Role of Error and Feedback in Teaching English

C.Sujatha

Lecturer

Department of English

Vickram College of Engineering

Enathi.

Abstract

This present study places emphasis on the imperative for any EFL teacher to get to know about the methods of error correction and feedback. The EFL students, who have taken English as their second language, confront much difficulty while listening, reading, writing, and speaking the target language. Out of the four skills, writing and speaking are the challenging tasks. Influence of the native language, ignorance of the basic grammar and it's rules make the students to commit mistakes. Sometimes, the written and spoken part of the student’s language lacks the logicality. Hence, it is the responsibility of the language teacher to correct the errors at any given chance.It is difficult to enumerate the rules and methods being involved in correcting errors in English language. Correcting the errors and giving the feedback would reinforce the students learning process. Feedback is needed to avoid fossilization. Various methods are adapted by the teachers in order to correct the errors and to give feedback. These methods would make the students to augment their language level. Unfortunately, some methods instead of making the students to learn something usefully become a hindrance to their progress. Instead of getting motivated, they start to ignore the whole learning process. To avoid this, the EFL teacher must be cautious enough to employ only the suitable methods.

The role of English is vital in this modern world. So, the role of English teacher is altogether important. English as a second language is a challenging task both for the students who learn it and also for the teachers who teach it. The EFL students always find it hard to cope up with the learning process of the target language. They encounter much difficulty while writing, speaking, listening and reading. As we know well that speaking and writing skills demand more hard work from the learner's side. Errors stand as a barrier to their progress in language learning. Committing error is considered to be a sinful act in most of the learning environment. Errors are seen as something negative in learning process; rather, errors should be seen as a clue to the active learning progress being made by a student as he or she tries out strategies of communication in the new language. There are varieties of errors the students tend to commit during the learning process. One type is the systematic error. It refers to the inadequate knowledge possessed by the students. The other type of error is the mistake. Mistakes are caused by other non-linguistic factors such as carelessness, tiredness, distractions or other circumstances that are not part of the knowledge itself.

The influence of the native language deters the students from learning the structure and rules of the target language. Any EFL student is well versed in his or her own mother tongue, it’s rules and it's structure. So, he/she automatically reproduces the structure and the rule of the native language while speaking or writing in English and the errors become unavoidable. Errors committed by the students, are inevitable for any EFL teachers to find out the standard of their students. It allows the teachers to design new strategies and methodologies in order to get rid of the common errors prevailing among the L2 students.

The sources of errors vary tremendously to each individual. But, Richards and Sampson (1974) suggested seven factors characterizing second-language learner systems, namely: language transfer, intralingual interference, sociolinguistic situation, modality, age, successions of approximative systems and, universal hierarchy of difficulty. Brown(1980) stated four sources of errors.

  1. Interlingual transfer- the linguistic system which is readily available to the new EFL learner is his/her own native language. So, the interference is unavoidable.
  2. Intralingual transfer- once the EFL learner is familiar with the rules and structure of the L2, more intralingual-generalization would occur within L2.
  3. Learning concept- it is otherwise called “false concepts” (Richards 1971) and “induced errors” (Stenson, 1974). 1) Misleading interpretation and explanation from the teacher, 2) misguiding and faulty structures presented in a textbook.3) confounded vocabulary items 4) using bookish language or formal forms of language.
  4. Communication techniques- sometimes the techniques and strategies employed by the L2 learners would end up as an error. The techniques are:1) word coinage,2) circumlocution,3) false cognates etc.,

Correction is essential to make the students to be aware of their mistakes. It is the process to mend their inefficiency while writing the L2. “Grammar” hinders the students from achieving their language learning goal. So, it is the responsibility of the teacher to make the corrections particularly in the morphological and syntactic areas. Correction and feedback would help the students to elevate their level of knowledge from one standard to the other. Feedback plays a major role in improving the knowledge of the students. Various methods and strategies have been followed by the EFL teachers. But, it is not sure that all techniques will be successful. The EFL teacher must rely on the knowledge level and sensitive nature of his/her students, in order to employ a particular method of feedback. Because, some written and oral feedbacks will be very destructible.

Feedback is classified into two types. They are positive feedback and negative feedback. The positive feedback refers to the making of good remarks, praising the student's attempt and writing the good remarks. Negative feedback is not scolding or writing a bad remark rather, making the students to realise their mistakes they have committed. Feedback, meant for speaking skill is different from the writing skill. The speaking skill's feedback doesn't give much importance to the rules and regulations of the English grammar. The common approaches usually adapted by the EFL teachers in the classroom environment are:1)the receptive-transmissionapproach,2) the constructivist approach and,3) the co-constructive approach.

The receptive-transmission approachinvolves the teacher to introduce new knowledge, concepts and skills to the learners and as such those teachers direct the learning environment and correct learners. This learning involves the better understanding of new ideas, memorizing new facts, practicing new skills and making decisions based on new information. Therefore, interruptions and comparisons, which normally deplete the constructiveness of feedback process, are not unusual when using feedback with this approach.

The constructive approach is a less effective way for the teacher to give feedback. Because, the input from the teacher's part is very less and this approach solely bank on the intelligence level of the students. Still, the teacher plays the main role and of course, he/she is an expert. But, the students are expected to put their efforts more than the teachers and they have to play an active role. This approach is believed to help learners draw their own conclusions, make their own connections between experiences and improve their understanding of the subject.

The Co-constructive approach proposes equal importance between the teacher and learner. The teacher's role in this approach is not authoritative and dominating. The teacher and the learner share their thoughts and understandings. The role of feedback is just to connect the participants. Here the feedback and the reflections are interlaced.

Lightbown and Spada (1999) identified four major kinds of corrective feedback that teacher often use: a) Clarification requests, b) Recasts, c) Elicitations and, d)Metalinguistic feedback. Clarification request is one of the corrective feedbacks, in which the teacher asks the student to repeat his/her utterance because of misunderstanding or because of an error. Often the teacher comes out with certain phrases such as 'pardon', 'please repeat it' or 'what do you mean by...?'. In Recast method the teacher tries to replicate the error committed by the student with much emphasis on the correct form. In Elicitation method the teacher shoots out question, in order to make the learner to learn the correct form. In Metalinguistic method the teacher comments on the error, using language information about the error and correct the form of that error.

Written feedback is essential in learning the English language. Feedbacks related to writing skill are as important as anything because, it is always the writing skill that dominates the whole learning process. From the point of view of the examination, writing skill plays a major role. So, it is the duty of the EFL teacher to reinforce the necessity of good writing skill among the students.

The most significantly used feedback methods fall into two common categories: feedback on form and feedback on content. The common methods used by the teachers are correcting the surface errors, pointing out the place and type of error without correcting it, and underlining the errors to indicate the presence of errors. The first type allows the student to copy the correction and the later one makes the students to find out the error on their own. Not all the methods are successful. Correcting the surface errors make the students to be confined within the boundary of mere copying and without understanding the importance of the correction. So, it is ineffective in most of the situations. Allowing the students to search the faults committed by them will make the students to learn something out of it.

Written feedback, like writing annotations or remarks, will be resulted in confusion, and depression, if the student is not able to fathom the meaning of the feedback. He/she will simply ignore it. Despite these negative aspects, there are effective points to some of the common methods of teacher feedback. Fathman and Walley (1990) discovered that when students receive grammar feedback that indicated the place but not type of errors, the students significantly improved their grammar scores on subsequent rewrites of the papers.

Student-teacher conference proved to be effective. It lets the student to receive the oral feedback from the teacher, who was once struggling to comprehend the written feedback. Leki (1990) points out that students prefer error correction methods that label mistakes and let them make corrections on their own. In the area of grammar correction and feedback, teacher can use the standard set of symbols or markings to indicate type and place of errors and more than that the students must be familiarised with these symbols. Teachers must use only the standard set of clear and direct comments and questions to indicate place and type of content feedback. These set of comments and questions must be the known pattern to the students. Otherwise, it would baffle the students and they will start to ignore it. The comments that the teachers use and training that they give students can be further developed in individual conferences.

Thus, feedback is essential to avoid fossilization. The act of giving feedback demands much attention and care from the teacher’s part. It is an art. Our feedback must make the students to attain their goal. Unfortunately, some feedback methods impede the spirit of the students. So many scholars and experts suggested so many methods in order to master this art. Hence, it is the EFL teacher’s task to hone his/her standard in this art and must come out with useful strategies.

Works Cited

Brown, H. Douglas. 1980. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Englewood

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Leki, I. (1990). “Coaching from the margins: Issues in written response”. Second

Language Writing (pp. 57-68). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, Jack C., and Gloria P. Sampsom, 1974. “The Study of Learner English.” Error

Analysis: Perspective on Second Language Acquisition, ed.Jack C. Richards.

London: Longman.