Wednesday, May 30, 2007
"Correcting Errors"
In part four of "the big assignment," I found it very helpful when it discusses and suggests how to deal with errors from ELL students . I think that these tips should be used on every student because I think it is hard for any student when they have been told their answer was "not correct." I know I hated when a teacher would make me feel bad if I made an error. It can really traumatize a child! However, it is most important with the ELL students because they are in the middle of developing a new language. It also discusses that errors and mistakes are normal and expected. It is also important to know that all errors do not need to be corrected. I think this section is very important because these ELL students are dealing with a lot as it is, we do not need to make them feel anxious or stressed about making an error. Some of the tips I found useful were to search for a cluster or errors in their work and then do a mini lesson on the grammatical errors. This way the students are not being singled out and they may have been wanting to ask questions pertaining to such misunderstandings but may not have known how. Also, I thought it was helpful when they say to never ask, "Do you understand?" That question does not really make a student feel comfortable and it is kind of demeaning to them in a way. If the student does not understand, they might not want to tell you if you ask like that. This section is significant because it stresses the fact that errors are a part of language development, but as a teacher you need to know how to deal with them. Some errors may not be a big deal and can be left alone, but others need to approached in a certain way to avoid any future problems for these children! This allows us to put ourselves in their shoes. Suppose you were learning a new language, you would want all the positive support you can get right?
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4 comments:
In my class we do a lot of in-class reading where the students choose roles to and read them. Right now we are doing West Side Story. While the students are reading, many of them, especially the ELL students, have difficulty with longer or less familar words, and as a result either botch the word, say another word that looks like it, or skip the word alltogether. During my first few days I was unsure what to do; I didn't want to constantly correct them and discourage them from volunteering to read, but I also wanted to help them to read correctly. After talking with my teacher, he told me that it is best to correct them because it is the only way that they will learn, and if I don't correct them they will never learn the words. So now I will interrupt to help them in a nice way, so as not to hurt their felings, and so far it has worked out well. They seem to take the criticism well, and I have noticed that after correcting them, other students will then say the word the right way when it comes up again, which is great because it shows they are learning and becoming more familar with the language.
I can relate. I have two students that come from countries in Africa. They each have heavy accents. Although they try to say words correctly, they usually mispronounce most words. I try to memorize their accent, so that I know when they are mispronouncing/not understanding a word, or when it just may be their accent. I try to nicely correct then whenever they say a word incorrectly. One of the students ignores punctuation and reads in one huge breath. I try to tell her to slow down, but it does not seem to work. Other teachers have informed me that they have tried to talk to her about this before, but she does not listen to them. I think she may be embarrassed of her accent, which is why she reads so fast (because if she would slow down, she would read very well). She just wants to get the passage over with.
I found this section to be very significant also. I remember when I was student teaching last semester, I never felt sure of what to say when correcting a student, and how to do it in a way that did not make the student feel put down or embarrassed. I always felt a little awkward correcting any of the students, especially the ELLs. I think this section of the big assignment gave some good pointers to help teachers feel more confident when correcting students’ mistakes. If I were an ELL I definitely would not want to feel constantly nagged at or picked on over every single mistake I made. I think some of the suggestions are very helpful and I also especially liked the suggestion of searching for a cluster of errors and then presenting a mini lesson on it. Another good point you made was that a teacher should never ask a student, “do you understand?” I am guilty of making this mistake in the past, but now that I am aware of how negatively that question can be interpreted by the students, I will find more effective ways to communicate with students to make sure they understand. This information is really useful for both ELLs and native language speakers. I will definitely put these suggestions to use next semester when I begin my student teaching in the fall.
As the others have posted, I have also come up with the issue of whether I should correct the students when they mispronounce a word or not, especially the ELL's. As a teacher, I know that it is necessary, but as a student, I know how embarrassing it can be. Luckily, many of my students do the correcting themselves. If they hear a classmate mispronounce a word, then they just repeat the word the correct way and the student continues to read after pronouncing it correctly. Although I thought it would have the opposite effect, I found that the students feel more comfortble with their friends or classmates correcting them than the teacher
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