Classroom Observation Project：Error Correction

吴琼

Abstract：How should we treat errors in classroom has been furiously discussed by plenty of researchers. In this paper， after a literature review on the relevant research findings，the author tried to figure out the how teachers correct errors in real classroom situation by doing observations. Findings are that treatment of error is quite flexible and inextricably connected to the type of tasks， students levels and teachers teaching styles， but the whole principle is that the treatment should be appropriate and consistent without ambiguity or misleading.

Key words：error correction； classroom observation； feedback

中图分类号：H319 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1672-1578（2015）11-0005-02

1 Introduction

Since Corder first focused attention on the importance of studying learners errors， the causes and types of errors， ways of correcting errors have been discussed by a large number of researchers. There is a furious debate on whether to correct the error or not and when should errors be corrected？ Allwright conceived the teachers error analysis has to be “instant”， which can not be waited to get a high frequency. Whilst some delayed methods are offered by Allan with tapes journals out of class and Rinvolucri of using correction games to balance fluency and accuracy.

Researches have also looked into the various strategies of teachers error corrections. These could be categorized roughly into two kinds，“modeling of the correct response” and “explanation of error”. Lyster & Ranta distinguished six different types of immediate feedback by the teacher that is explicit correction， recast， clarification request， metalinguistic feedback， elicitation and repetition. From their study， they found although recasts were the most widely used technique by far， they could lead to a great deal of ambiguity， and elicitation could result in the most successful learner uptake.

2 Background

This research is based on three classroom observations of which two took place in the English classes from Regent School and one in a Chinese class from Merchiston Castle in UK. The students in Regent School are almost adults who aim at improving their English according to different purposes such as passing the IELTS test， getting the immigrant pass or being more competitive in job hunting. In the intermediate level class， there are 12 students， mostly from European countries， and the teacher， who is a local resident， has a little bit Scottish accent. The second class consisted of 6 students is the advanced level with a friend-like young teacher from England. While the situation of the Chinese class in Merchiston Castle is totally different with ten 13-year-old boys and a Chinese teacher who has been in Edinburgh for 20 years. None of the teachers were told what we were going to observe. So they are just behaving according to their schedule.

3 Findings

From my three limited class observations， errors can be classified as either lexical， phonological， or grammatical. Out of 38 errors， there is only one error not being corrected in the Chinese lesson. The teacher consciously ignored the error made by a few students yet gave no positive feedback to the others who gave a right response.

Table1.

From Table 1，we can easily find the immediate feedbacks in the classroom compose the dominant part with 89.47%. No delayed feedback was given by the teacher in the Chinese beginner class， while it is more likely be used in the advanced English class. The 4 delayed ones， as we can see in the appendix， are given on the whiteboard after the students finished the task.

Table2

Table 2 describes the percentage of error correction from the teacher and students. Teachers corrected 29 out of 38 in the three classes.

Table 3： Distribution of feedback types

From Table3 and the pie chart above， preferences for different feedback types are demonstrated for each teacher， so are the total distribution of feedback types for all the three teachers. It can be seen that the most frequently used feedback is explicit correction which takes up 41.94% of all the teachers immediate turns. Runner-ups are repetition and elicitation， which account for 16.13% and 12.90% respectively. The other three feedback types， namely recast， clarification request， and metalinguistic feedback， share the same percentage of the figure 3 out of 31.

4 Discussion

The only error not being corrected occurred in the beginner level Chinese class. The teacher paused and ignored the error made by a few students under conscious when the others produced the right utterance. According to Nystroms analysis of the same situation， the teacher was giving the students an opportunity to correct by themselves， or their peers. Teachers should not regard their role as one of correcting machine， yet should be inconsistent.

As for when to correct， 89.47% of errors treatment happened immediately by teachers intervention. Especially in the beginner class， individual words were the target. The students actually expect teachers intervention in that non-communicative task. The only used delayed method is writing on the whiteboard to clarify the errors and language points， which is mostly used by the advanced teacher. He delayed the correction and encouraged the negotiation of meaning to achieve the fluency aim and back up with language points to make it more accurate. These two typical treatments reflect Hammers view that immediate intervention is applicable to the noncommunicative tasks while not suitable for the communicative ones.

From my findings， explicit correction forms the dominant place， which is totally different from Lyster & Rantas result， in which they found recast is the largest category. Other figures in each correction types dont agree accordingly. This， I believe， is out of my small and unreliable data and also the different preferences of teachers. Very typically， the Chinese teacher prefers using repetition with a rising intonation and elicitation to arouse students awareness and encourage them to think again to self-reformulate. Since it is the very specific pronunciation and words that being taught in the lesson， no recast of such kind can be available when giving the feedback.

It also appears the students L2 proficiency have been taken into account by the teachers when choosing the feedback types. No delayed， metalinguistic， or recast feedbacks were made at the beginner level， while delayed and explicit correction ranked the highest in the advanced English class. A wide range of choices existed at the intermediate. These are far from Lyster & Rantas findings that “the teacher who teaches the advanced level is able to push students more in their output and to reply less on the modeling techniques used by the other teachers with less advanced students”. The difference may caused by the limited data and a high percentage of errors are from pronunciation. My finding results of the frequent use of explicit correction agrees the conclusion made by Cathcart and Olsons that students preferred explicit correction of their oral errors in the adult ESL classroom.

5 Conclusion

According to my own findings and related research results， it seems the treatment of error is quite flexible and inextricably connected to the type of tasks， students levels and teachers teaching styles， but the whole principle is that the treatment should be appropriate and consistent without ambiguity or misleading. During teaching， it is important to choose the time to correct， the types of feedbacks according to the aim of the task. To achieve fluency， delayed feedbacks like summarizing on the whiteboard， using tape journals， or correction games can be good supplement for the communicative study.Otherwise， certain interventions to correct are fine with affective concerns. Being aware of the results of different choices of immediate correction types， the teacher can facilitate the teaching outcome， like never use metalinguistic method to the beginners， explain explicitly on pronunciation and grammar errors，perform clarification requests and elicitation to encourage the students self-repair.

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