TKT - Teaching Knowledge Error Correction Strategies Questions and Answers 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: During a role-play activity focused on fluency, a student says, "I am agree with you." The teacher wants to correct the error without interrupting the flow of the conversation. Which of the following is the most appropriate strategy?
- Make a mental note of the error and address it with the whole class after the activity. (Correct answer)
- Stop the student immediately and say, "No, we say 'I agree with you'. Please repeat."
- Use a gesture to indicate that a word is unnecessary.
- Ask the student's partner if they can identify and correct the mistake.
Correct answer: Make a mental note of the error and address it with the whole class after the activity.
In fluency-focused activities, the primary goal is to encourage communication and build confidence. Interrupting the student can be demotivating and stop the flow of conversation. Therefore, delayed correction, where the teacher notes errors and addresses them later (e.g., in a group feedback slot), is the most appropriate strategy.
Question 2: A teacher hears a student say, "She has two childs." The teacher responds, "Ah, she has two children." This type of correction, where the teacher correctly rephrases the learner's utterance, is known as:
- Elicitation
- Explicit correction
- Recasting (Correct answer)
- Peer correction
Correct answer: Recasting
Recasting (or reformulation) is a technique where the teacher implicitly corrects an error by repeating the learner's utterance in the correct form, without explicitly stating that a mistake was made. It maintains the flow of communication while providing the correct model.
Question 3: Which of the following describes a 'slip' rather than an 'error'?
- A student consistently says 'he go' because they haven't learned the third-person 's'.
- A student says 'I have 20 years' due to influence from their first language.
- An advanced student, speaking quickly, says 'They is coming' but immediately says 'Sorry, they are coming'. (Correct answer)
- A beginner uses 'goed' instead of 'went' because they are overgeneralising the '-ed' past simple rule.
Correct answer: An advanced student, speaking quickly, says 'They is coming' but immediately says 'Sorry, they are coming'.
A 'slip' is a mistake made due to carelessness, tiredness, or speaking too quickly, not from a lack of knowledge. The learner can usually self-correct when the mistake is pointed out. An 'error' reflects a gap in the learner's knowledge and is more systematic.
Question 4: A teacher wants to encourage learner autonomy and collaborative learning when addressing written mistakes. Which of the following strategies best supports this goal?
- Correcting every mistake on the students' papers with a red pen.
- Providing an answer key for students to check their own work individually.
- Ignoring all mistakes to build students' confidence in writing.
- Organising students into pairs to review and provide feedback on each other's work. (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Organising students into pairs to review and provide feedback on each other's work.
Peer correction, where learners correct each other's work, is a powerful strategy for fostering learner autonomy and collaboration. It makes learners active participants in the learning process and helps them learn from one another.
Question 5: A learner says, "I didn't saw the movie." The teacher responds, "Listen... I didn't..." and gestures for the student to complete the sentence. What is this correction technique called?
- Reformulation
- Elicitation (Correct answer)
- Delayed correction
- Finger correction
Correct answer: Elicitation
Elicitation is a technique where the teacher tries to get the learner to produce the correct language themselves by providing a prompt, asking a question, or pausing strategically. This encourages self-correction and active recall.
Question 6: A teacher uses a simple gesture, such as crossing their index fingers, to indicate that a word a student used was incorrect (e.g., a wrong preposition). What is the primary advantage of using this technique during a speaking activity?
- It provides a full grammatical explanation for the error.
- It is a form of delayed correction to be addressed after the lesson.
- It corrects the error without significantly interrupting the student's speech. (Correct answer)
- It ensures that every student in the class understands the specific error.
Correct answer: It corrects the error without significantly interrupting the student's speech.
Using gestures or facial expressions is a form of unobtrusive, immediate correction. It can indicate that a slip has been made and prompt self-correction without stopping the flow of speech, which is particularly useful in fluency-focused activities.
TKT - Teaching Knowledge Error Correction Strategies Questions and Answers 1
During a role-play activity focused on fluency, a student says, "I am agree with you." The teacher wants to correct the error without interrupting the flow of the conversation.
Which of the following is the most appropriate strategy?