Correction: Marks or comments from teachers or peers made on a piece of work, which indicate where there are mistakes and what are the right answers.

(1) Slips: mistakes which students can correct themselves once the mistake has been pointed out to them;

(2) Errors: mistakes which they cannot correct themselves—and which therefore need explanation;

(3) Attempts: that is when a student tries to say something but does not yet know the correct way of saying it. 

(1) L1 interference: students who learn English as a second language already have a deep knowledge of at least one other language, and where L1 and English come into contact with each other there are often confusions which provoke errors in a learner’s use of English. This can be at the level of sounds, grammar or word usage.

(2) Developmental errors: What seems to be happening is that the child starts to ‘over-generalize’ a new rule that has been (subconsciously) learnt, and as a result even makes mistakes with things that he or she knew before. (e.g. Daddy goed. They comed.) Later, however, it all gets sorted out. Errors of this kind are part of a natural acquisition process. 

(1) The way we assess and correct students will depend not only upon the kind of mistakes being made, but also on the type of activity the students are taking part in.

(2) If a teacher wants to assess student performance to be effective, praise has to be combined, in the students’ eyes, with the teacher’s genuine interest in their work. Measured approval and disapproval which demonstrates a teacher’s interest in and attention to a student’s work may well result in continuing or even increased motivation.

(3) Decisions about how to react to performance will depend upon the stage of the lesson, the activity, the type of mistake made, and the particular student who is making that mistake.

(1) Comments: commenting on student performance happens at various stages both in and outside the class. We may say good, or nod approvingly, and these comments (or actions) are a clear sign of appositive assessment. When we wish to give a negative assessment we might do so by indicating that something has gone wrong, or by saying things such as That’s not quite right.

(2) Marks and grades: When students get good grades their motivation is often positively affected—provided that the level of challenge for the task was appropriate. Bad grads can be extremely disheartening. We need to decide on what basis we are going to do this and be able to describe this to the students. 

(3) Reports: at the end of a term or year some teachers write reports on their students’ performance either for the student, the school, or the parents of that student. Such reports should give a clear indication of how well the student has done in the recent past and a reasonable assessment of their future prospects. It is important when writing reports to achieve a judicious balance between positive and negative feedback.

Feedback is the teacher evaluation of the student’s response. The teacher may choose different ways to give feedback during oral work and on written work. 

(1) We need to make a clear difference between ‘non-communicative’ and ‘communicative’ activities; whereas the former are generally intended to ensure correctness, the latter are designed to improve language fluency.

(2) During communicative activities, teachers should not interrupt students in mid-flow to point out a grammatical, lexical, or pronunciation error, since to do so interrupts the communication and drags an activity back to the study of language form or precise meaning.   

(3) There are times during communicative activities when teachers may want to offer correction or suggest alternatives because the students’ communication is at risk, or because this might be just the right moment to draw the students’ attention to a problem. 

Correction is usually made up of two distinct stages. In the first, teachers show students that a mistake has been made, and in the second, if necessary, they help the students to do something about it.

(1) Showing incorrectness:

- Repeating: we can ask the student to repeat what they have said, perhaps by saying Again? which, coupled with intonation and expression, will indicate that something is not clear.

- Echoing; we repeat what the student has said emphasizing the part of the utterance that was wrong. It is an extremely efficient way of showing incorrectness during accuracy work.

- Statement and question: we can simply say That’s not quite right, or Do people think that’s correct? to indicate that something has not quite worked.

- Expression: when we knew our classes well, a simple facial expression or a gesture, may be enough to indicate that something does not quite work.

- Hinting: a quick way of helping students to activate rules they already know is to give a quiet hint. We might just say the word ‘tense’ to make them think that perhaps they should have used the past simple rather that the present perfect.

- Reformulation: an underrated correction technique is for the teacher to repeat what the student has said correctly, reformulating the sentence, but without making a big issue of it, e.g.

Student: I would not have arrived late if I heard the alarm clock.

Teacher: If I had heard…

Student: …if I had heard the alarm clock 

(2) Getting it right

If student is unable to correct herself, or respond to reformulation, we need to focus on the correct version in more detail. We can say the correct version emphasizing the part where there is a problem. 

(1) Gentle correction: if communication breaks down completely during a fluency activity, we may well have to intervene. If our students cannot think of what to say, we may want to prompt them forwards. If this is just the right moment to point out a language feature we may offer a form of correction. Over-use of even gentle correction will, however, be counter-productive.

(2) Recording mistakes: we frequently act as observers, watching and listening to students so that we can give feedback afterwards. We can “write down points they want to refer to later, and some like to use charts or other forms of categorization to help them do this”. We can also record students’ language performance on audio or videotape.

(3) After the events: when we have recorded student performance we will want to give feedback to the class. We can do this in a number of ways. We might want to give an assessment of an activity, saying how well we thought the students did in it, getting the students to tell us what they found easiest or most difficult.  We can put some of the mistakes we have recorded up on the board and ask students firstly if they can recognize the problem, and then whether they can put it right. When we write examples of what we heard on the board, it is not generally a good idea to say who made the mistakes since this may expose them in front of their classmates. Indeed, we will probably want to concentrate most on those mistakes which were made by more than one person. Another possibility is for teachers to write individual notes to students, recording mistakes they heard from those particular students with suggestions about where they might look for information about the language—in dictionaries, grammar books, or on the Internet. 

(1) Responding: when we respond, we say how the text appears to us and how successful we think it has been—and, sometimes, how it could be improved. The comments we offer them need to appear helpful and not censorious. Sometimes they will be in the margin of the student’s work, or if more extensive may need a separate piece of paper—or separate computer document. This type of feedback takes time, of course, but it can be more useful to the student than a draft covered in correction marks.

(2) Coding: some teachers use codes, and can then put these codes either in the body of the writing itself, or in a corresponding margin. This makes correction much neater, less threatening, and considerably more helpful than random marks and comments.. A way of avoiding the over-correction of scripts, which also the advantage of helping students to concentrate on particular features of written English, is focusing. In this mode we restrict feedback to a particular aspect of language. We can tell Ss that we will only give feedback on spelling for the next piece of writing. On other occasions we can say that we are going to focus only on punctuation or tense usage or linking words or paragraph construction. 

Written feedback is designed not just to give an assessment of the students’ work, but also to help and teach. We give feedback because we want to affect our students’ language use in the future as well as commenting upon its use in the past. In this way feedback is part of a learning process, and we will not have wasted our time. If students can identify the mistakes they have made they are then in a position to correct them. 

When students who are studying do revision, they read things again and make notes in order to prepare for an assessment which is as a continuous process of gathering formal and informal information about student learning and about teachers’ instructional processes. For example, the practices in L2 composition classed in which students “look again” at their writing holistically in order to improve such areas as organizations, focus, etc.

we must be aware of the factors which effect FORGETING.

Ebbinghause, the famous German psychologist ever said, forgetting is regular, it means forgetting happens from quickly to slowly. It is very easy in a short time after remembering, and then it will happen more and more slowly. During half an hour after remembering, the rate of remembering is 58.2%, during the twenty-four hours after remembering, it becomes 33.7%, during one to two days after remembering, it becomes 27.7%, during two to six days, it become 25.3%. So fighting with forgetting is an important job for words teaching, it is possible to avoid or reduce forgetting.

        图1  Ebbinghause’s “Forgetting Curve”艾宾浩斯遗忘曲线

The figure tells us in order to fight with forgetting, reviewing new learning in time is a wise way which can help Ss to consolidate what they already learn in class.

3ways can be helpful: 

Summarizing is a very powerful strategy for enhancing student learning. It is important, however, that students do the summarizing and not the teacher. Summarizing helps both teachers and students monitor progress and consolidate learning. Routinely including summarizing strategies as part of your classroom assessment strategies helps students show their understanding and consider relationships. Summary strategies can be used as a self-or-peer assessment strategy, although they are more powerful when students work together.

Some examples of summary strategies:

(1) Concept summary: Ss draw a picture or visual symbol, list key terms or concepts, and write a brief summary paragraph to demonstrate their learning.

(2) Luck of the draw: a series of questions or concepts are written on index cards. Ss draw a card and respond to the question or explain the concept. Alternatively, each student writes a summary card, then you draw a name and the “lucky” student reads their summary.

(3) Mind map: Ss draw a circle or box in the middle of paper and write the topic. Symbols, words, and pictures are drawn around the main topic identifying key concepts and ideas summarizing and illustrating relationships.

(4) Quick writes: Ss write for 90 seconds to two minutes on a concept identified by the teacher. They summarize their thoughts by drawing a picture and writing a s short paragraph.

Homework is the key assessment after class for students to consolidate what they learned.

Teachers usually plan a class to review new knowledge for students during the whole unit. They adopt integrated skills to weave the language points into a certain situation, provide a mind map to help Ss to form a connection with some isolated knowledge.  

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Harmer, J. The practice of English language teaching (3rd ed.) [M]. Pearson Education & World Affairs Press,2003.

肖惜，李恒平. 英语教师职业技能训练简明教程（第二版） [M]. 北京：高等教育出版社，2016.

Q1:What do you think was the cause of the error？

Q2: When is the appropriate time to correct?

Q3: How to give appropriate feedback?

Q4: In which circumstances should we give feedback during fluency work?