Unit 11 - The role of error

What is the role of error?

Making mistakes plays an important and useful part in language learning because it allows learners to experiment with language and measure their success in communicating. This unit focuses on the kinds of mistakes learners make when they speak or write a foreign language, why they make these mistakes and the part that mistakes play in language learning.

Teachers’ comments	Types of mistake
1. A good student of mine said, the clouds were sick and it was raining a lot but he quickly corrected himself and said ‘thick’	Pronunciation slip
2. I have several students in my top class who still say things like is very nice; he do; I am doctor. I just don’t know what to do about it.	Fossilised grammatical error
3. At the beginning, all my students used terms like nice or good, for anything positive, then they gradually started to use language more precisely.	Lexical developmental error
4. During his presentation this morning, my best student was so nervous that he said my mother, she is coming to visit me.	Grammatical slip
5. Nearly all the students in that class who share the same language say brothers when they mean brothers and sisters. I don’t know why.	Lexical interference error

Reference:

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2012). The TKT Teaching Knowledge Test Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Vol. Second edition). United Kingdom: Cambridge English.