Error Correction in the Second Language Classroom:

Fostering ESOL Students’ Oral Production

Presenters: Miluska Manrique and Michael Perrone

Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation

Correction of students’ verbal utterances is a topic of concern and interest for ESOL teachers.  Among the critical questions to consider regarding error correction in the L2 classroom are the following:  1) should learners’ errors be corrected? 2) When should learners’ errors be corrected? 3) Which errors should be corrected? 4) How should errors be corrected; and, 5) who should do the correcting?  Addressing these questions has important pedagogical implications for classroom teachers as we seek to enhance students’ oral fluency as well as their motivation, while—at the same time—lowering the affective filter in the classroom and fostering the sense of a true community of learners.

In this interactive workshop, the aforementioned questions will be addressed with a focus upon practical activities and strategies that participants will be able to incorporate in their ESOL classrooms.  Among the types of error correction strategies that will be discussed in a discussion-focused format are recasts and prompts. Among the specific types of prompts are the following: explicit correction, clarification request, metalinguisitic cues, elicitation, and repetition. The advantages and limitations of each approach will be addressed within, of course, the context of their role(s) in the ESOL classroom.  

In addition, the presenters will play audio recordings of ESOL students’ oral output—utterances actually produced in ESOL classes.  The verbal production, marked with errors, will be analyzed and discussed by the participants within the framework of the various error correction strategies previously addressed.