Tag Archives: correction

The role of making and correcting errors in second language learning


Written by - Brian Strong & Elif Once Buyukerol, Canada

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Understanding the role of errors in second language learning is crucial for developing effective teaching strategies. Despite their frequent occurrence, errors are often viewed negatively. However, they can provide invaluable insights into the learning process and serve as potent learning tools. This discussion aims to explore how making and correcting errors can enhance second language vocabulary acquisition, offering practical implications for classroom practices. Errors and mistakes are terms often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings in the context of language learning. Errors are systematic and occur due to a lack of knowledge; they reflect gaps in the learner’s understanding and are often persistent. Mistakes, on the other hand, are occasional lapses that learners can self-correct when pointed out,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Assessment, EAP, ESL, Language
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Why teaching Second Language listening is difficult and how to use bottom-up listening strategies to teach listening more effectively


Written by - Christina Cole, University of Toronto

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Listening is the skill that most of our students feel the least confident about and the least control over in terms of what they can do to improve. It is also the skill that is the most widely used, both in academic and non-academic contexts. For these reasons, we owe it to our students to show them how to become successful English language listeners.

Second-language listening is difficult for several reasons, most of which stem from the differences between oral and written channels (Brown, 2011). These include perception problems, issues of memory and attention, and strategy choice.

Perception problems arise because speech is fast and transient; utterances are spoken quickly, and they disappear. We don’t pause to separate speech into distinct words;  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Listening, Pronunciation, Teaching, Uncategorised, Vocabulary
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Why I am hype about Translingualism


Written by - Stephanie Samboo, Sheridan College

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Within three years of immigrating to Canada, I was fortunate to be hired in a GTA community college teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP). I enjoyed the camaraderie of my colleagues and students as I progressed in my new job, but I also began to experience uncomfortable incidents which propelled me on the journey towards Translingualism.

Having been born and bred in Singapore, the formal English variety I learned in school was Singapore English, which was essentially based on British English, and the informal variety I spoke at home was Singlish, a melange of English, Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay and Tamil. Therefore, I tend to pronounce words differently from Canadian English and rely heavily on the British lexicon.  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Professional Development, Teaching, Uncategorised, Writing
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To correct or not correct? That is not the question


Written by - Maria-Lourdes Lira-Gonzales, University of Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue

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For decades, writing and writing instruction have often been viewed from a learning-to-write perspective; within this perspective, writing should be taught when students’ second language (L2) development is sufficiently settled. Recent research, however, shows that writing has a major role in promoting L2 development; from this writing-to-learn perspective, writing is seen as a tool for language learning (Manchón, 2011) that allows L2 learners to integrate new knowledge, test hypotheses, and automatize knowledge (Williams, 2012). Also, within this perspective corrective feedback (CF) provided by teachers facilitates language learning (Bitchener & Ferris, 2012).

Corrective feedback is defined as any indication to the learners that their use of the target language is incorrect (Lightbown & Spada, 2013). In writing, CF is concerned with incorrect grammatical or lexical use of the target language,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Assessment, Grammar, Teaching, Writing
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