English Grammar
Teaching
Class: 碩研英語二甲
Instructor :王鶴巘
Presenters:李佩樺 M97C0256
林亭蓉 M97C0102
蔡文豪 M97C0103
As teachers, we need to deal with errors
The reasons are as follows:
．Language learners make mistakes
．This seems to happen regardless of
the teacher’s skill and perseverance
errors
．Errors play a necessary and important
part in language learning
Having to make a number of on-thespot decisions
Is there an error here?
What kind of error is it?
What caused it?
Does it matter?
What should I do about it?
Take for example:
I had a big surprise. (Wrong or
Correct?)
It’s a grammatically well-formed
sentence.
The meaning is clear and
unambiguous.
The answer is “ wrong ”
The reasons are as follows:
According to corpus evidence
‧Something can be a big surprise
‧A person can be in for a big surprise
‧ You can have a big surprise for
someone
To classify the error
Errors include:
‧Lexical errors
ex 1:My brother was stopping in the door instead
of standing.
ex 2: The Sunday night past instead of last
Sunday night.
．Grammar errors
ex 1: the doorbell rangs→ wrong
verb form
ex 2: we speaked→ wrong tense
ex 3: was the four o’clock→the
subject of the clause has been left
out
‧Discourse errors
Definition: Discourse errors relate to
the way sentences are organised and
linked in order to make whole text
ex: at last; eventually (based on the
meaning of words in the context) →
See page 113
Transfer or interference
Definition: Influence from the
learner’s first language on the
second language
ex: The learner’s pronunciation was
full of sounds from his own language
Positive transfer
Definition: No difference or contrast
is present between the two
languages.
ex 1: S＋V＋O; S＋be ＋SC
約翰喜歡瑪莉; 她是個美麗的小姐
Overgeneralising
Definition: The process of
generalizing a particular rule or item
in the second language.
ex: The doorbell rangs
ex: We speaked (Ved → played,
breaked, goed, speaked, etc)
What is a developmental error?
Learners are unconsciously working
out and organising language, but this
process is not yet complete. This kind
of error is called a developmental
error.
ex: All beginners confuse the tenses in
English
What are systematic errors?
These errors seem to show evidence of a
rule being fairly systematically applied
ex: My brother was stopping, he was
changing, he was having a long hair→ a
verb form (past continuous) being
over-used, but in a systematic way.
How to deal with systematic errors
Correction can provide the feedback
the learner needs to help confirm
or reject a hypothesis, or to tighten
the application of a rule that is being
applied fairly loosely.
One way of testing learners failing to
apply the rule
Self-correct:
Could the writer change speaked to
spoke, for example, if told that speaked
was wrong? If so, this suggests that the
rule is both systematic and correctly
formulated in the learner’s mind, but that
it hasn’t yet become automatic
The question of priorities
Which errors really matter, and which
don’t?
ex: un banane; une pomme→nouns
are distinguished by gender
These errors are likely to distract or
even irritate the reader or listener
Attitudes to error and correction
Attitudes to error run deep and lie at
the heart of teachers’ intuitions about
language learning. Many people still
believe that errors are contagious, and
that learners are at risk of catching
the errors other learners make.
It is often this fear of error infection
that underlies many students’ dislike of
pair and group work. On the other hand,
many teachers believe that to correct
errors is a form of interference, especially
in fluency activities.
Some teachers go further, and argue that
correction of any sort creates a
judgmental – and therefore stressfulclassroom atmosphere, and should be
avoided altogether.
Responding to errors
He has a long hair.
Possible responses:
“No”: negative feedback, no clue for
what is wrong.
Without saying No: facial expression,
shake of the head etc.
Soften the negative force of No: making a
mmmm noise to indicate “Well, that’s
not entirely correct but thanks anyway.”
results in students wonder whether he is
right or wrong.
“He has long hair.”: strict correction.
Teachers should remind students not to
focus only meaning at the expense of
form.
“No article”: the application of
metalanguage (grammatical terminology);
pinpoint the error to promote selfcorrection or peer-correction.
“No. Anyone?”: unambiguous feedback
and invitation for peer-correction, but
risking humiliating the original student.
“He has”: replay the student’s
utterance up to the point where the
error occurred to isolate the error as
a clue for self-correction. Technique:
finger-coding.
“He has a long hair.”: echo the
mistake with a quizzical intonation.
Less threatening than saying No, but
students often fail to self-correct and
think the teacher merely questions
the truth they said.
“I am sorry. I didn’t understand.”
Variations: Sorry? He what?
Excuse me? etc. clarification
requests; friendly signal students the
meaning of their message is unclear,
and suggest it might have been
distorted by the form.
“Just one? Like this ?”: [ draw bald
man with one long hair] literally
interpret the student’s utterance to
show his unintended error.
“A long hair is just one single
hair, like you find in your soup.
For the hair on your head you
wouldn’t use an article: He has
long hair.”: impromptu teaching
point; reactive teaching in respond
students’ error, not trying to
preempt them. Teacher-centered and
passive students.
“Oh, he has long hair, has he?”:
covert feedback (reformulation)重製,
重組,再形成; expansion and
reformulation provide a temporary
scaffold for children’s developing
language competence. Drawback:
students might not notice the
differences between the utterance
from theirs and teachers’.
E.g.: child: Teddy hat.
Mother: Yes, Teddy’s got a hat
on, hasn’t he?
“Good.”: ( OK) intention is to
acknowledge students’ contribution,
irrespective of either accuracy or
meaning; lull them into a false sense
of security, and fossilization.
Teacher says nothing but writes
down error for future reference.
Intention is to postpone the feedback
so as not to disrupt the talk. (Real
operating conditions)
The choice of feedback strategy will
depend on factors as the following:
The type of error: major effect on
communication? Learners can selfrepair?
The type of activity: focus on form
or on meaning?
The type of learner: discourage or
humiliate learners? Learners feel
short-changed if no correction?
Sample lesson
Lesson one: using learners’ errors to
review cohesive devices
(intermediate)
Participant: a class of mixed
nationalities in Australia
Goal: sentences and parts of
sentences are connected by words
like and, but, however, so etc.
Step 1: the teacher hands out a
worksheet which consist of sentences
collected from students’ previous
written work, and he asks them to
attempt to correct in pairs and
identify one feature in common.
Step 2: the teacher helps them to
pick out some peripheral problems
(went substitute for has dropped
into) and avoids dealing with
despite and nevertheless.
Step 3: the teacher distributes a
handout about grammar and ask
them to study before returning to the
sentence correction task.
Step 4: the teacher elicits corrected
versions of sentence and writes on
the board, underlining the linking
devices and ask individuals to
explain the usage.
Step 5: the teacher has out the
exercise about linking devices.
Discussion: fluency practice can be
targeted at latter stage, but accuracy
may be best dealt with a reactive
and reflective approach. Using
students’ errors for consciousnessraising purpose is suitable for the
specific problems of the students.
Evaluation:
The E-factor: collecting learners’
errors from written work is easy by
computers while capturing spoken
errors. Self-study grammars books
or reference notes are available, so
making grammar handout is
unnecessary.
Error-analysis is effective for L1
transfer mistake.
Grammar lessons should be taught
around errors the learners actually
made, but not taught to preempt the
errors might make. Error-driven
approach: focus instruction on what
really matters, in favour of
effectiveness.
The A-factor: a focus on errors may
discourage learners. However, most
students accept explicit feedback on
error between focused instruction
and random acquisition.
Sample lesson 2
Teaching grammar through
reformulation (Elementary)
Participant: a group of Japanese
students
Goal: the impetus underlying
reformulation is more: This is how I
would say it.
Reformulation
It is the process by which the
teacher takes the meanings the
learners are attempting to express in
English and “translates” these into
an acceptable form.
Step 1
Teacher introduces the theme; such
as “disaster”, and without giving
explicit prompts, but indicating that
students should say anything with
the topic.
Teacher encourages the production
of isolated words, phrases and
sentences.
Step 2
When students are starting to run
out of idea or start departing to
widely from the topic, the teacher
stops the activity and draws a line
down the centre of the board.
Asks one student as the class scribe,
collate the ideas that students have
produced about the topic, write up
on to the board.
Step 3
Teacher read the students’ text
aloud, without commentary, but
asking any questions where the
meaning is unclear.
Teacher reformulates this text on to
the other half of the board while he
always insisting that this is the way I
would say it.
Step 4
Students then, working individually,
write their own texts about similar
topic.
They compare these in pairs,
suggesting changes and
improvements, before submitting
their texts to the teacher for
correction.
Discussion
In step 1, the focus at this stage is simply on
brainstorming ideas.
In step 2, the teacher renounces any active role
in the construction of the text.
In step 3, the students are involved in the text
reformulation process.
In step4, using students’ original text (erase or
cover up) as a prompt. It will force attention of
form, as well as encouraging greater
attentiveness during the reformulation stage.
Evaluation
The E-factor:
1. It requires no materials preparation since the
texts are created entirely by the students.
2. This process requires only a board, although
overhead projectors are very useful for this
purpose.
3. The greatest demand is on the teachers’ skill
at on-the-spot reformulation.
The A-factor:
1. The reformulation of learners’ texts is likely to
have greater relevance to learners than the study
of “imported” texts.
2. It has to be handled sensitively, so that
learners see it as an empowering activity rather
than an exercise in humiliation.
3. Any activity that allows the teacher prolonged
control of the blackboard runs the risk of
becoming perilously “chalky-talky”.
Conclusions
Not all errors are caused by L1
interference.
Not all errors are grammar errors,
and not all grammar errors are
simply tense mistakes.
Not all errors matter equally: nor do
they all respond to the same kind of
treatment.
Correction is not the only form of
feedback that teachers can provide.
Other options include positive
feedback, clarification requests, and
reformulation.
Failure to provide some negative feedback
may have a damaging effect on the
learner’s language development in the
long run; on the other hand , providing
only negative feedback may be ultimately
demotivating.
Learners’ errors offer a rich source of
material for language focus and
consciousness-raising.