APPLIED LINGUISTICS for BA Students in English
FEEDBACK AND ERROR CORRECTION
Correction of written errors
The same principles apply when written work is corrected. Sometimes the teacher concentrates on accuracy, the other time the teacher may be concerned with the content of writing. Written work is to be marked according to the purpose: if the aim is communication, the written work should not be marked according to e.g. spelling. The basic principle is that controlled writing is to be corrected tightly but in the case of guided or free compositions, when the aim is fluency and comprehensibility rather than strict accuracy we should correct less and react to it as communication. However, we have to agree with Harmer (1991) and Doff (1993) that teachers often exaggerate the importance of accuracy. It means that the students’ work is covered with red ink and no comment can be found on the content, even if it was interesting. The great number of corrections will discourage the students. It is better to reduce the amount of underlining and write corrections in the margin; this way the page will look less heavily corrected.
The same stages are to be followed in the correction of written work as in oral correction. The teacher indicates where the student has made important errors. The teacher can use a system of abbreviations or symbols to indicate the line or the place in a line where the mistake occurs, and the nature of the mistakes: Sp for spelling, Gr for grammar, WO for word order, T for tense etc. The use of correction codes by the teacher instead of giving full correction is a widespread practice, the rationale behind it is that it encourages students to think about their writing and correct them themselves. Students can be given back their pieces of writing and asked to correct them individually. The teacher also can ask students to exchange their pieces of written work and discuss them in groups so that they can correct each other’s errors. Then some extra practice can be given in the case of common errors or serious errors. However, some learners may prefer their errors to be corrected in full, saying that they are unable to correct some of the mistakes they made themselves, which may be true in the case of errors of vocabulary. Teachers can vary their approach according to the wishes of individual learners.
