UNIT 29 CATEGORISING LEARNERS´ MISTAKES

Categorising learners´ mistakes

Mistake is a controversial word into the learning process, the major part of teachers want to students don´t make any mistakes at the moment to acquire the target language. As a result students may feel frustrated because they don´t have the opportunity to experiment with the language. But teacher can change this reality that happen in the major part of schools, high schools, and so on. How can teachers do that? First, they must take account that mistakes are divided into slips and errors. The first one, are mistakes that students don´t be able to correct by themselves, they need teacher´s support in order to students don´t fossilized the language. On the other hand, slips are mistakes which students are able to correct by themselves because they probably have previous knowledge that help them in order to avoid mistakes. And also there are others kind of mistakes like L1 interference where students use the language incorrectly because they have a lack of accuracy. For this reason teacher has to teach the foreign language depending on the context or teacher could use a correction code in order to help students to correct their mistakes by themselves.

Consequently, Teacher has to realize that there are a lot of mistakes, is for that teacher must categorize mistakes depending how the mistake is? There are others mistakes like pronunciation, and writing which students make when they use the target language. It means that students use an inappropriate language, but it is a natural process because where the teacher has to be a guide in order to encourage students. As a result, students feel comfortable when teacher gives them a task or activity promoting learner autonomy because they will have the need to learn more and more.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Antimoon.com,. (2016). The role of mistakes in language learning | Antimoon. Retrieved 26 January 2016, from http://www.antimoon.com/how/mistakes-in-learning.htm.
• Edutopia,. (2014). It’s a Mistake Not to Use Mistakes as Part of the Learning Process. Retrieved 26 January 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/use-mistakes-in-learning-process-richard-curwin.
• Asq.org,. (2016). Mistake Proofing - ASQ. Retrieved 26 January 2016, from http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/process-analysis-tools/overview/mistake-proofing.html.
• Here!, S., Hacker, L., Here!, S., & Hacker, L. (2013). The Art of Making Mistakes - How and why mistakes help you to learn languages (Guest post by Luca) - Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips. Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips. Retrieved 26 January 2016, from http://www.fluentin3months.com/make-mistakes/