Why is correction important?

Mistakes and errors are important parts of the learning process as no one learns and succeeds without making a mistake. Mistakes should be seen as positive steps towards learning, and correction is an integral part of the lesson. Through a positive approach to correction, students are more able to understand, remember and learn from their mistakes. These pages look at ways of correcting students’ work and provide guidelines for a more positive approach to correction.

Ways of reacting/responding to written work

When giving back written work to students, we can use a number of devices to help them focus on their mistakes and write more successfully in the future.

Harmer (2001) observed that one way of considering feedback is to think of it as ‘responding’ to the students’ work rather than assessing or evaluating what they have written. This approach focuses on the actual content of the written text rather than just focusing on the language. Remember, when we communicate through writing the message or content is just as important as the level of accuracy.

So what should the teacher do when we respond?

• Say how the text appears to us and how successful we think it has been.
• Our comments should be helpful but not censorious.
• Write comments in the margin of the students’ work or on a separate piece of paper. If time is available this can be done in the form of a letter.
• Also tell students how their work could be improved. This is important as all too often, teachers highlight errors, but don’t actually say how the text overall could be improved.
• When responding to the final version, say what we liked, how we felt about the text. This adds a personal touch and makes students feel that the teacher is thinking about them as individuals.
• Show alternative ways of writing through reformulation. It is vital for students as they can discover a lot about language when they compare their work with their teacher’s.

Remember -

The type of response or correction that a teacher gives depends very much on the aim of the writing task. Writing activities fall on a continuum from copying to free writing.

     copying              doing exercises               guided writing                free writing

Obviously accuracy is of concern with the types of activities on the left of the line and fluency with the activities on the right side. For more fluency-based activities the teacher will correct, but it will be more a reaction and response to the content and ideas, than grammatical accuracy.
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