Feedback and Correction

This article is based on work from our DELTA Module One course, and  focuses on feedback and correction. It discusses the following questions:

a)      What factors help you decide whether or not to correct an inaccurate piece of spoken language produced by a learner.

b)      The advantages of i) immediate correction   ii) delayed correction

c)       What feedback can be given to Ls other than “correction” and what are its objectives?

Scroll down for the suggested answer.

 

Suggested Answer

a) Factors which help the teacher to decide whether or not to correct an inaccurate piece of spoken language include: 

 

1.   The L’s personality : insecure Ls may be embarrassed of feel they have failed if corrected immediately, especially if in front of the class or their group. This leads to negative affect which may hinder or even block learning (Rogers, Maslow, Stevick and other Humanist psychologists and educators). 

 

2.   Age : for younger learners (primary) who are have not yet developed analytic skills but are still able to acquire (rather than learn) the language by exposure to input, immediate reformulation without comment may be more effective than later focus and explanation.   Eg. The YL says “I goed to the cinema” and the T replies “Oh, you went to the cinema. What film did you see?”  

3.   Whether the inaccuracy is target language or emergent language (see point 6) and

4.   At what stage of the lesson it occurs.  (See point 5). 

5.   Whether the inaccuracy is blocking communication or not. Eg a L who, in a fluency activity, says “His gratefulness surprised me” will be fully comprehensible even if inaccurate. Correction can thus be left till the follow-up stage. On the other hand, a learner who, in a multilingual group uses a false cognate from their L1 (eg an Italian who says "He’s very sensible” (meaning “sensitive”) or “There’s a library on the corner” (meaning bookshop”) may mislead their non-Italian partners who interpret the word with its actual English meaning, and the problem needs to be dealt with immediately to stop it blocking communication. 

6.  Whether the inaccuracy is an error or a mistake. If it is an error, it may be too complex to deal with in feedback, and need a planned lesson, or section of a lesson, of its own. If it's a mistake, the teacher may know the L usually uses it correctly and decide to ignore it. Alternatively, during the follow-up s/he may ask the learner to self-correct to prevent the problems described in point 7.

 

b) The Advantages of Immediate Correction:

 

7.  See point 3 above. Eg, If a L makes a mistake with target language in a controlled practice activity (which focuses on accuracy) it would be counterproductive not to correct immediately, as the L would simply continue using the inaccurate language throughout the activity. Immediate correction avoids the L wasting time, or reinforcing the incorrect form.

 

8.   If a L says something inaccurate in a full class stage which the T does not correct, other Ls may hear it and either a) believe it to be correct, which reinforces it for them too; or b) suspect that it is incorrect and become confused about what the correct form actually. Immediate correction prevents this.

 

... and the Advantages of Delayed Correction

 

9.   Delayed correction can be done anonymously, thus resolving the problem in point 1. In the follow up to the activity the T. can say “I heard someone say XXX” without naming the person. This minimises negative affect.

 

10.  Delayed correction allows a full explanation (and possibly practice, as advocated by Demand High ELT – Underhill and Scrivener) to be given without interrupting the flow of the activity in progress.

 

c) Other types of feedback include:

 

11. Upgrading language which, though correct, may have an alternative more suited to the L’s level (or which simply serves to extend the Ls’ knowledge). Objective: To extrend the Ls’ range of language.  Eg a B2 L may say “It was raining heavily”, allowing the T. to praise the expression, but also feed in “It was pouring with rain” as an alternative.

 

12. Praise for the effective use of language taught in previous lessons. Objectives : a) to provide  positive feedback for the L who used the expression, and b) to recycle and reinforce it for the others, eg a multiword verb or figurative expression. The T. may say “Daniela used an expression we saw in the last lesson. ( Writes on board : It was p…………… w…………. rain”). Can anyone else remember what the expression was?

 

14.  Other learning affordances can be taken up in a feedback stage, again  with the objective of extending the Ls’ range of language - eg : to extend Ls’ knowledge of a lexical set. In a recent B1 lesson I taught, Ls started discussing the TV series NCIS. As they were clearly interested in it, I asked if anyone understood why the pathologist, Dr. Mallard, was nicknamed “Ducky”. No-one did so I used the IWB to google images of mallards. After they had understood that a mallard was a type of duck, I then asked them, in pairs, to brainstorm for 3 minutes the names of any other waterbirds they knew. While they did so, I googled images for  “waterbirds”. I then elicited those they had thought of, using the images to confirm what they were, and asked them if there were any others in the pictures that they could name. Finally I fed in others. We ended up with a list including : swan, penguin, flamingo, seagull, heron etc.

 

15. Feedback can be given with the objective of improving the effectiveness or otherwise of communicative performance.   Eg if a learner has dominated in a group, that learner can be asked to think of three expressions they could have used to bring other people into the conversations, while the others think of three expressions they could have used to interrupt. 

16. Feedback can be given on the content of the discussion. This may be positive - eg the T can say that she found an anecdote told by one L particularly interesting, and either ask them to retell it to the whole group or summarise it and then ask follow-up questions. This shows the Ls that the T is interested in what they say and not just in how they say it. Alternatively, if the groups were having difficulty thinking of things to say in a discussion, the class can be helped to brainstorm ideas for topics that could have been included and a mindmap built up on the board. They can then be asked to repeat the task incorporating the ideas.

Feedback - A Minimal Intervention Policy?

This article, based on material from our DELTA Module One course, focuses on feedback and the advantages and disadvantages of a “minimal intervention” policy. 

a) Advantages

A policy of “minimal” intervention when giving feedback avoids the following problems:

1. In full class mode, the T. “jumping down the learner’s throat” – ie picking up on a problem to correct, or to redirect the learner in mid-utterance - could be embarrassing or create other forms of negative affect. The same could happen if, after a PW/GW activity the T. listed too many errors on the board (especially if from the same few learners), causing the learners to feel demotivated about their performance.  

2. If intervention is delayed - ie feedback is left to the follow up stage of a PW discussion -  maximising the amount could lead to a long T-centred stage where pace drops, and much of the lesson is taken up by teacher talk rather than active learner participation. These two factors could lead to a lack of engagement in the lesson. Minimising intervention, on the other hand, will leave more time for learner talk and active participation.

3. In full class mode, and also during PW/GW if the T intervenes constantly to give feedback, the discourse pattern will inevitably follow a T. initiation – L. response – T. feedback pattern (Sinclair and Coulthard) which is quite unlike the pattern of “normal” interaction where it is up to the participants to initiate and negotiate topics, manage turn taking etc. Too much T-led work therefore means that the learners will never get to practice these moves, which they will need when interacting outside the classroom. The learner therefore needs to use PW/GW and “get out of the way” in order to allow Ls to practise these moves. 

4. In PW/GW, if the Ls ask for and the T. provides help and feedback every time it is asked for (eg providing unknown words and correcting/explaining the language used) they will never practise and develop coping strategies such as circumlocution, or reformulation of ideas not understood, which again they will need outside the classroom.

5. During PW/GW, if the T. gets “bogged down” with a specific group giving copious instant feedback to learners, s/he will lose sight of the class as a whole. 

a) The T needs to be aware of what all groups/pairs are doing – who is off-task and needs re-direction, who has finished and needs another task to do while the others catch up, who has serious problems with the task etc -   so that s/he knows when s/he does need to intervene minimally to help. 

b) S/he also needs to be free to monitor for language use from all the learners for feedback, however minimal, after the task. 

6. Proponents of Krashen’s Input Hypothesis would argue that overt correction/explanation and other feedback  by the teacher will not contribute to language acquisition and is a waste of time. Acquisition will occur automatically after there has been adequate “comprehensible input”, and intervention on the part of the teacher to give feedback is irrelevant.

b) Disadvantages

7. If the T. intervenes only “minimally” and limits the amount of time devoted to feedback, many learning affordances will be missed. For example:

a) There will be no or little correction of errors, which learners could learn from, and over a long period those errors may fossilise.

b) Language will not be “upgraded” – eg the C1 learner who has said What do you think Maria? Will not be introduced to an expression more suitable for their level such as What’s your take on that Maria?

c) Learners may not even get the opportunity to ask questions about language items which they realised they needed during the discussion  or realised they were unsure of/puzzled about.

d) “Good language” that learners have used will not be brought to the attention of the class – eg if a T. overhears a learner using a lexical chunk from a previous lesson. This both misses the opportunity to recycle the expression (essential for ultimate retention) and to make the learner who used it feel good about themself.

8. Swain (the Output Hypothesis) argues that learner will only acquire language if they are “pushed” in output until they have formulated a message which is not simply comprehensible but is conveyed “precisely, coherently and appropriately”. In PW/GW this is unlikely to happen unless a learner is completely incomprehensible, but in a feedback stage the T can provide this “push” getting the learner to reformulate, upgrade and otherwise improve what they said. This idea lies behind many of the ideas in Demand High ELT (Scrivener and Underhill), in Thornbury’s  article “P is for Push”,  and the “10 Rs” described in Thornbury and Medding’s “Teaching Unplugged” which suggest how teachers can work on learners utterances.

9. In cultures where the T. is expected to be the “knower” and “in control” (eg in some SE Asian contexts), a minimal intervention policy, failure to correct all mistakes etc could be seen as an abdication of responsibility and a sign of a “bad” teacher. Learners might therefore lose faith in the T. and the course.

10. There are various situations where T. intervention is necessary. For example: learners with learning disabilities may need constant feedback and other support from the teacher.

 

An ELT Glossary : Synforms

Synforms are lexical items similar in their phonological, graphic and/or morphological features. Laufer (1988) showed that they could create problems not only for learners of English (including advanced learners) but also for native speakers. She divided them into ten categories (which you can find in the article linked to below by Kokic, 2008) dependent on the reason for their similarity - for example, derivation from a similar root, differences in spelling due to a single vowel or consonant etc. Some examples of synforms taken from Laufer's  categories would be  historic/historical, staff/stuff, price/prize, manual/menial, loose/lose

Both Laufer and Kocic, and other researchers have looked at which of these features cause more difficulty than others. However, their research seems to have been purely quantative - did the respondents make more errors in one of the ten categories than another - and  based on multiple choice tests, where the items were presented to the respondents, both the correct choice and its synform amongst the distractors.

What I've not been able to find is any research that has been done on inaccuracies in the spontaneous use of these words, or any investigations of the reasons for these inaccuracies, including whether they are genuine errors or just mistakes. The sort of research I would envisage might use written texts containing the inaccuracies and  retrospective think-aloud procedure to get the writers to explain what they were thinking when they chose the erroneous word and why they used it.

I spend a lot of my time marking Cambridge Delta assignments written by both native speaker and near-native speaker teachers of English, and find that synform inaccuracy abounds. I don't claim to have done any systematic research at all (if anyone is looking for a topic for a MA thesis there might be something to consider here) but here are a few synform problems that I've found come up again and again and some hypotheses as to the reasons why they might have been made.

The first category is banal - I hypothesise that the error is due to a simple typing mistake and that if the text were in handwriting wouldn't be there at all. It's typified by the use or leaner instead of learner. I don't think there's any question about the writer not understanding the difference, nor any chance that they don't know how learner should be spelt. It's a simple typo which only creates a synform by pure chance.

The next category is a bit more interesting - hands up anyone who has never typed their when they meant to type there or they're, or it's when they meant to type its. (Incidentally, this type of synform involving or created by punctuation differences was not included in Laufer's categories but should, I think, be there.) Why do we make this mistake? I'd suggest it's because, as we are actually physically typing (or writing) the word, our brains have moved on to the next part of what we want to say, and without full attention on the word we are actually typing, we retrieve its synform due to the fact that phonologically it's identical. (Guess what I had to go back and correct two words before this bracket started?)  But again, at least in my case and - I would suggest - those of the highly educated trainees I work with -  it's not that we don't know the difference. It's a mistake, not an error.

Phonological identity of words - ie the fact that they are homophones - also plays a part in the confusion between my next two item bare vs bear and, although it may not initially seem like it, upmost vs utmost.

The email I once received where the writer asked me to "bare with me"  was probably caused by exactly the same process as the their/there problem I talked about before,  but what about utmost and upmost?

Although in their citation forms they are pronounced differently - /ʌpməʊst/  vs /ʌtməʊst/ - in connected speech assimilation causes the alveolar /t/ of utmost  to change to a bilabial /p/ in order to facilitate the pronunciation of the following bilabial /m/ - so both words end up sounding like /ʌpməʊst/. This means that anyone who has heard and used utmost in speech, but not "noticed" the difference in its written form, is liable to confuse the two when writing. They would likely be using upmost rather than utmost in speech as well, but because of the assimilation, it would go unnoticed.

So now we are in the realm of errors made because of genuinely not knowing the difference between the two forms. The same problem occurs with the pair affect (verb) and effect (noun) - but this time it is more complicated. Again, a phonological feature can make them homophones in one of their meanings ("influence") - the stress on the second syllable  in both leads to the first vowel  being pronounced as /ə/ so that the pronunciation is identical - /əˈfekt/  This could explain the confusion created for writers using them in this sense.  However, both words can also change word class and meaning - noun affect (psychological variables) and verb to effect (ie carry out). I've never noticed synform problems with affect /ˈæfekt/ and would hypothesise that the pronunciation difference allows the brain to store it as a "separate" item from the others. However, the existence of the verb to effect is probably another reason for the synform error when it's used to mean to affect.

Going back to utmost and upmost, there is also the possibility of confusion occurring because, in a sentence like It is of the utmost importance, the substitution of upmost seems logical in terms of meaning. That, I would suggest, is also the reason for a trainee recently using failproof rather than foolproof in an essay. Both forms exist, and are so close in both meaning and pronunciation that they can easily be confused.

And finally - my favourite. The one where I think the brain does a backflip and attempts (erroneously) to "construct" new knowledge based on its interpretation of previously acquired knowledge. It's exemplified by gemination vs germination. Gemination is a technical term that few people have met before taking the Delta or a similar course. It therefore has to be understood and assimilated by the brain which, in the effort of doing so, associates it with the most familiar "known" word in its store - and learns and retrieves the term as germination. The same occurs with another phonological term, juncture, which is frequently retrieved by the writer's brain as junction.

These are only hypotheses, and I'd love to see some serious research done into the reasons for the synform mistakes of both native speakers and learners. What are the processes that cause them? Are they the same for the two groups or do they differ? If anyone knows of anything I've missed that looks at the problem in this way - ie  qualitatively rather than  quantatively, please let me know. However, I would suggest that phonological similarities, similarity to a more familiar word, and retrieval processes in the brain all play an important part in determining if a problem arises. And I'd also suggest that the  problem also has to be considered in terms of whether it is a real error or just a mistake.



References 

Laufer, B., (1988), 'The concept of 'synforms' (similar lexical forms) in L2 vocabulary acquisition'. Language and Education, 2, 113–132. 
Kokcic, A.  The problem of Synforms (Similar Lexical forms) Linguistics and Literature Vol. 6, No 1, 2008, pp. 51 - 59

An ELT Glossary : Affordances

Affordances are learning opportunities that arise during the lesson. They may have been predicted by the teacher when planning the lesson, but very often have not - they arise from the communication that occurs between the students or the teacher and students and are frequently unpredicted or unpredictable. However, because they arise from what the learners themselves want to say or understand, if focused on, they have a high probability of being  "noticed" and retained. 

For example : 

• during pair or group work (PW/GW) at a free practice stage, a learner makes an error with a non-target language (TL) structure that the teacher (T) has frequently heard made in the class. By focusing on it in a follow up, the T. helps the learners "notice" it, and possibly goes on to practice it through repetition, a substitution drill, getting each learner to write another sentence about themselves using the same pattern, or some other activity

• during a PW/GW warm-up discussion on "What did you do at the weekend?", aiming to reactivate the simple past, a learner says she played badminton. In the follow up the T. asks if any other learners do any sports or other physical exercise on a regular basis, and elicits the expressions focusing on their collocation with do / play / go (eg do yoga, play tennis, go running). She then elicits the rule for the choice of verb and asks the learners in pairs to brainstorm all the other sports/physical activities they know, listing them in three columns according to the relevant verb. Afterwards she elicits and boards these, and feeds in a few more that the learners haven't come up with. 

• during a T/Class follow up, a learner uses, accurately, a lexical chunk that the T. believes other learners may not know or use spontaneously. He brings this to the attention of the class, checking comprehension and doing some repetition practice.

• during comprehension work on a text. a learner asks about an item that the teacher had not predicted would be problematic, and therefore had not focused on in the activity sequence provided.

Notice that none of these activities were related to the main aims of the lesson. The second and fourthmay have been predictable, but it's unlikely that the first and third were. They were "emergent language" - language which simply "came up" during interaction between the learners or the teacher and the learners. This means that if the T is going to take advantage of affordances (and I would argue strongly that s/he should) two things are important :

• Distinguish between an affordance and a sidetrack. If you take the learners' attention off the target language for too long or at the wrong moment, then they may forget about the main aim of the lesson. Notice that I've emphasised here that the focus on the non-TL occurred in the follow up to activities. For example, in the first case (an activity aiming to reactivate the simple past), the sports lexis could be dealt with first, so that the T. could then pass on to a focus on the simple past and continue from there. In the other cases, the non-TL might be dealt with after any focus the T wanted to include on the TL - thus dealing with the main aim immediately after the activity while the Ls were still focusing on it before moving on to the unrelated focus. Make room for affordances, but avoid leaping from one unconnected point to another - which can disorient learners and hinder, rather than promote noticing and retention.

• Time must be left in the lesson plan to deal with the affordances. In my own plans, if I think an activity will take fifteen minutes, I often time it for twenty to twenty five. This gives me ample time to deal with the activity itself thoroughly, but also to follow up on any affordances which have presented themselves. 

Further reading

Anderson, J. Affordance, learning opportunities, and the lesson plan pro forma ELTJ 69/3

Thornbury, S. A is for Affordance

An ELT Glossary : Contrastive Analysis

Contrastive Analysis involves comparing features of one language against another. For example a contrastive analysis of the structures of English and Italian might note that both languages possess the equivalent structure have/avere (auxiliary verb) + past participle, but that the use of the structure differs - in English to express time anterior to a specific moment (eg I've lived here for five years = before now / I'll do it after I've talked to John  = talking to John must happen before I do it) while in Italian Ho visto Elena ieri  expresses a past event - ie I saw Elena yesterday. Similarly a contrastive analysis of the pragmatics of English and Polish would point to a difference in the formulations of functions such as requests, invitations and advice - Polish using far more direct forms (Sit! / You must have some more / I advise you to... ) than the more tentative  English :Would you like to sit down? Are you sure you don't want any more? / Why don't you... (Wierzbicka, A.  2003).

Contrastive Analysis arose from structural linguistics and, though largely focusing on phonological, lexical and structural features, was used to predict error - error being seen as a matter of first language (L1) interference. Later work on error analysis by linguists such as Pit Corder (1981) showed that this view was too simplistic. There were other reasons for error, for example overgeneralisation, which were unconnected to the L1, and transfer between languages could be positive as well ans negative.  However,  I would argue that contrastive analysis still has a role to play in course design or lesson planning. Lennon (n.d) summarises  the work of Lado (1957), who pointed out :

... it is possible to identify the areas of difficulty a particular foreign language will present for native speakers of another language by systematically comparing the two languages and cultures. Where the two languages and cultures are similar, learning difficulties will not be expected, where they are different, then learning difficulties are to be expected, and the greater the difference, the greater the degree of expected difficulty. 

This type of analysis therefore has obvious implications for course design and lesson planning. if we know where important differences between our learners' L1 and the target language (in our case English) lie, then we can plan our courses so that more time is spent on these and less on those which the learners will find easier.  This is clearly easiest when teaching monolingual classes, but even with multilingual groups, if the teacher notices that a particular learner is having greater difficulty with a certain area than other members of the group, research into his/her L1 will often provide the explanation and show the teacher how best to help the student.


Bibliography

Lado (1957) Linguistics across Cultures, University of Michigan Press
Lennon, P. Contrastive analysis, Error Analysis,  Interlanguage
Pit Corder, S. 1981, Error Analysis and Interlanguage, Oxford university Press
Wierzbicka, A.  2003  Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction Mouton de Gruyter

An ELT Glossary : Target Language / Emergent language

A traditional lesson plan aiming at developing learners' language (rather than skills) competence, was/is based around the idea of target language - ie the language point(s) (which may be structural, functional, lexical or whatever) that the teacher/coursebook has decided in advance will be  learnt in the lesson and which form the main aims of the lesson. Examples of this language are presented to the learners in some way (eg through a situation or a text) analysed for their form, meaning and use, and then practised in a series of activities.

Since the seventies though, there has been a considerable amount of criticism of this approach. Is language really learnt in a linear fashion in this way? Is the input decided by the teacher or coursebook writer necessarily what the learner is ready to transfer to intake?

These criticisms are encapsulated in Thornbury's by now well-known term the "Grammar McNuggets" approach to course design, and his suggestion that learning might be more effective if based on "emergent language".

So what is "emergent language"? Emergent language is language that "comes up", often unpredictably, in interaction between the learners, and/or the teacher and the learners. It's the language that they use, correctly or otherwise, when trying to express the meanings that they want to convey at that moment. The teacher can pick up on these expressions and focus on them for the class - they form learning affordances, or opportunities, that can be exploited on the spot. Here are two examples which I also gave in the article on affordances of how this might be done :

• During a PW/GW warm-up discussion on "What did you do at the weekend?", aiming to reactivate the simple past, a learner says she played badminton. In the follow up the T. asks if any other learners do any sports or other physical exercise on a regular basis, and elicits the expressions focusing on their collocation with do / play / go (eg do yoga, play tennis, go running). She then elicits the rule for the choice of verb and asks the learners in pairs to brainstorm all the other sports/physical activities they know, listing them in three columns according to the relevant verb. Afterwards she elicits and boards these, and feeds in a few more that the learners haven't come up with.

• During a T/Class follow up, a learner uses, accurately, a lexical chunk that the T. believes other learners may not know or use spontaneously. He brings this to the attention of the class, checking comprehension and doing some repetition practice.

And another example :

• During a discussion activity on daily routines, the T. overhears a learner saying I use to get up at 8 o'clock. In the follow-up, she focuses on the expression used to do and how it can only be used in the past, with the simple present and adverbs such as always/often/usually being used to express habitual present events. She then asks the learner to write three sentences about what they used to do as a child(or when they were younger) and three about things they regularly do now. of the six sentences, three must be true and three must be false. They then read them to their groups (or get up and mingle) and the other learners have to guess which are the true and which the false statements.

Focus on emergent language is often associated with a Dogme approach to teaching, where all the language focus is based on emergent language and the syllabus is a-posteriori rather than a-priori. But it doesn't have to be either/or. A lesson can still have a-priori aims, be based on a coursebook, etc, and leave room for emergent language. Every lesson (I would argue) should have moments when what the learners will say is not entirely predictable - for example in warm-up discussion, spin-off discussions or any other type of fluency activity. As the teacher monitors these discussions s/he will overhear "interesting" emergent language items which can be brought to the learners' attention in a follow up. This means leaving ample time for the follow up and, if the language which emerges is really interesting/valuable for the learners, being willing to adapt the plan on the spot - or even through it out of the window completely. 

And this brings up two problems with the approach. The first is not so much with the approach itself, but with the coursebooks that are often used at the moment. They are often so "jam-packed" with stuff to do, that in a course with a specific number of hours, there is little time for anything else. This is not a problem if the teacher has a free rein and can pick and choose from the coursebook, leaving out activities if s/he thinks learners would benefit more from other things. But if the institution "insists" that by a certain date the teacher has fully covered a certain number of units, or if the learners themselves get worried at the idea of not doing "everything in the book", it can be problematic. I'd put in a plea to publishers at this point - be more realistic about the time really needed to use the coursebook materials effectively - not just "ploughing through" the activities, but exploiting them fully and also diverging from them as best suits the needs of the learners.

The second problem relates to the experience of the teacher. If you are new to teaching, it's relatively easy to focus on language which is fully explained for you in the coursebook, and then to practise it with activities provided for you. It's quite another matter to come up with an accurate explanation and to think of activities to continue the focus on the language "on the spot".

This doesn't mean, however, that the inexperienced teacher need abandon focus on emergent language all together. If it is built in to a follow-up to a PW/GW activity, it's not actually done "on the spot" - the teacher notices it while monitoring and does have a few minutes to think about what to do with it. If you know it's too complex for you to deal with immediately, ignore it - but after the lesson, look up the explanation and think of how you could have got the learners to practise it. That way, when it comes up the next time, you'll be ready for it. On the spot choose things that you can explain easily and feel confident with - maybe errors with language that the learners (and you!) have already covered and which just needs a brief focus to reactivate the rules and the correct form.

Recommended Reading

As this article has argued, a focus on emergent language can (and I think should) be built into every lesson. But the best known and most currently used approach based entirely on teaching through a focus on emergent language is Thornbury and Medding's Dogme. See also Thornbury's article P is for Push.

Terms Connected with Error

Approximative system

Avoidance Strategies

Cognate/False cognate

Coherence

Contrastive Analysis

Coping strategies

Dangling participles

Distractors

Error

False cognate / Cognate

Induced error

Interference

Interlanguage

L1 interference

Language Transfer

Mistakes

Monitor hypothesis

Overgeneralisation

Plateau Stage

Reformulation

Transfer

An ELT Glossary : Mistakes

• Definition : An inaccuracy in speech or writing made despite knowledge of the correct form or rules, and caused by eg tiredness, anxiety or the demands of spontaneous communication (eg the constraints of real-time processing : having to process what is said to you, think of your reply, formulate it in English, and actually say it, all in real time). 

• Example :  the CPE student who leaves off the third person -s.

• Contrasts with an error, which is an inaccuracy made because the learner does not yet know the correct rule/form. A learner who makes a mistake will be able to self-correct, whereas a learner who makes an error will not.

Related Reading 

  Ellis, R. Second Language Acquisition, OUP




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An ELT Glossary : Error

Definition : An error is an inaccuracy in speech or writing caused by the learner's lack of knowledge of the required form. 

Example : the student who says "I live here for three years" before s/he has encountered the present perfect.

Errors contrast with mistakes which are slips caused by eg tiredness, anxiety or the pressure of the communicative situation. The learner knows the correct form and can self-correct if s/he recognises the mistake or if it is pointed out.

Related Reading

Bartram, M. and Walton, R. Correction: A Positive Approach to Language Mistakes, Heinle ELT

An ELT Glossary : Fossilization

Definition : Fossilization is process which sometimes occurs in which incorrect linguistic features gradually become a permanent part of the way a learner speaks or writes the language. 

Example :  A C2 level speaker may still leave off the 3rd person "s", despite using other more complex structures accurately and at a generally "expert" level. 

Associated with the work of Selinker in the 1970s.

Further reading 

 
Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning

Ellis, R. Second Language Acquisition, OUP

Ann ELT Glossary : Interlanguage /Approximative system

Definition : The state of linguistic competence of a learner at a specific moment in time, which will show some but not full correspondence to the competence of a native speaker. 

Examples 

a) A B1 learner will have assimilated some of the structures and lexis of the language, but will still make errors when using other forms, producing a mix of accurate/inaccurate speech. As s/he progresses in the language the balance will change. 

         
b) A learner's interlanguage may be characterised by features coming from his/her L1 - the use of grammatical patterns used in the L1, the use of false cognates, pragmatic features which reflect discourse features of the L1, the pronunciation of various sounds, intonation patterns etc.


A learner's interlanguage may at a certain point cease to develop in one or more areas. At that point the learner's competence is said to have "fossilised".

Interlanguage is associated with the work of Pit Corder in the 1970s. Pit Corder was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh from 1964-1983, and was influential for his work on Error Analysis.

Interlanguage is also sometimes known by the term Approximative System

Recommended  Reading

Pit Corder, S. Error Analysis and Interlanguage, OUP