1. Mistakes and feedback
Jeremy Harmer, Chapter 7 (2001)
Práctica Educativa III, Residencia Docente Prof.
Estela N. Braun(2010)

2. Types of Mistakes
 Julian Edge (1993)divides mistakes into
3 broad categories:
 SLIPS : students can correct
themselves.
 ERRORS: students cannot correct
themselves.
 ATTEMPTS: ambitious language use, by
using structures they have not learnt yet.

3. Causes of Errors
 L1 Interference :sounds, false
friends.Eg: parents, embarrased, library.
 Developmental errors.
 Overgeneralization.
 Interlanguage.

4. Assessing Students’
performance
 A. Ignore mistakes/slips
 B. Encourage risk taking.
 C.Praise them.
 D.Avoid over-complimenting them .
 E. Foster self-assessment.
 F.Show genuine interest in their work.

5. Other information valid as
assessment:
 Comments.
 Marks and grades.
 Reports.
 Self-assessment through checklists .
 ROA (record of achievement)

6. Feedback during Oral Work
 Difference
between ACCURACY (non-
communicative activities)
 FLUENCY (communicative activities)

7. When should we provide
teacher intervention?
 Lynch (1997) Use “gentle correction”…”the
best answer to the question of when to
intervene in learner talk is:as late as possible”.
 Processing language for communication is
the best way of processing language for
acquisition.
 When teachers intervene to correct or to
supply alternative modes of expression to help
students, they remove the need to negotiate
meaning.

8. Rapport and feedback
 Correction builds on the rapport
between teacher and students.
 A good teacher “should be able to
correct people without offending them”
(Harmer, 1998)

9. Feedback during Accuracy Work
 Two distinct stages:
 I. Show a student a mistake has been
made.
 II. Help students do something about it.

10. Showing Incorrectness
 1. Repeating: Again? Use of intonation
and expression by the teacher.
 2. Echoing: Flight 309 GO to Paris?
 3. Satement and question: That’s not
quite right. Do people think it’s all right?
 4.Expression: facial, gesture, without
being cruel or mocking

11. And more…
 5.Hinting: Say the word: tense, word,
plural. Shared metalanguage.
 6.Reformulation: If I had heard…

12. GETTING IT RIGHT:
 Ifstudents are unable to correct
themselves, focus on the correct version
in detail.
 Foster peer correction in a genuinely
cooperative atmosphere.
 Techniques must not undermine
students’self-esteem.

13. Feedback during fluency work:
 We need to respond to content and not just
language.
 Tolerance of erros during fluency sessions
should be much greater than during controlled
practice sessions.
 Gentle correction is necessary if
communication breaks down or if students
need prompting because they do not know
what to say.

14. Techniques:
A)Reformulate what they say:
Student: I am not agree with you.
Teacher: I don’t agree with you..because..
B) Try not to interrupt the flow of the activity,
or we may bring it to a standstill.
C) Recording mistakes: Use charts to
categorize learners’mistakes:
grammar and vocabulary, discourse
management, pronunciation,
appropriacy,interactive communication.

15. Feedback on written work:
 Workbook exercises.
 Feedback on creative writing:
demonstrate interest in the content of
students’work.

16. Written Feedback Techniques
 Responding:
 We tell them how successful they have been,
and which areas they have improved/need to
improve.Constructive feedback:learning from
errors.
 Coding:
 Teachers may use a code with symbols on the
margins. We allow students to focus on
particular aspects of language:spelling, verb
tenses, paragraph construction, cohesion.

17. Finishing the feedback process
 Written feedback is designed as a tool to help
learners improve their language use.
 Importance of rewriting: to see how they
respond to our comments.
 Feedback is part of the learning process.
 It is over after students have made changes
,consulted grammar books or dictionaries as a
way of resolving some of the mistakes we
have signalled.
 (*)See TDI Speaking materials.