Unit 11 THE ROLE OF ERROR

THE ROLE OF ERROR

          As learners, we have a lot of mistakes at the moment of producing the language, but we need to recognize if they are errors (say something beyond our current level) or slips (we are aware of the grammar but we make mistakes because of the lack of language). I understood that errors can be produced when students are influenced by first language L1 on the L2, so they tend to have an interference between both languages within grammatical structures, sounds, lexis. Also students work out on the language but in a wrong way because they mix the grammatical rules from Spanish to English or they try to overgeneralized the rules given, as add -ed in all the verbs in past. Sometimes the errors get fossilised, and at this point is difficult to change it, but not impossible because teachers can correct them with class activities. Teachers should help students to overcome this erros through readings (if we are teaching verbs in past, we should start from irregular verbs and then regular verbs, so students dont get confused). While teachers promote interaction between classmates, they can give feedback on the form when students have errors, the teacher reformulate what they said in a right way but not directly, so students develop their confidence.

For example teacher writes a topic on the board, then asks students to share ideas with their classmates, teacher asks students what they share, so teacher pays attention to the errors and if they have errors, tutors reformulates what ss said and correct students in an incounciously way. Or if they have slip and dont affect the communication, teacher should ignore those mistakes       

To more information, please check this page in order to know how to deal with fossalized errors throught techniques.
Constantinides, V. (2011). How do you deal with fossilized errors and help students improve their accuracy? #ELTchat Summary 23/02/2011.ELTchat. Retrieved 26 November 2014, from 
http://eltchat.org/wordpress/summary/how-do-you-deal-with-fossilized-errors-and-help-students-improve-their-accuracy-eltchat-summary-23022011/


See this video to find a fun way to overcome errors:

YouTube,. (2014). Error Correction in Speaking - The Fun Way: Herbert Puchta (Teaching Teenagers Tip #4). Retrieved 26 November 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znswuO4goYg