This is an interesting topic I’ve been revisiting this week. I wrote about it during my diploma (see here) and I like how relevant and applicable this topic is to my classroom practice.
Lyster and Ranta (1997) suggest that there are six common correction techniques used by teachers. That is, when they are correcting spoken errors. These techniques are:
| Technique | Description | Example |
| Explicit correction | clearly indicating that the learner’s utterance is wrong and correcting them. | Student: *He’s a sinGER
Teacher: No, it’s SINGer. He’s a SINGer. |
| Recast | not directly indicating that the learner was incorrect, but reformulating the error to provide correction. | Student: *I go to London yesterday
Teacher: Ah, you went to London yesterday Student: … er, yeah. |
| Clarification | The teacher indicates that the learner’s utterance was incorrect in some way through phrases like ‘sorry?’, ‘What was that?’ etc. This prompts learner to reformulate | Student: *I don’t do many mistakes
Teacher: Sorry? Student: I don’t do… Teacher: Huh? What was that? Student: Make! I don’t make many mistakes |
| Metalinguistic clues | Without providing the correct form, the teacher asks questions or provides comments
related to the formation of the learner’s utterance |
Student: *He work in an office most days
Teacher: Is that the correct form of the verb? Do we say ‘He work?’ |
| Elicitation | Teacher elicits correct form from learner | As with above example, something like…
Teacher: I work, you work, he/she ….? Student: works |
| Repetition | Teacher repeats the error, using voice/intonation etc to show that an error has been made and prompt reformulation | Student: *He not like football
Teacher: He NOT like football? Student: doesn’t! He doesn’t |
Note: some of my descriptions above are from a great overview from Tedick and de Gortari (1998). More on that in a sec… (more…)
