CORRECTING WRITTEN WORK

Teacher and student correction:

If students have not learned something, we cannot expect them to correct it themselves. On the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable and pedagogically sound to get them to correct their own mistakes. And it is certainly no use getting cross with the students if they keep on making certain errors. The lesson we can learn from these is that he students need to learn something, whether or not the syllabus or the course book has provided for it at this stage, and the best way we can help them is by giving them the opportunity to learn it. Learners’ errors, in short, can help shape our teaching (and certainly our remedial teaching).

We need to stress once again the importance of getting to learners themselves to identify and correct mistakes. Ultimately they will have to examine, evaluate and improve their own works: this is part of the process of drafting, correcting and writing final versions. But this important critical ability will not develop unless the learners are given the opportunity to exercise it from a much earlier level. There will be occasions when you will want to correct all the mistakes in a piece of written work. Equally, however, there will be occasions when you can leave it to the students themselves. For a start, to get them into the habit of looking critically at a piece of written work which has not been corrected by the teacher, they can work in pairs or small groups to try to identify any mistakes and only then to consult with you. This procedure will not work perfectly on all occasions, but it will at least get the students into the habit of checking a piece of written work for themselves.

Correction procedures:

a) Correct all the mistakes:

This is the traditional approach to the correction of written work. It is time-consuming for the teacher and discouraging for the students – at least if they get their work back covered with red ink. Some students learn nothing from it; others are more interested in why something is wrong rather than the correction itself. If you can correct something in class, while the students are still engaged in writing and everything is fresh in their minds, this is likely to be more effective than looking at a mass of corrections several days after the event.

Unless educational system obliges you to carry out this kind of correction, you should consider alternative approaches.

b) Correct mistakes selectively:

that is you do not attempt to correct all the mistakes in a piece of writing, but only those in certain areas, such as tenses or articles, either because this is where the students particularly need help or because you have decided to focus attention no these for a while. Certainly this approach is more positive than total correction – in practice, of course, most teachers exercise some form of selection – but probably needs to be backed up by some form of remedial teaching. ( see below).

c) indicate mistakes so that the students can correct them:

this is normally done by underlying the mistakes and using some kind of symbol to focus on the attention to the students on the kind of mistake they have made. For possible list these, see below

SYMBOL	MEANING	EXAMPLE
S	Incorrect spelling	I received jour letter
w. o.	Wrong word order	We know well this city   Always I am happy here
T	Wrong tense	If he will come, it will be too   Late
C	Concord subject and the verb do not agree	Two policemen has come.   The news are bad today
W F	Wrong form	We want that you come.   That table is our
S/P	Singular or plural form wrong	We need more informations.
	Something has been left out	They said was wrong   He hit me on shoulder
[ ]	Something is not necessary	[ ] It was too much difficult
? M	Meaning is not clear	? M Come and rest with us for a week   The view from here is very ? M Suggestive
N A	The usage is not appropriate	He requested me to sit down
P	Punctuation wrong	Whats your name.   He asked me what I wanted?

 

Using a list of thşs kind, you can get the students, individually, in pairs or in small groups, to identify at least most of the mistakes for themselves. If they cannot, then they should consult you. This approach certainly makes them more aware of the kind of mistakes they are making and is therefore likely to result in something being learned. You do not need to indicate all the mistakes. If students left to identify mistakes for themselves, they may not bother. Even if they work in groups, some form of confirmation may be needed and this could take up a lot of class time in large class.

If your teaching situation permits, you could try to implement a staged approach for getting the students to correct their own work.

Stage 1: underline the mistake and diagnose it by writing the sppropriate symbol in the margin.

Stage 2: underline the mistake but do not diagnose it.

Stage 3: disgnose the mistake by writing the symbol in the margin but do not show where it is in the line.

Stage 4: put a cross in the margin ( for each mistake).

Stage 5: put a cross against each line with a mistake but do not indicate how many mistakes there are. ,

 

d) let the students identify and correct their own mistakes:

this is not a procedure that you are likely to be able to follow all the time. Occasionally, however, you should be prepared to hand over the whole business of correction to the students –which they will generally do with enjoyment.

 

OTHER THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP STUDENTS WHEN THEY MAKE MİSTAKES ARE:

a)      explain a mistake: for example you can write a comment in the margin or at the end of a piece of written work. This procedure is especially useful for drawing attention to recurrent mistakes at a particular area and when look at the students’ work in the class.

b)      Indicate to the students that they should consult you about a mistake.

c)      Use the mistake a basis for remedial teaching: this procedure should be followed if a sufficient number students in the class have made a mistake to warrant general correction. Alternatively, you can set individual remedial work. Remedial teaching may take the form of an explanation, where this is felt to be sufficient, or exercises, oral or written, whichever seems to be appropriate, designed to correct the mistake.

 

Teachers tend to place their faith in one type of correction procedure rather than another. In particular, many do not accept self correction procedures. In general although it is important to give the students opportunities to correct written work so that they develop a self-critical attitude, it does not seem that one approach is so intrinsically superior that it can be used all the time and you should therefore draw on the various approaches to suit the needs of your students.