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Sample Literature Review 2

The comparative analysis of spoken error correction strategies in English and German language teaching

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1. Review of literature

As German and English both belong to the most popular and widely spoken

languages and they are especially important in Hungary, it is essential to learn them and

speak them at a very high level to get by easily. Speaking languages makes people more

employable, people can meet foreigners everywhere, on the streets or even in shops, and

it is also quite popular that people go on holiday abroad, where they need to speak a

foreign language to communicate and get on easily.

Errors and mistakes play an important role in acquiring a language, as they

provide proof for the fact that people put effort in language learning and try to

communicate, as they can. But what is an error at all? Hendrickson (1978) provides a

very thorough description for it in his writing: “The definition of an “error,” a word

derived from Latin errare meaning “to wander, roam or stray,” depends on its use for a

particular purpose or objective” (p.387). According to the author, error can be an

utterance, form, or structure, which is found unacceptable by the teacher, because it

cannot be seen as appropriate or it does not occur in a real-life conversation (p.387).

Correcting students’ mistakes is a really difficult and controversial issue in all

the languages, especially concerning German and English. About the importance of

mistakes, not only Edge (1989), but also Bartram & Walton (1991) wrote a great

amount. The latter believe that “mistakes are part of the learning process: not wrong

turnings on the road towards mature language use, but actually part of the road itself”

(p.11).

Edge (1989) also states several times that mistakes must not be considered as

problems; on the contrary, they are a part of the students’ learning process. They are

signs that students began to learn the language system and are taking learning steps

(p.14). Teachers should consider these as learning steps and see their students’

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development in them. In the process of error correction, teachers have to take risks and

chances, nevertheless, they have to act carefully, not to discourage learners from taking

these learning steps: “If the teacher wants accuracy above all things and never mind

what ideas the students express, then that teacher will get attempts at accuracy: no

mistakes and no learning steps” (p.16). So, all in all, teachers need a “change of heart”

in terms of treating students’ language and consider mistakes as something positive.

In the following sections, related literature and research articles will be reviewed

and summarized on the topic of error correction in both languages, but mainly in

English, to provide a detailed background of the empirical study, which is presented in

the second half of this thesis. Unfortunately, the topic of error correction is not so highly

discussed in the methodology of German language teaching, so mostly English

literature on the present topic will be discussed in detail.

2.1 Error correction and corrective feedback

1.1.1. What to correct & when to correct

In terms of error correction, the type of mistake is not the only aspect to be

considered, but teachers also have to pay close attention to what to correct and when to

correct. Harmer (2015) believes that giving corrective feedback is a difficult, highly

sophisticated, and personal issue (p.158), and Hendrickson (1978) considers it a

difficult challenge to determine whether an error should be corrected or ignored and

tolerated (p.389). Ellis (2009) believes that teachers need considerable pragmatic and

pragma-linguistic competence to be able to select the most appropriate strategy to

correct a particular mistake (p.9).

According to Edge (1989), students’ utterances can include not only errors, but

also slips of the tongue. Slips of the tongue are usually correctable by the students

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themselves; however, errors need the teachers’ intervention. Given that several mistakes

can occur in a student run, teachers again have to decide which ones to correct. Jeremy

Harmer (2015) suggests that teachers should choose those mistakes that are in close

relation to the given language point or the ones that make it difficult for the

communication to be successful. Furthermore, overcorrecting the students’ utterances

can have a de-motivating effect on students. In contrast with this, if teachers tolerate

some errors, that can be very profitable for the students, because, as Hendrickson (1978)

advocates, the tolerance of some errors results in students gaining motivation and self-

confidence and they can also experience a sense of achievement, whilst correcting each

and every mistake can be very counter-productive (p.390391). For instance, it is

deemed to be important to determine which mistakes should be corrected and which

should remain uncorrected, as a feeling of success can be instilled in students by the

teachers’ corrective techniques. Hendrickson states that error correction should mostly

happen during manipulative grammar practice and only to a smaller extent during

communicative practice, but mostly only with high-frequency errors (p.390).

Before teachers decide whether to correct a mistake or not, they have to take

several aspects of it into account: firstly, whether the mistake is serious enough to be

corrected; secondly, whether they should correct those mistakes immediately, or rather

wait until later; and thirdly, they also have to decide who should make the correction,

the teachers themselves or the students themselves, or a peer (Harmer, 2015, p.156).

Hendrickson (1978) highlights three types of errors whose correction can come in

handy: errors that impede successful communication, errors with highly stigmatizing

effect, and high-frequency errors that keep re-occurring in students’ oral and written

performance, but meanwhile, teachers are advised to avoid correction strategies that

make students frustrated and embarrassed (p.392).

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Amara (2015) also wonders whether errors should be corrected immediately or

only later, which she calls delayed correction. However, the author maintains that

teachers are first confronted with the question of fluency versus accuracy. Amara comes

to the conclusion that for communicative purposes delayed correction is preferable to

immediate correction. According to advanced students’ beliefs, pronunciation and

grammatical mistakes should be corrected immediately, because provided that these

errors are corrected later, students will forget about them and will not learn anything

from it. In addition to this, teachers also have to adapt error correction to the overall

situation which dominates in the classroom (p.62).

As for when to correct a certain erroneous utterance, Ur (2012), Edge (1989), Ellis

(2009) and Wulf (2001) also highlight the terms of accuracy versus fluency, which are

also of crucial importance. Harmer (2015) elaborates on these two important terms.

Accuracy focuses on only the language forms, as contrasted with fluency, which targets

the content of what students say, and whether they communicate effectively. If a task is

created to promote accuracy, then correction, also known as online correction, is a very

beneficial intervention for the students from the teacher’s side. However, while

communication activities, error correction can be less attractive, for mainly two reasons,

which are pointed out by Harmer (2015): firstly, in this case, the correction interrupts

the students, and secondly, communication is what helps the process of language

learning. Harmer poses the perfect solution for this, which is interrupting the students as

late as possible. This process is also called offline correction, whose main idea is to

work on errors only after the activity has finished. In this case, teachers have a back-seat

role. Nevertheless, if teachers do not really approve of this, they can still use gentle

correction, which involves for example reformulation.

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All in all, Harmer (2015) concludes that being aware of how effective teachers’

correction is, is of high importance, since it requires the teachers’ reflection and action

research; however, students also need to be asked about how they feel about it (p.158).

Bartram & Walton (1991) also review fluency and accuracy in their book, and

they add some aspects to their definitions. As for accuracy, students are encouraged to

speak as a native speaker which, of course, results in intense error correction, and as for

fluency, the authors highlight the need for periods in the lessons which are free of

correction (p.32). The authors draw attention to the fact that students do not see things

in the same way as teachers in terms of fluency and accuracy. That is why teachers

should consider how to build up their syllabus and their lessons. It is not beneficial to

work on accuracy only when students are fresh and work on fluency later, or at the end

of the week. Teachers have to put emphasis on both of these in a lesson. Long term

considerations are very significant, as students depend highly on teachers (p.34).

Correction can have a number of psychological effects, positive and negative as well.

Correction can cause frustration, discouragement, satisfaction, confidence and fear, so it

is the teachers’ job to recognize which strategy to use to achieve the best effect

(p.2930).

Ur (2012) also raises the question whether teachers should correct during fluent

speech (p.96). There is a huge controversy in it, as teachers would not like to interrupt

the students as, firstly, it would disrupt the flow of their speech, and it could also

discourage and harm communication. Secondly, if error correction does not occur,

mistakes are confirmed and fossilized. Most teachers use recasting for correcting errors,

which get forgotten easily. That is why on-the-spot correction would be better, as

stopping the students to correct the mistake insures notification and acceptance from the

part of the students.

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Ur (2012) also states that correction is, of course, up to professional judgment and

certain factors need to be taken into serious consideration. The factors are the following:

level of confidence of the student, goal of the course, frequency and gravity of the error,

willingness of students to tolerate interruption. It needs to be kept in mind that

interruption can be useful and productive at the same time, but it is learned by teachers

“on their feet” (p.96), as they gain more and more experience over the years.

Edge (1989) discusses fluency and accuracy in more detail. The teachers’ job is

to help to improve their students’ English, and so they have to pay attention to what

students want to say. In the meantime, it becomes difficult to pay attention to the

mistakes. However, it is not even a problem, because if correctness is in the focus, and

if teachers correct everything, that will not really lead to communicating and speaking

at all (p.18). If teachers’ attention is on fluency, it is also possible to make mental notes

of the mistakes at the same time, but they need to show that they are interested in what

the students are saying, and if they correct each and every mistake, teachers will make

the communication less efficient. Edge (1989) advises to have stages in each lesson,

when teachers simply encourage fluency, and do not correct mistakes at all.

Of course, ignoring correctness in the foreign language classroom would be

irresponsible, as the basis of effective communication is accuracy indeed. As Edge

(1989) declares: “The teacher’s task is to help students progress through fluency

towards the accuracy that they will need in order to get the education and the jobs they

want” (p.20).

Wulf (2001) discusses communicative teacher talk in his book with the same

title, and a chapter is also dedicated to error correction. The researcher claims that error

correction is a highly controversial issue, as some say errors should not be corrected at

all, and others believe that each and every mistake needs to be corrected, but these are

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of course two extremes. Wulf’s opinion is to decide which mistakes are worth

correcting, otherwise, a dialogue would be interrupted by the teacher all the time, which

would make the communication unsuccessful (p.112).

Wulf (2001) strongly holds the view that correction should be dependent on the

classroom situation and not really on the type of correction the teachers use. One case is

when there is the practice phase of a lesson, and the other is the communication or the

conversation itself. In both cases, specific aims have to be taken into account. The

conclusion is that in stages where teachers try not to control everything, when the focus

is on fluency, there should be less correcting, and in stages where the teacher needs to

control the practice and the focus is on accuracy, teachers should correct more often

(p.119).

As for the German view on error correction, Kranert (2013) states that there is

no ‘blanket solution’ for the question of when and what to correct in terms of German

language learning. Kranert lists some situations and some aspects of the topic which

need to be taken into consideration. For instance, learners of German do not really like

when the teachers ask other students to correct their mistakes, they prefer to be

corrected by the teachers themselves with the help of ‘Formulierungshilfe’, which can

be the equivalent of elicitation; however, thorough consideration from the side of the

teachers is required as correcting the students’ errors can break the flow of the speech

and it can easily lead to the destruction of the communication, of the dialogue. A useful

alternative would be to show students with verbal and nonverbal signs that they made

mistakes and thus they are encouraged to use self-correction. Kranert also mentions that

in order for this to work, the students’ sufficient language knowledge is a requirement.

Moreover, he also adds that the personality of the student should also be kept in mind.

Yet, in the case of beginners, teachers should include some stages in the lesson, where

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they do not correct at all, though for pre-intermediate learners it can be of use to collect

mistakes on a slide and discuss and reflect on them later on (p.8).

1.1.2. Methods of correction

Just like the other aspects of error correction, the topic of error correction types is

also not clear-cut either. The various research articles use several different groupings:

there are some basic error correction methods, which were defined by Lyster and Ranta

(1997), and later this was also used by Ellis (2009) and Ur (2012). Other than that, the

error correction can occur immediately, namely on the spot, or later, delayed. Moreover,

it is also important to decide, who does the correction: the teachers, the students

themselves, or peers.

In order to define the main methods of error correction Ur (2012) conducted an

unpublished study to find out student preferences in error correction. The results

showed that students want to be corrected and they would like to know the correct

forms. It turned out that teachers mostly used recasting as a way of correction, as

students prefer to be told the correct form, but this is the easy way out for them, since

they do not have to think. However, it would be beneficial for them to invest some work

and energy into the clarification of the problem. The question of peer correction was

also raised and it was revealed that most students do not feel secure being corrected by

their peers. This can result from two factors: first, students may be embarrassed or feel

uncomfortable when being corrected by their peers, or second, they simply do not trust

each other that much (p.93).

As a conclusion, Ur (2012) went on to define the main methods of oral error

correction. These were the following: recast, elicitation, clarification request,

metalinguistic feedback, explicit correction, and finally, repetition. However, these

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feedback types were also known and mentioned by Lyster and Ranta (1997) in their

own study, in which they carried out an investigation on corrective feedback and learner

uptake in four different immersion classrooms at the primary level.

In the case of recast, the teacher states the correct form of the incorrect utterance

without commenting on it. Elicitation is when the teacher elicits the correct form from

the students by asking them whether they can correct themselves. As a way of error

correction, teachers can ask for clarification, this is the clarification request. During

metalinguistic feedback, the teacher explains the mistake and the correct form by using

grammar or other linguistic terminology. Teachers can also correct students’ mistakes

explicitly, by stating that there has been a mistake. Finally, in the course of repetition,

the teacher repeats the incorrect utterance, waiting for the student to correct it (p.9495).

However, this list was completed with a seventh category by Lyster and Ranta

(1997), which is called multiple feedback, when teachers combine more than one

feedback in the case of one teacher run, but the two researchers found out that only a

small percentage of teachers used this type of correction (p.48). Ellis (2009) also used

this categorisation, but he left out metalinguistic feedback, and used paralinguistic

signal, in which teachers use gesture or facial expressions to help the students find out

that they made a mistake (p.9).

Penny Ur (2012) also elaborated on the effectiveness of different techniques and

came to the conclusion that recasting is the most common of them all. Teachers favour

this method for the obvious facts that it is quick, easy, and it does not disrupt students’

speech. However, this is the method which is unfortunately the least effective and does

not really promote uptake, meaning that students cannot always understand and produce

the correct forms afterwards, and it is the least likely to result in language learning.

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Moreover, students are not likely to recognize recasting as correction: they might

consider it an echo or confirmation (p. 95).

Ur (2012) draws upon Lyster’s (e.g. 2004) study, according to which some kind

of oral negotiation and active contribution from the side of the students is indispensable

in order to achieve the most effective oral communication. This researcher also claims

that not only elicitations and repetitions, but also metalinguistic feedback has a more

beneficial impact than recasting (p.95).

Harmer (2015) also elaborates on a different grouping of error correction, which

was already indicated above: he discriminates between online and offline correction

(p.158). According to Harmer, online correction, also called on the spot correction can

be suitable while speaking activities, where accuracy is required. The process of this is

outlined in Harmer’s book: as a first step, teachers have to indicate that there was a

problem with the students’ utterance. Some students might be able to correct

themselves, which can result in a bigger uptake. Teachers can show incorrectness in

various ways, like for example asking ‘Again?’, or saying ‘That’s not quite right, can

you try again?’ (p.158159); nonetheless, they can also stress or echo the specific area,

or reformulate or recast.

Provided that students do not recognize the problem, teachers need to spend

more time on the correct version and discuss it with the students in more details. This

can also be done in several different ways: by using the board or their fingers, just

saying the problem, or explaining the grammar or the lexical issue that has come up.

Contrary to online correction, offline, also called after-the-event or delayed

correction is advantageous during speaking activities, when the focus is on fluency.

Unfortunately, mistakes are easy to forget; however, most teacher jot down some of

them, or they sometimes even use charts to highlight mistakes later on (p.159).

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When speaking about forms of correction, it is also an opportunity to talk about

the person who does the correction, since it does not have to be the teacher who does it,

but also the students themselves. Although according to Ur’s (2012) unpublished study

students do not always feel secure when being corrected by their peers, there are some

other researchers, for example Harmer (2015) and Amara (2015), who believe in peer-

correction, in which case the students correct each others’ erroneous utterances. Instead

of correcting the mistakes themselves, teachers can ask the students whether they can

help with the problem. Peer correction can lead to beneficial improvements in the

classroom: it leads to cooperation, students will learn from each other, learners are all

involved in thinking about the erroneous utterance and students can also do the same in

pair work. Moreover, teachers also get an idea about the learners’ ability (Amara, 2015,

p.62).

Amara (2015) also adds the fact that peer correction has to be used tactfully, as

students can sometimes feel humiliated if they are corrected by other students (p.62).

This is the confirmation of what Harmer (2015) pointed out as well, which has been

discussed above. So what matters the most, sensitivity is a requirement for all the stages

of error correction (p.158).

Self-correction and teacher correction, beside peer correction, are also referred

to by Amara (2015). As for the researcher, self-correction is the best way of error

correction, for the reason that students remember things the best later on which they

have said. Provided that the teachers have to correct a mistake, they can realise which

points have not been learned and understood completely by the students. Nonetheless, it

is not enough for the teachers to repeat the mistake; they have to make the students

repeat or give the correct answer (p.62).

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1.1.3. Students’ preferences

When teaching a foreign language, or basically any other subject, it is of high

importance to consider the other side of the coin as well and consider a look at the

students’ own preferences in the matter in order to make the lessons and the teaching

process itself more effective.

As described above, Ur (2012) has already examined the students’ preferences in

the topic of error correction in her own unpublished study, which was filled in by 500

respondents. The results clearly showed that students are conscious about mistakes; they

need to be corrected and know the appropriate forms, which they get from teachers in

the form of recasting. However, Ur argues that the ideal case would be for the students

to participate actively in finding out the correct form of their erroneous utterances. The

question of peer correction was also raised and it turned out that students feel a bit

insecure when being corrected by their peers.

Besides her, Magilow (1999) also conducted a case study in his own classroom

with his own German learners. He believes that teachers have a controversial role, as

they have to create a pleasant and positive atmosphere in class, and at the same time,

they have to confront students with their mistakes. The two are exact opposites, as in

this pleasant atmosphere, teachers can cause discouragement and confrontation with

error correction, which makes students remember that there is an asymmetrical power

relation between the teacher and them. This can be a big challenge for teachers,

especially, when they are beginners, as they would like to earn the sympathy of the

students (p.125).

During his research, Magilow (1999) asked several of his colleagues to observe

him during teaching and collect data on how he handles the topic of error correction. As

Magilow himself was a beginner teacher back then, he wanted to be likeable for the

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students, thus, he put emphasis on being humorous during classes, so he used quotes

from popular culture sources and he was sarcastic several times, which resulted in

paying less attention to errors. Although he was aware of error correction strategies, the

researcher mainly used recast to correct students’ errors, and in most cases, he

addressed the whole class with a certain issue that came up, which globalized the errors,

thus preventing students to learn from their own mistakes by thinking about them. The

other problem was, which is common for German teaching, that he taught mostly

frontally, and there was not enough place for student interaction (p.126127).

Drawing the conclusion from his colleagues’ observations, Magilow (1999)

prepared a plan to improve these practices in his classroom. The teacher restricted the

types of discourse which he wanted to correct, and he did not really correct during the

warm-up stages. He gave priority to exercises which did not need to be taught frontally

and to partner activities and open tasks (p.127).

All in all, as soon as Magilow (1999) paid more attention to his error correction

techniques, students let him know that besides not minding error correction, they need it

and miss it if it does not occur in the classroom. When the teacher asked for feedback,

students expressed that he should have been tougher about correcting grammatical

errors, as they sometimes even noticed after lessons that they had made a mistake which

was not corrected, and most of them paid attention to small details in the German

language and missed more thorough correction. However, students liked the idea of

correcting their own mistakes, and they sometimes even corrected each other’s mistakes

as well (p.128129).

Furthermore, Sato (2013) has also examined the students’ beliefs about teacher

and peer corrective feedback, and his findings give a reason to elaborate on the matter

of peer correction. The first surprising fact was that, as opposed to Ur’s (2012) findings,

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Sato’s students quite enjoy peer interaction activities, because in this context they are

not that afraid of mistakes. However, they feel more anxious when talking to a teacher;

they feel nervous about making mistakes. Students believe that making mistakes is not

so uncomfortable before peers, as they are more or less on the same level and they feel

that there is no need to worry. Sato however, highlights the fact that teachers need to

give enough space for peer interaction activities and engaging communicative tasks in a

lesson in order to maintain and support this. Moreover, it is also worth mentioning that

in Sato’s study the students trusted in each other’s grammatical knowledge, which

resulted from their previous studies as they began learning English with the grammar-

translation method (p.618621).

During the study, Sato (2013) also taught students how to give each other

corrective feedback and it turned out that even before this, students expressed their need

for error correction, and they admitted that it does not matter for them, if the person

who gives the correction, is one of their peers. The most important thing for them is to

get the correction, as they cannot really notice their own mistakes, since they all had

good grammatical knowledge, but quite poor speaking skills (p.622).

All things considered, Sato (2013) discovered that students need to be corrected,

even if it is done by their peers, and neither teacher corrective feedback, nor peer

corrective feedback disrupts or breaks the flow of the communication. However, the

participants of the study preferred peer correction, as they communicated more freely

before each other and thus, more production occurred during peer interaction compared

to when students are communicating with a teacher (p.623).

From the literature detailed above it can be concluded that students’ preferences

differ from one another, and it is also the job of the teachers to make sure that they

know what their students prefer and find useful for themselves in terms of error

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correction. Which proves to be a useful method for one group, for example peer-

correction, might not be a good idea for another group; there are several factors that

need to be taken into consideration.

1.1.4. Limitations and problems of error correction

Although error correction is highly useful and produces improvements, it

provides limitations and problems as well (Ur, 2012, p.89). Unfortunately, error

correction does not provide us with immediate and consistent results, and in most cases

students make the same mistakes on the next occasion. There is a so-called delay, which

is caused on the one hand by the influence of the first language, and on the other hand,

by the habit of using the incorrect form or feature. Teachers must take into account that

the effectiveness of a certain correction is influenced by several different factors. Which

is essential is to re-correct the same mistakes as many times as possible. Nevertheless,

teachers have to be very careful and sensitive, because error correction can easily have

negative implications, as students are told to do something differently.

1.1.5. Implications for classroom teaching

Tedick and de Gortiari (1998) revise Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) research findings

on error correction and uptake, and they also provide some general suggestions for

teachers based on their own hands-on classroom experience. First, they advise teachers

to take context into consideration, meaning that learners should be encouraged to use

the language and communicate freely and they should not be de-motivated by error

correction in the early stages of their cognitive development and language acquisition.

The more serious correction should rather take place among cognitively mature learners

(p.4).

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Secondly, it is of high importance for teachers to be aware of their own error

correction practices, which can be done either by asking colleagues to observe lessons

or by teachers tape-recording themselves, just like Magilow (1999) did.

Thirdly, it is desirable to use a wide range of correction and feedback techniques:

as there are individual differences in terms of learning styles and strategies, students are

also different concerning error correction techniques, which are appropriate for their

developmental needs (p.4).

At last, maybe the most important thing is to focus on the learners, and let them

use self-correction. It is possible that students are more capable of this than teachers

would think. Tedick and de Gortari (1998) believe that: “The least effective technique

for correcting a student’s incorrect language use is to simply give them the answer”

(p.4).

Furthermore, Bartram & Walton (1991) provide a long list of oral correction

techniques in their book. Before listing the techniques, the researchers underline that the

outcome of the correction should be the students’ progress, and teachers should explore

beforehand what kind of teaching style they would like to have, and what is comfortable

for them.

If students make a mistake, teachers can indicate those with gestures, facial

expressions, non-verbal sounds and simple phrases. In case the teacher would like to

show where the mistake is, the finger technique can be used, where teachers represent

words of a sentence with their fingers, or they can just simply use simple phrases to

indicate which utterance was wrong. The type of the mistake can also be demonstrated

by gestures, namely using hands, arms and fingers. For instance, for a pronunciation

mistake, teachers can cup their hand behind their ears as if they have not heard the word

properly. In order to show the right intonation of a word or a sentence, sweeping the

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hand horizontally, showing the movement can be beneficial. As further techniques, the

authors mention pretending to misunderstand the incorrect word, repeating the incorrect

utterance in context, or echoing the erroneous utterance, reformulating, correcting

automatically, or using increased input and hidden input. Also during freer activities

teachers can note some common mistakes and use different techniques to teach or re-

teach these for the students. They can create hot cards on pieces of paper with the

students’ name and their mistakes on them, or invoice books can be created which can

be copied for the teachers themselves as well, or teachers can just simply ask students to

recall some of the mistakes and correct those themselves, if they can. Recordings and

open remedial sessions can also come in handy (Bartram & Walton, 1991, p. 4163).

In sum, there is much we can do to help our students progress in language

learning, but the most important step would be to give them positive feedback as well,

and recognize, value and praise the instances, when they know something particularly

well, as the sense of achievement will bring students further and motivate them to go on

the road of language learning.

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