Should all errors made by foreign language pot

Should all errors made by foreign language learners be corrected at any cost?. Overcorrection should be avoided at any cost Error correction may prove to be a difficult task to language

Should all errors made by foreign language learners

be corrected at any cost?

(Overcorrection should be avoided at any cost)

Error correction may prove to be a difficult task to

language teachers because it involves decision-making

about what to correct, when to correct, how to correct and

how much to correct Several approaches to correcting

student errors have been suggested One of them holds

that all errors made by learners should be corrected at any

cost On the surface, this approach seems to be of much

benefit to students However, a close examination will

reveal that this approach to error correction will do

students more harm than good

The first reason that teachers will undermine students’

confidence if they correct student mistakes all the time It

is not difficult to realize the demotivating effect of this

overcorrection Perhaps there is nothing more

disconcerting or intimidating to students than to be

interrupted every time they make a mistake in oral

practice Distracted and discouraged in this way, they may

forget what they intend to say or feel that they will never

be able to say anything right The damage that over

written correction does to students is no less serious Most

students will feel a sense of failure or defeat when they

see their piece of written work covered with red

corrections and comments from the teacher Only very few

well-motivated students will not lose heart in this case

Thus the teacher’s over emphasis on accuracy at the

expense of fluency or comprehensibility has a detrimental

effect on students indeed It goes against the principle of

language teaching that part of the teacher’s job is to

support and encourage students, not to discourage or

demotivate them

The second reason is that overcorrection fails to focus

students on genuine errors Apparently, teachers who tend

to overcorrect think that all incorrect forms produced by

learners are dangerous and need to be fixed However,

their indiscriminate treatment of student errors may

backfire because students may not understand what is

worth correcting There are many kinds of errors or

mistakes and if all the errors or mistakes are picked up

and dealt with, students will assume that they are of equal

importance In reality, some of the inaccuracies produced

by learners are just unfortunate mistakes resulting from

mere confusion, from lapses of memory, from slips of the

tongue or the pen, etc Given time and help or guidance

form the teacher and friends, learners can remedy these

mistakes themselves In contrast, genuine errors reflect

students’ lack of knowledge about the target language For

example, they do not know what the correct form or word

should be or they believe that what they are saying or

writing is correct In other words, these errors are clear

indications of problem areas to students and as such they

should be addressed immediately if teachers do not want

them to persist and hinder learning in the long run

The last and also the most important reason is that

teachers who are in favor of constant error correction fail

to realize that mistakes are a natural and important part of

learning If teachers insist on putting right anything

incorrect in students’ oral and written communication, they

will over time reinforce the false belief that mistakes of any

type are something to be feared and should be avoided at

any cost However, in so doing, they ignore a very basic

fact that even native speakers, those who are supposed to

have a good, if not perfect, command of the language,

make mistakes all the time The main reason is that

communication, oral or written, is a complex activity To

process the language people have to simultaneously

make use of several language systems such as syntax,

lexis, phonology They also need to draw on their

communicative competence to use the language

appropriately It is understandable why any instance of

using the target language is quite challenging to learners

It is therefore quite unrealistic to ask learners’ speech or

written work to be faultless So teachers have to be open

to the fact that mistakes made by learners are natural and

inevitable What is more important, not all mistakes are

regrettable and should be condemned; they have a role to

play too As an expert in language teaching puts it,

mistakes are sometimes “healthy proof that learning is

taking place” It may sound strange but it is true A telling

example can be found when students are adventurous

enough to experiment with the structure or the word or the

sound they have just learned instead of sticking to the safe

old one In this case the students’ brave attempt should be

encouraged rather than thwarted

In summary, error correction is an area in which teachers

can offer direct service to students However, they will do

their students a grave disservice if they insist on

overcorrection The implication for foreign language

teaching is that remedial work done by the teacher should

highlight important mistakes to encourage students to use

the correct form to improve their performance Moreover,

teachers should be sensitive enough to tolerate some

errors, especially those that are evidence of learning

taking place Such an attitude to errors on the part of the

teacher will have positive effects on students the most

important of which is to boost their confidence and

overcome their fear of making mistakes