Unit 4 – How to Deal with
Grammatical Errors
Prof. Ignacio Fdez Portero (PhD)
English Grammar – Facultad de Formación del Profesorado
1. Instructing Grammar
1984: Hillocks finds grammar instruction to be ineffective.
1985: National Council of Teachers of English: “the use of
isolated grammar and usage exercises… is a deterrent to
the imporvements of students’ speaking and writing.”
2012: Graham, McKeown, Kiuhara and Harris proved it
again.
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1.1 The Wrong to Teach Grammar
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/the-wrong-way-to-
teach-grammar/284014/
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“We know that grammar instruction that works includes
teaching students strategies for revising and editing,
providing targeted lessons on problems that students
immediately apply to their own writing, and having
students play with sentences like Legos, combining
basic sentences into more complex ones. Often,
surprisingly little formal grammar instruction is
needed. Researcher Marcia Hurlow has shown that
many errors “disappear” from student writing when
students focus on their ideas and stop “trying to ‘sound
correct.’” (Michelle Navarre Cleary, my bold)
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2. Types of Errors
1 Alice like this school
A pronunciation (/i/ vs. /i:/
2 Where you did go yesterday?
B pronunciation (/ʃ/ vs. /ʧ/)
C pronunciation (word stress)
3 The secretáry is in the office
D grammar (wrong tense)
E lexis (incorrect collocation)
4 Give me one boscuit!
F grammar (verb-noun agreement)
G grammar (word order)
5 I eat shocolate every day
H lexis (incorrect word) – and rude!
6 After three years they made a divorce
7 I am here since Tuesday
8 I’m going to heat you.
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2.1. Decisions to be made
1. What kind of error has been made?
2. Whether to deal with it (is it useful to correct?)
3. When to deal with it (now? End of activity? Later?)
4. Who will correct (teacher? Student? Self-correction?...
5. Which technique to use to indicate that an error has
occurred to enable correction?
Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching. 3rd edition, Oxford, MacMillan 2011
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2.2 On-the-Spot Correction
Focused immediate correction
Accuracy
later Not at all
Brief, unobtrusive, immediate
correction (scaffolding)
Fluency
later Not at all
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2.3 Who Corrects?
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2.4 Indicating that an error has been made
Write the
Use the problem sentence
phonemic on the board for
chart discussion
Gesture + facial
Draw spaces or
expression
Exploit the
boxes on the humour in the
board to show the error
error in the
sentence
Facial Repeat the
expressions sentence up to
Tell students the error
there is an error
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2.5 Extra ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvLTT3U2Rro
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3. Using the learners’ first language
“My students always talk in their own language. I can’t get them
to use English.”
Why?
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3.1 Fear of making mistakes: solutions
• English-language posters on the wall
• Respond positively to every effort of using of English.
• Don’t tell learners off for not using English, but keep
operating in English yourself.
• Only ‘hear’ English
• Communication is your priority, rather than accuracy.
• Create lots of pairs and small groups activities
• If it becomes a big problem stop the activity and negotiate
again.
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4. Tips for oral correction and feedback
1. Try not to use negative correction
2. Think about the ability of individual students you're about to correct
3. Don't overdo it!
4. Aim for a balance between student interaction and correction.
5. Make mental or actual notes to help you feedback during or at the
end of class.
Spacey, Andrew. “How to Correct Errors EFL/ESL Teachers”.
Academia, Owlcation, 14 July 2017,
https://owlcation.com/academia/How-To-Correct-Your-English-
Students-EFL-Teachers 13
