WHY I STOPPED SAYING “ERROR CORRECTION”

I can’t pinpoint exactly how this idea formed but I am grateful that it appeared in my thinking. The insight I had was that error correction only referred to the actions of one person – the teacher. When we say error correction we mean “errors were corrected” but we have no idea of what that experience was like for a learner who seems to play no role in the process. In other words, it is a teacher-centred term that tends to describe the actions of a teacher and nobody else.

Despite this, the concept of error correction is widely used in EFL. Error correction is used as a crude yardstick of teacher competence because it suggests native speaker authority. The EFL industry needs teachers who have the ability to say what is and isn’t correct in student language production. So you have to be able to project that authority in the classroom and that means standing at a board and pointing out to learners what they got wrong.

Don’t get me wrong. Criticising the concept of error correction is not the same as saying “Let’s ditch feedback” because that’s not my argument. Students most certainly need feedback and it needs to be rich, detailed and timely. But what students don’t need from any teacher is a mindset in which their language output is viewed solely through a correctness lens. Unfortunately, the term error correction promotes a fussy, mean-spirited way to think about learners and their language output. If a student said to me “My grandfather has died last week” I would want to hear that fact rather than a Present Perfect “error”.

QUESTIONS

What’s your take on the notion of error correction and have you ever seen it as problematic? How do you approach error correction in your lessons? Is feedback a better word and idea than error correction?