Error Correction

Error correction is often done by the teacher providing corrections for mistakes made by students. However, it is probably more effective for students to correct their own mistakes. In order to do this, students and the teacher should have a common shorthand for correcting mistakes.

Aim:

Teaching students to correct their own mistakes

Activity:

Mistake identification and correction

Read More

Knowing How and When to Correct Students in Class

By Kenneth Beare

Level:

Intermediate

Outline:

• Discuss the importance of correcting your own mistakes with students. Point out that information arrived out inductively (by their own reasoning) is more likely to be retained over the long term.
• Go through the shorthand used in the following exercise for various types of mistakes.
• Ask students to first find mistakes in the short biography.
• Give students the correction marks copy of the short biography
• Ask students to correct the short biography based on the correction marks.
• Give students corrected version of a short biography.

Correction Key

• T = tense
• P = punctuation
• WO = word order
• Prep = preposition
• WW = wrong word
• GR = grammar
• Y upside down = word missing
• SP = spelling

Find and mark the mistakes in the following short biography.

Jack Friedhamm was born to New York on October 25, 1965. He began school at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years. He then went to New York University to learn Medicine. He decided on Medicine because he liked biology when he was at school. While he was to University he met his wife Cindy. Cindy was a beautiful woman with hair long black. They went along for years before they decided getting married. Jack began to work like a doctor as soon as he graduated to Medical School. They had two children named Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens for the past two years. Jack is very interested painting and likes to paint portraits of his son Peter.

Compare your corrections with the image at the top and then correct the mistakes.

Compare your corrected version with the following:

Jack Friedhamm was born in New York on October 25, 1965. He began school at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years old. He then went to New York University to learn Medicine. He decided on Medicine because he liked biology when he was at school. While he was at University, he met his wife Cindy. Cindy was a beautiful woman with long black hair. They went out for years before they decided to get married. Jack began to work as a doctor as soon as he had graduated from Medical School. They have had two children named Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens for the past two years. Jack is very interested in painting and likes to paint portraits of his son Peter.

• Short Biography with Mistakes Printing Page
• Short Biography with Correction Marks Printing Page
• Correct Version of Short Biography Printing Page