The Dos & Don’ts of Error Correction When Teaching English

Teaching or tutoring English (or any language) raises a question you’ve probably asked yourself on more than one occasion: when, how, and even if you should correct your students’ mistakes.

Your approach to error correction in teaching English mainly depends on whether your lesson objective is fluency or accuracy (more on this below). In either case, a few essential principles will help you correct your students’ mistakes effectively – and sensitively – in class.

If you’re new to teaching, you’ll want to get initial training and qualification with a TEFL certificate. You can explore our online TEFL courses to get started.

What is the difference between an error and a mistake?

Mistakes

A mistake is an accident or a lapse, something that your EFL/ESL students actually know and can most likely self-correct if you give them the chance. Examples include a typo, the wrong word, or a small grammatical slip.

Mistakes often happen when students feel tired or nervous, or when they focus more on their message than on their grammar. An intermediate student who knows the third-person -s might still say, “My sister work in a hospital,” while telling a story about their family. If you repeat “work?” with a questioning tone, they will usually fix the verb right away.

The easiest way to tell a mistake from an error is to look for consistency. If a student uses a structure correctly most of the time and gets it wrong only occasionally, you’re most likely dealing with a mistake. A quick prompt is usually enough, and during fluency activities, you can often let the mistake go without comment.

Do you CCQ? Learn about concept checking questions and find new ways to tackle mistakes.

Errors

An error, on the other hand, is something that your students don’t know because they haven’t learned it yet or they’ve forgotten it. Errors are where your students need you the most. They rely on you to correct these errors effectively and help them develop their language skills.

Errors tend to be systematic. A student who says, “I have visited Paris last year,” will likely repeat that pattern in the next conversation and the one after that because the sentence sounds correct to them. This student needs clear input, such as a short explanation of when English uses the past simple, a few examples, and time to practice.

Two common sources of error are first-language influence and overgeneralization. Portuguese and Spanish speakers, for example, often say “I have 25 years” because their languages use the verb “have” to express age.

Overgeneralization happens when students apply a rule they know to cases where it doesn’t work, as in “goed,” “childs,” or “She can sings.” Both types of errors show that your students are actively testing their ideas about how English works.

Explore top strategies for teaching grammar to your English language learners.

What kind of errors do EFL/ESL students make in class?

Students make many mistakes during the long endeavor of learning a new language. Making mistakes is a natural and necessary part of the learning process. Identifying the type of error helps you correct it effectively and smoothly.

Productive skills errors

Errors in spoken or written skills include vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical errors, as well as errors in producing intelligible language that people around the world can understand.

Spoken errors happen in real time, so students have little time to monitor their language. A student might pronounce “sheep” like “ship,” stress the wrong syllable in “photography,” or use a false friend, such as “I pretend to travel next year” instead of “I intend to travel next year.” Having an accent, however, is never an error.

The goal is intelligibility, so focus on the pronunciation features that affect whether people understand your students.

Written errors are easier to analyze because they stay on the page. Common examples include spelling errors, missing punctuation, incorrect word order, and run-on sentences. Students also have time to plan and revise their writing, so written work lets you give more detailed feedback than you can during a conversation.

Make learning more effective for your learners by using spaced repetition techniques.

Receptive skills errors

Errors in listening and reading skills include misinterpretation of content, misunderstanding of words, or simply the inability to comprehend someone’s speech in total.

Receptive errors are harder to spot because students don’t produce any language when they make them. These errors usually show up as a wrong answer in a comprehension task, a reply that doesn’t match the question, or a confused look during a conversation.

A student might hear “thirty” instead of “thirteen,” miss the meaning of a recently taught phrasal verb, or lose track of a recording because the speakers link their words together.

When should I correct my students?

When you notice a comprehension error, find out what caused it before you give the answer. Ask students where in the text or recording they found their answer, replay the relevant section, or show the transcript. This approach tells you whether the problem is vocabulary, speed, or background knowledge, and it teaches students listening and reading strategies they can use on their own.

The timing of correcting students’ errors in teaching English is crucial to whether your lesson succeeds or fails. Error correction in EFL/ESL has a big impact on your students’ learning process, and the right timing will help them retain new information effectively.

Learn how to develop strategies to build more confidence in ESL students.

When to correct errors in fluency-based lessons

Try to monitor your students and take notes on major or repeated mistakes when you’re teaching a class or activity where fluency is the goal. Don’t interrupt your students’ speech. Interruptions might discourage them or make them lose the motivation to speak freely. Save the error correction for the end of the class.

You can then give individual feedback or discuss the most important errors with the whole class if your students are okay with that. You could also prepare a quiz for the next lesson that covers the major errors you noted down while monitoring your students.

Discover the best ways to keep learners motivated and speaking in class.

When to correct errors in accuracy-based lessons

You can correct a mistake immediately after a student makes it when you’re teaching a class or activity that aims for accuracy, for example, applying a new grammar rule during a conversation.

On-the-spot correction works when the mistake involves that rule. You just taught the content, so you can encourage your students to self-correct their error first or ask other classmates to help.

A gesture is sometimes enough to indicate the type of error. You don’t need to focus too much on mistakes students make that aren’t related to the current lesson, since that focus can again disrupt their efforts to use the newly learned grammar. If you notice students making the same errors, review the lesson content and resume practice afterwards.

When to correct errors that affect communication

Global errors affect the meaning of the whole message, so the listener can’t follow what the student wants to say or understands something different. Imagine a student says, “I didn’t take the job because the salary was good,” when they mean “even though.” The listener now has the wrong idea about the decision.

Local errors affect a small part of a sentence, such as the missing plural ending in “I bought two book,” and the meaning stays clear.

Deal with global errors when they stop communication, even during fluency activities. A quick clarification gives the student a chance to rephrase. You might ask, “Sorry, why didn’t you take the job?” Local errors can usually wait for your feedback at the end of the activity.

Are phrasal verbs getting in the way of your learners? Find ways to teach the expressions that will improve communication in class.

When to correct recurring errors

Some errors stay with students for months or even years. An upper-intermediate student might still say “We discussed about the project” or “It depends of the weather,” even after you’ve corrected these phrases many times. Teachers call these fossilized errors because the incorrect form has become a habit.

A single correction rarely changes a fossilized error. Keep a simple error log for each class, and bring the same errors back in short review activities over several weeks. You can also ask students to keep a personal list of their recurring errors and self-check their speaking and writing against it.

Looking for different ways of teaching your lessons? Check out these ESL methodologies every teacher should know.

When to correct errors in online lessons

Online lessons affect the timing of correction. Audio delays make interruptions more disruptive, and students often stop talking when two voices overlap. The chat box offers a practical option: type the corrected sentence while your student keeps speaking, and review the chat together once the activity ends.

In one-to-one lessons, you can keep a shared document open and record errors and their corrections as the lesson progresses, so students leave with notes they can review later. In group classes, use private messages for individual feedback, if your platform allows them, so no student feels singled out.

What are the dos and don’ts of error correction?

The ground rules below can help you with error correction in the English classroom, whether you’re teaching online lessons or in a live classroom.

Dos

• Be sensitive to your students’ needs and preferences. Ask your students at the beginning of your course which kind of error correction they prefer. (Many students like immediate correction because they can still remember their mistake and learn from it, while others only want to focus on fluency.)
• Be kind and patient in the way you correct. Always encourage your students to keep trying new language they’ve learned and assure them that making mistakes is okay.
• Give your students a chance to self-correct, or apply peer-correction in your classroom. Some students learn better when their classmates correct them instead of the teacher.
• Use visual cues. Simply raising your eyebrow can sometimes help your students realize that they’ve made a mistake and give them a chance to correct themselves. Establish your own gestures for common mistakes in tense, vocabulary, or sentence structure.
• Use recasts during conversation. A recast repeats the student’s sentence with the error corrected as part of a natural reply. If a student says, “Yesterday I buy a new phone,” you can respond, “Oh, you bought a new phone? Which one did you get?” Recasts let the conversation continue.
• Point out what your students did well. Before you address an error, mention something that worked, such as a new vocabulary word or a well-organized answer. Students accept correction more easily when they know you noticed their effort.
• Check that the correction worked. After you correct an error, ask the student to say the sentence again or use the same structure in a new sentence.
• Adapt your approach to your students’ age and level. Young learners respond best when you model the correct form during games and routines. Teenagers prefer to be corrected anonymously on the board instead of being named. Adult learners often want to know why a form is incorrect.

Don’ts

• Don’t over-correct every single mistake your students make. Keep error correction relevant and make sure that your students benefit and learn from it.
• Avoid interrupting your students when they’re making an effort to speak fluently. Interruptions can be very counterproductive, and your students might lose their motivation or become hesitant to use the new language they’ve learned.
• Never scold your students, become loud, or show your impatience with angry facial expressions. No mistake is silly in the EFL/ESL classroom. This rule is especially important if you’re teaching young learners, who easily pick up on moods and emotions.
• Don’t overload your feedback with grammar terminology. Terms like “present perfect continuous” or “countable noun” can confuse lower-level students. Use simple language and clear examples, and save the technical terms for students who already know them.
• Don’t save your feedback for the most confident speakers. Quieter students make errors too, but they produce less language, so you can easily miss their errors. Listen for them during pair work and give them feedback privately if they prefer.
• Don’t limit correction to grammar. Pronunciation, vocabulary, and register errors can cause just as many problems in real communication.

Interested in teaching English online? Find out how to start your career as an online English teacher.

Why is error correction important in the EFL/ESL classroom?

We learn by making mistakes. As children, we learn how to walk by falling over hundreds of times. As adults, we learn a new language by making countless mistakes in the use of words, grammar, sentence structure, pronunciation, and register.

Error correction helps students develop their newly acquired language skills at their own pace and in a comfortable and safe environment. They also start to notice the gap between what they said and the correct form. Without feedback, many learners never realize that a structure is wrong, and they keep using it until the error becomes a habit.

Your students’ goals make accuracy even more important. A learner preparing for an English proficiency exam, a job interview, or a university program abroad needs English that is both fluent and accurate. Many adult learners expect regular feedback for this reason, and they may lose confidence in a teacher who never corrects them.

How you correct matters as much as how often you correct. Students who feel embarrassed by harsh or constant correction speak less and take fewer risks with new language. Students who receive supportive feedback keep participating, and they learn to see errors as a normal part of learning English.

Good error correction also builds independence. When you prompt students to correct their own errors, they develop the habit of checking their language. That habit stays with them outside the classroom, where no teacher is present to point out a problem.

How can you correct students’ errors effectively?

Error correction is a teaching skill, and it improves with training and practice. Reading about techniques gives you a starting point, but your confidence grows when you try those techniques with students, get feedback from an experienced trainer, and adjust your approach.

Professional teacher training gives you a structured way to do all three.

Foundational courses like Bridge’s 120-Hour Global TEFL Certificate will build a foundation in English language teaching methodology, lesson planning, and grammar, so you can recognize your students’ errors and explain the rules behind them.

Short and focused courses like Bridge’s 20-hour micro-credential in Error Correction in the ESL Classroom will teach you all you need to know to develop this specific skill.

If you plan to teach online, the Comprehensive TEFL Certification Bundle combines the 120-Hour Global TEFL Certificate with Specialized Certification in Teaching English Online, which adds training for the online classroom.

Whichever training path you choose, effective error correction starts with a few simple questions:

• Did the student make a mistake or an error?
• Is the activity focused on fluency or accuracy?
• Does the error affect communication?
• How does this student prefer to receive feedback?

Your answers tell you when to correct or not correct, and which technique to use. These will guide your work and also help learners understand that it’s ok to make mistakes in class.

Over time, consistent and sensitive correction helps students notice problems in their own English, fix them, and keep using the language with confidence. It also makes you a more observant teacher, because your students’ errors show you what they need to learn next. With practice, choosing the right moment and the right technique becomes a natural part of every lesson you teach.

Build the confidence to correct errors and teach any class. Get certified with the 120-Hour Global TEFL Certificate, with real tutors who coach you every step of the way.