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Error Correction in foreign language classes is something every teacher must do at one time or another. After all, there is a right way, and countless wrong ways, to say something.
Like almost everything else we do in the classroom, it's not always what we do (in this case, correcting incorrect student production), but how we do it. This post will give several examples and a brief explanation of Error Correction or Feedback for individuals (Teacher-> Student), and at the end give an example for Error Correction with the whole class.  A more thorough discussion of Error Correction and Feedback will follow at a later time.

There are 2 major divisions in Error Corretion in published literature:

1. Implicit vs. Explicit Feedback, and
2. Corrected vs. Uncorrected Feedback.

Explicit feedback is thought to be less communicative in nature, and tends to draw students' attention more to form.
Implicit feedback is thought to be more communicative in nature, and so, while still giving corrective feedback, to encourage more and continued focus on meaning.
Corrected feedback, like explicit feedback, is thought to draw students' attention more to form, and less to meaning.
Uncorrected feedback tends to promote learning through student self-reflection.

Given these features of the 4 types of corrective feedback, the order of preference for using these kinds of feedback in a meaning-centered, communicative langauge learning-based class would be:

1. Implicit, Uncorrected feedback (more communicative, less focus on form);
2. Explicit, Uncorrected feedback (more focus on form, but emphasizes student reflection for learning) OR Implicit, Corrected feedback (more communicative, though more direct focus on form);
3. Explicit, Corrected feedback (less communicative, more direct focus on form).

Examples of Feedback

(S= student; T= teacher)

Implicit, Uncorrected feedback

• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T (emphasized)- ‘LIke.’  Or, like a question, T- ‘lIKE?’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘He LIKE dogs.’ T- ‘He LIKE dogs?’ 
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Try again!’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Pardon me?’; ‘I don’t understand.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Did you say ‘like’ ?’ 
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Try again.’ or
  T- ‘Heee.......?’ or ‘He what?’
  Or T- ‘He playS tennis.  He LIKE dogs?’

Explicit, Uncorrected feedback

• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T - ‘Not like.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘That’s not right.
  (That’s not how we say it.)  Try again.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘He LIKE dogs?’
  (That’s not right.)  Not LIKE.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Did you say ‘like’ ?
  That’s not right.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Try again.’ or
  T- ‘Heee.......?’ or ‘He what?’ 

Implicit, Corrected feedback

• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘He likes dogs.’ or
  T- ‘He likeS dogs.’, with verbal or gestured emphasis.
•   S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘He LIKE dogs. He LIKES dogs.’ or
  T- ‘He LIKE dogs?  He LIKES dogs.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘Do you mean ‘likes’?’.              
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘You said like.  Do you mean likes?’

Explicit, Corrected feedback

• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘You should say, He likeS dogs.’
  S- ‘He like dogs.’ T - ‘Not like.  Likes.’   
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘No. Not He LIKE dogs.   He LIKES dogs.’
  or T- ‘Did you say He LIKE dogs?  It’s He LIKES dogs.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘He LIKE dogs?’
  ‘He LIKES dogs.’ is the right way to say it.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ T- ‘(No.) You should say ‘likes’ ’.  or   
  T- ‘You said like.  It’s likes.’
• S- ‘He like dogs.’ ‘Not LIKE.  HE is the third
  person singular, so it’s not like, it’s LIKES.’

A less direct method of error correction is to make mental note of common mistakes heard during speaking activities, and then to write the incorrect pattern on the blackboard. Then, ask the whole class what is wrong, and also what is the right way to say something. AND THEN WRITE THAT ON THE BLACKBOARD, TOO. 

In this way,

• students are asked to reflect on what the correct form is; 
• no one student is singled out (limiting individual student stress); 
• communicative- (ie., a meaning-) focus during the speaking activity is maintained; 
• and all the class participates in a learning experience.

What, How and WHEN

What we do, and how we do something are important. The other pervasive choice is WHEN to say something. In the Eigo Noto classes especially, the focus is on COMMUNICATION. If the students are speaking in Japanese, English, another languauge, pointing, gesturing, or in any other way making you understand, and you actually understand, for that moment, perhaps no error correction is necessary. Then you can think about making the mistake a learning experience later, for the whole class.

He said the hardest part for him, and for the students, has been knowing what the classes are all about. The list of questions included:

• Are the Eigo Noto classes preparation for Junior High School English classes? 
• Are the Eigo Noto classes English Conversation classes? 
• Are they about communication?
• Why is there so much focus on speaking English in the workbook? 
• How are Eigo Noto classes different from other subjects/classes?
• Eigo Noto classes don't have any tests...

These kinds of questions have been in my head for a year, and I have often heard other teachers voicing the same questions.

Whenever I go to a new school, I always ask the Koucho-sensei (school Principal), "What are your hopes or goals for my classes at your school?" And I always get the same answer, "Improving students' communication skills." There are other answers I get as well, but every Principal has put a priority on Communication.

So to address the HRT and his students' confusion about the goals of the Eigo Noto classes,
This would label an obvious goal for the classes for everyone to think about. There might be different class labels, such as 'World Culture', too. Just giving each class a clear name, and content or goal, would do a lot to help both students and teachers more successfully approach the learning task at hand. Throughout this year, I have heard a wide variety of class names/titles used by the toban (class leader) at the opening aisatsu of the Eigo Noto classes. How many have you heard?

Regarding confusion about teaching communication, in my 15 years of teaching in Japan, what I've seen some English teachers call Communication has really left me scratching my head sometimes. Clearly making Communication the name (or one of the names) of the classes would be an effective way of forcing everyone involved - students, teachers, administrators and textbook publishers - to have a serious discussion about what real communication is. Having an in-class, regional or national dialog about this could be very fruitful.

I have often had reason to ask why almost everyone in Japan studies English for years, but most adults are unable to have even the simplest English conversation. A common answer is "We're an island country!" Well, I lived in Indonesia for 2 years before I came to Japan, and it's an island country, too. And LOTS of people, with A LOT LESS education, speak a functional English. So I have a hard time accepting this reasoning. Perhaps an island nation that refused contact with the outside world for centuries would be a better explanation.
There are other reasons that are commonly put forth, and no doubt you have your own. But personally I have often wondered if, among other things, the socially-hierarchical nature of the Japanese language and society lend themselves to a handicap to true communication. It is often more important just say, 'Hai!', especially when talking (or rather, listening to) superiors, but does this really demonstrate comprehension?

And in the classrooms, a Japanese junior high school home stay student once observed,

'In America students raise hands to ask questions; but in Japan, students usually raise hands to answer questions.'

And my foreign friends agree on another point- 90%+ of Japanese people, when asked (in Japanese) 'Pardon?', go mute or stutter at best; seldom does a Japanese person repeat what they have just said to us. And asking a Japanese person to speak slowly, something I had to do as a learner of Spanish, Indonesian and Japanese, usually gets a positive response for only 1 or 2 sentences. And then speaking returns to 'normal' speed. These two points have been foremost in my learning 3 foreign languages; in Japan, these points have, and continue, to handicap communication with native speakers.

These are personal experiences I've had in Japan regarding why English is so difficult to learn for students here. No doubt you have other experiences or ideas. But regardless of why communication skills are lacking in young (or older) students, here or anywhere, let us next address Communication Skills.

There are 2 basic skills to Communication, Listening and Speaking.

To any adult, whether involved in education, business or personal relationships, the importance of listening skills should come as no surprise. And for the purposes of Communication (as well as Language Learning), we need to go one step further- Listening AND REPEATING.
Repeating what has been heard is often used as way to confirm what has been said. 'I have a dog.' 'A dog?' Or when someone tells us their telephone number on the phone, we usually repeat the number back to them again.
And for language learning, I think this is one of the most important skills, as well- Listening and Repeating. And I have been wondering if just the ability to do this repeatedly is one of the features of the language classroom that makes it different from learning language naturally.

Speaking well is something that takes practice. Again, the classroom setting allows students to say the same thing again and again. For students, or natural language learners, just saying something once seldom leads to speaking competence, let alone long-term memory.
As teachers, and especially those of young learners, we need to be creative in doing repetitive speaking activities just to avert boredom for the students. In Japan, this is often easily accomplished just by having students play Janken/Rock-Paper-Scissors first (it also conveniently serves to determine the order of speakers). See Janken Conversation Rounds and Janken 4's for a variety of ways to use this strategy.

Another aspect of speaking is simply having something to say. At a deeper level, this also requires self-knowledge. And the ability to give it a voice. Degrees of Introversion and Extroversion are different in all of us. There are probably also cultural tendencies that might make one stronger than the other in a given culture.

There are not-too-difficult classroom activities that prepare students for speaking, such as Brainstorming or Previewing, that I deal with on the ConverstionalFluency website. Another activity that I think would work well for elementary and junior high school students are the SOCC (Student's Own Conversation Cards) by Duane Kindt at this website. I will be working in the future to adapt his approach for elementary school.

We also need to be sensitive to what are known as Affective Factors, or simply said, students' feelings. Creating a speaking environment that reduces stress, and risk, for the speaker is very important. Compare

1. Standing and speaking once in front of the class, and 
2. Taking turns giving a speech with the other members of your small group. 
3. Students making pairs, each saying a speech, and then forming new pairs and speaking again. 

Given these three activities, in what order would you put them for maximum student success with the least amount of stress?

Clear training in Communication and Conversation Skills is not that hard, in my opinion, but is something that anyone, in any culture, would greatly benefit from. Heck, it might even reduce violence and war.
The ConFluency Card game, and many of the other activities on this website, are activities that teach and practice these basic communication skills.
My own opinion is that many of these communication activities, and others, could be used in the lower elementary school grades, and used as a basis for building competence for later higher-speed and higher-level communicative interaction. At the lower grades these would be done in the native langauge, not only making it easier to teach (and for students to comprhend), but also building a foundation of communicative competence in the native language that will later be transferred to use with a foreign langauge.

To repeat, all of the school Principals I have asked in Japan have said they put a priority on improving Communication Skills for their students. Communication is such an all-encompassing parameter, as I have tried to discuss in limited detail, that making Communication a main theme or name of the Eigo Noto classes would do a lot towards bringing it to the front of teachers' and students' awareness, and towards giving the Eigo Noto classes a broad foundation upon which to build a many-faceted curriculum.

Eigo Noto classes are not to discourage students from further English study, nor are the lessons meant to be Conversation Lessons. But what about students who CAN and WANT TO speak English?

Do you, or the HRTs you work with, ever insist that the Eigo Noto students interact in English? I sometimes hear Home Room Teachers exhorting kids to speak English together.
There are times when we want a student to speak English in the Eigo Noto lessons, to be sure- when listening and repeating words and phrases, or when checking accuracy in pronunciation, for example. And looking at the workbook itself, you could easily get the idea that the kids are supposed to be speaking English.
But as for student-to-student interaction in English,



there are voices from above, as well as implied expectations in the Mombusho Guidelines, that would not have us, as teachers, insisting that students interact in English in the Eigo Noto lessons.

This seemed obvious to me months ago. But an HRT/elementary school head English teacher recently returned from a Mombusho Eigo Noto training event and was telling me that she was told there that we should not be expecting the students to speak English. From the tone of her voice I got the feeling that not expecting the students to speak English in the Eigo Noto lessons was, for her, a striking and extraordinary idea.
Based on that conversation, I thought it worthwhile to discuss it here.

My thoughts on this points are based on these ideas:

1. ‘All students should feel a sense of success in the final activity.’ See the post here.
2. Not all students will be able to produce correct spoken English after 2-3 classes.
3. Eigo Noto classes are not to discourage students from further English study. (From the Ministry of Education’s Guidelines for Elementary English Education. See the post here.) This is also true for students of ability who CAN speak English.
4. Students don’t need to speak English to be able to communicate together.

If we can accept these points, it becomes easy to make a list of the things we can or should do, and those we shouldn’t, in Eigo Noto classes:

Things NOT to do in Eigo Noto classes

• Don’t choose, or require, a student to stand alone in the class and speak English unsupported by a teacher. This includes any lesson that finishes with a Show-and-Tell activity. (The Listen and Repeat CROSSFIRE activity is meant to test students’ pronunciation, for all to learn from, and demonstrates an exception to this rule. A teacher is there as support.)
• Don’t explicitly tell a student that they are saying something in English incorrectly (“That’s not right!”)
• Don’t insist that all, or individual, students perform tasks in English.
• Don’t expect students to speak English without A LOT of modeling and practice. And while they may be able to say the words and/or structures, meaning is something that will take even more time.

Ways to Structure Communication, and Spoken English, in Your Classes

• If you expect students to perform a speaking task in the last activity of the lesson series, model from the very first lesson the language you want them to produce. And then repeat the language, in both listening and speaking activities, again and again and again.
• Keep English langauge patterns very simple and very repetitive.
• Use vocabulary words that are commonly used in Japanese.  See suggested word groups here.
• Ask for volunteers to demonstrate spoken English to the whole class.
• Allow the whole class to respond in English as a single voice first. Then ask for a volunteer to say it again after the correct form has been identified by the whole class and confirmed by a teacher.
• If a student speaks English incorrectly, say the correct form for them to hear. Using a rising intonation at the end, like a question, can mean, ‘Is this what you meant to say?’ Or, give examples of the pattern, changing a word, to model the language by talking about yourself.
• In the whole class, when someone responds in Japanese, ask if anyone knows how to say it in English. If they don’t know the whole meaning, start breaking it down into smaller and smaller chunks- phrases first (blue shoes), and then single words (blue, shoes). Gesture, and point to examples, to help.
• When speaking to individual students, and they respond in Japanese, repeat back to them what they just said, in English. Or, make it an English question. (‘Onaka suita.’ -> ‘I’m hungry.’ or, ‘Oh, are you hungry?’)
• To support low-English ability students, prepare materials with pictures and written Japanese as much as possible.
• Use written English on the blackboard and in materials.
• Narrow the conversation in activities to simple, repetitive patterns. Some of the Eigo Noto lessons use several language structures in one lesson. The EigoNoto.com lessons have simplified the language in these lessons already.
• Use small group and pair speaking activities to advantage- these groupings lower student anxiety, allow for more direct interaction, and many other things.  See this post. And this one.
• Structure activities so that students can repeat the same language experience several times with different partners. Some partners will offer better modeling than others, assisting lower-skilled students to advance their ability. Repeating the experience allows students to learn from their own, and others, successes and mistakes.
• Make activities as communicative as possible. This is the most difficult to describe, but in simple terms, meaningful responses confirm comprehension. Responses can be verbal (Yes or No is the easiest to understand), active (Here is the FISH card.), gestures, or in Japanese.

With visual and written English support, spoken Japanese, spoken English and gestures, and enough repetitive practice, all students will have the best chance of successful communicative interchange, whether it’s in English or not. And those students who WANT to speak English get a chance to.

Recently while teaching Grade 5 Lesson 1 I was reminded of the importance of teaching vocabulary in word groups. There are words that usually or always have a certain order; in this case, blue shoes. Lesson 5-5-1 teaches colors and clothing names; the vocabulary can be taught separately, but there is advantage in teaching the words together. As a rule, when possible, try to put a few words together when doing Listen and Repeat (and Point) activities. Or,  for such activities as Pair Karuta, Ohajiki game, Eraser/Keyword game, use whole sentences or questions.

A simple rule to remember is: Don't teach vocabulary as single words. And if you must, try to teach single words in word groups, or word families.

Many adult students of English tell me they know a lot of English words, but are confused about putting them together to make a sentence or question. Drilling and practicing with words in chunks, or groups of words that are in a common order, should help familiarize students with this common order.

There is a corollary here for making chants, as well. When making a chant, grouping words together in ways that help students become familiar with common patterns will help them, too. An easy example that comes to mind is What color/What color/What color do you like? Students so often ask the question

What do you like color? 

that extra drilling and practice, both listening and speaking, of the correct word order can only help.

We have been teaching the Eigo Noto lessons now for almost a year, 

and it’s time for some evaluation of progress to date, and some rethinking of goals and approaches for the new school year.

When I received requests recently from my Home Room Teachers (HRTs) for Eigo Noto lessons to prepare, I was struck by how the requests resembled exactly those that I receive from the Junior High school Japanese English Teachers (JTEs) that I team teach with: Lesson 8, pages 52-53, I study Japanese on Monday. 

This should not have been a surprise, given that most of the final activities in the Eigo Noto are English speaking activities. Nor for the fact that most, if not all, elementary school teachers’ experience with English study is a grammar- and/or target sentence-focused approach. In all other classes, teachers are also generally focused on productive outcomes (test scores) as well; students being able to speak the target phrase in the lesson would also seem a natural goal. Given these experiences and insights, you can review what the Mombusho stated goals are for the Eigo Noto, aka. International Studies, curriculum are here.


In the fall I listened to a podcast on the BBC program Forum in which educators discussed the differences of motivation and inspiration.  Considering their thoughts, my own interest that underlies learning to speak 3 foreign languages (Spanish, Indonesian and Japanese), and also the longer-term goals of the International Studies curriculum, I had the following thoughts and insights.

• Students should not learn to dislike English.
• All students should feel a sense of success in the final activity (see more on this).
• Motivation can be thought of as a shorter-term approach, to which end making English class fun would encourage students to participate in the immediate task at hand.
• One of the International Studies curriculum goals is nurturing life-long interest in foreign cultures and languages
• English, like any language, is the voice of culture. English is too often taught as an impersonal academic subject, and often without meaning or social context.

From these thoughts I concluded that there needs to be explicit culture points included in each lesson. Real foreign language media (not just English), especially audio and video, are readily available at little or no cost, are engaging, fun and interesting for students, and do much to give deeper cultural meaning to the language component of the lesson.
Look for more cultural content links in the future here at EigoNoto.com.

Also, being able to share experiences of travel abroad, of other cultures, peoples and languages, is an immediate way that we as teachers can share our own enthusiasm with learning language and culture. The kids eyes kept popping out of their heads in a recent class as I kept drawing colorful lines upon lines of the many different things I found to be on Australian hamburgers (meat patty, cheese, fried egg, grilled pineapple, tomato, bacon, pickled beetroot, onion, shredded carrots, lettuce...).

One of my greatest learning experiences while traveling or living abroad has been via comparative analysis. Too many times there have been things in front of my eyes, or in my head, that I couldn’t understand. So my first response was to go back mentally to something similar I did understand- my home culture. And by looking more deeply at my own culture I was able to gain insight into the foreign culture around me.

Such a learning experience is just what the foreign language critics in Japan need to have, and want to see- how learning a foreign language deepens and develops our understanding of our own home culture vis-a-vis that of the foreign language and culture.

Facilitating such a learning experience in the classroom is quite simple, really:
When an aspect of foreign culture is presented to the class, simply asking students ‘What is similar, or different, to your culture, or the Japanese way of doing this?’, and giving help as needed (further questions are the best approach) to help students deepen their probe.

Another approach would be to model the thinking process, something like, ‘When I saw this, I didn’t know what to think. Then I thought about my own culture in New Zealand. In this situation we usually....’ And from there go on to contrast the differences in the two cultures, and note the similarities.

As an English Teacher teaching the International Studies curriculum it is easy for me do things my usual way. Many of the language activities here at EigoNoto.com were developed for my Junior High School English classes.

But I need to do better to keep in mind that students in the Eigo Noto lessons need to have a longer-term seed planted in them- an interest and curiosity in foreign cultures and language, and in their own culture and language, that is deep enough to inspire a life-long learning adventure.

EigoNoto.com copyright 2010 Elton Ersch

      Taken from the publication Instructed Second Language Acquisition, commissioned by the New Zealand Ministry of Education and prepared by Professor Rod Ellis of the University of Auckland.

1. Instruction needs to insure that students develop both a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions and a rule-based competence.

2. Instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning.

3. Instruction needs to ensure that learners also focus on form.

4. Instruction needs to be predominantly directed at developing implicit knowledge of the L2 (second, or foreign, language) while not neglecting explicit knowledge.

5. Instruction needs to take into account learners’ ‘built-in syllabus’.

6. Successful instructed language learning requires extensive L2 input.

7. Successful instructed language learning also requires opportunities for output.

8. The opportunity to interact in the L2 is central to developing L2 proficiency.

9. Instruction needs to take account of individual differences in learners.

10. In assessing learners’ L2 proficiency it is important to examine free
as well as controlled production.

The full text can be found at http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/6983/instructed-second-language.pdf

In my studies I read a researcher who stated: ‘Error correction done wrong turns students’ attention to form, not meaning.’
I think we can never be too careful about maintaining a meaning-focused attitude when talking and interacting with our classes and students.

In Communicative Language classes, Meaning is often more important than Form (grammar and word order, etc.). Simply, if someone says something that we can understand, it’s OK even if there are ‘mistakes’, or a mix of English and Japanese, if there are a lot of gestures or pictures, etc.
The simplest kind of activity that is purely meaning-centered is translation from English to Japanese. One student says a word or something more in English, and a paired student translates this to Japanese. This can be used in the early stages of introducing new words or patterns, when students are still learning how the pattern can be used with different words to change the meaning of the basic pattern.

Communicating isn't just a Question and Answer routine. Students can easily communicate together with any sentence pattern if you'll teach them just a little bit more...

• I like English.
• I like English, too.
• I don't like English.

Students can use sentences to communicate with these activities:

• Hot Potato
  
• Janken 4's
• CROSSFIRE
• Janken Conversation Rounds or Row Practice/Row Races
• Interview Bingo

Ben Franklin said, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” As an EFL teacher, this reminds me that teaching our students how to continue to learn after they leave our classrooms is one of our greatest responsibilities.

The English in the Eigo Noto is very basic--some of the students will know the meaning already from juku or other practice. Even if the students are seeing/hearing the language for the first time, it is important to train them to guess the meaning for themselves, not to rely on the teacher to tell them. So before giving students the meaning of something in Japanese, simply ask if anyone knows what the meaning is. Since meaning often depends on context, you have some options:

• explain or demonstrate how the language is used in a situation that the students are familiar with
• show a flashcard or refer to pictures in the textbook

One teacher I saw on TV said he never tells his students an answer. Instead, his technique is to provide the students with the materials they need to find the answer themselves.

See the EigoNoto.com activity to do this at WYAN- Words You Already Know.

I try to remember that someday, when school is finished, a student may be in a situation and need to find the answer by themselves. It is for this time that our training in the classroom needs to prepare the students.