFTER the roleplay is done.
- When a student reads aloud, I would do hot corrections right away, and discuss the same errors before I wrap up for the day.
- Try not to spoonfeed corrections if you can. When a student makes an error in speaking, you can gently repeat or prompt him to self-correct. For example:
Student: I go to the mall yesterday.
Teacher: I go..?
Student: (Pauses) I goes to the mall yesterday?
Teacher: But you said yesterday. So I…?
Student: Oh, yes! I went to the mall yesterday!
Teacher: Very good.
4. Model using the wrong way. Yup. You read that right. Here’s an example:
Teacher: (Types the sentence “I drink too many milk.”) Can you tell me what’s wrong with this sentence?
Student: (Thinks for a few seconds) It should be milks?
Teacher: Are you sure? What kind of a noun is milk? (Underlines the word milk)
Student: Oh! Uncountable!
Teacher: So, what do you think we should change here?
Student: Too much! It should be too much!
Teacher: Good! But why?
Student: Because milk is uncountable, and you use much for uncountable nouns.
Teacher: Good job!
A student retains corrections much longer if she self-corrects. We teachers should welcome mistakes because they tell us what level the student is, which linguistic errors we should address, and how they come up with such mistakes (first language factor? fossilized errors?).
Hope this helps.
Question: How about you? How do you effectively correct student errors?
Joiful Teaching 