TKT Unit 11

The Role of Error

By
Porntip Bodeepongse
 Mistakes are divided into:
 Errors happen when learners try
to say something that is beyond
their current level of language
processing.
 Usually learners cannot correct
errors themselves because they
don’t understand what is wrong.
The other type of mistakes:
 Slips are the result of tiredness,
worry or other temporary emotions or
circumstances.

 Slips can be corrected by learners

once they realise they have made
them, maybe with little prompting
from the teacher or another learner.
 Key concepts
 We need to think hard about whether,
when and how to correct learners.
 In fluency activities it is better not to
pay attention to learners’ errors—ignore
them—so that the learners have an
opportunity to develop their confidence
and fluency, and to experiment with
language.
First reason why L2 learners
make mistakes
 Interference or transfer: influence
from learners’ first language (L1) or
their mother tongue
 Learners may use sound patterns,
lexis or grammatical structures from
their own language in English.
 Second reason why L2 learners
make mistakes
 Developmental error: Learners are
unconsciously working out and
organising language but this process is
not yet complete.
 Overgeneralisation = when learners
wrongly apply a rule for one item of
the language to another item
 Errors are part of learners’
interlanguage (the learners’ own
version of the 2nd language which
they speak as they learn).

 Interlanguage is not fixed because

learners unconsciously process, i.e.
analyse and reorganise it.
 More key concepts
 Errors which prevent communication are
more important than those which do not.

 Different learners may need to be

corrected or not depending on their
stages of learning, learning styles and
level of confidence.
 Ways of helping learners
 To expose them to lots of language that
is just beyond their level, through
reading and listening
 To give them opportunities to focus on
the form of language
 To give them time to use language to
communicate and interact and see if
they can do so successfully
 Last but not least;-)
 Errors are useful not only to
learners but also to the teacher.
They can help the teacher see how
well learners have learnt and what
kind of help they may need.