APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English
FEEDBACK AND ERROR CORRECTION
Responding to oral errors
Indication of incorrectness
Harmer (1991) suggests several techniques:
Repeating
The teacher asks the student repeat what she/he has just said, by using the word ‘again’ with questioning intonation to indicate that something is wrong.
Echoing
The teacher repeats what the student has just said using a questioning intonation, or repeats the sentence up to the error/mistake and ass someone to continue. Gower and Walters (1983) warn us to be very careful not to echo the errors in a mocking way because it might discourage the student.
Denial
The teacher simply can say that the answer is not right and ask the student to repeat it. It may be more discouraging than the earlier techniques.
Questioning
The teacher can ask the whole class ‘Is that correct?’ The advantage of this technique is that it focuses the attention of the whole class on the problem, but it might cause the student who made the error or mistake to feel more embarrassed.
Expression
The teacher can show that the response was incorrect by a facial expression or with some gesture, but it must be done carefully so that the student will not think that the teacher’s expression is mockery.
