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Correcting ideas
Written work:
Exchanging papers: Ask learners to exchange their work with a partner. Ask everyone to find as
many mistakes in their new papers as they can and to offer corrections to be written on another
sheet of paper. Put learners back in pairs and have them discuss the mistakes.
Counting mistakes: When correcting written work, don’t mark the mistakes – simply write the
number of mistakes you find on the top of the paper. Return the papers to their owners and have
them find their own mistakes.
Group corrections: After a dictation, have learners sit in groups and help each other find mistakes.
Give them a few minutes to make the corrections if they want to accept them and then hand their
work in.
Self-correction: Ask learners to take a few minutes after a dictation to correct their own work.
Allow (and encourage) them to use a dictionary.
Go fishing: Make a separate slip of paper with each sentence that has a mistake written on it and
mark the paper with an “x”, and make another set of papers with the corrected versions of the
sentences. There should be at least 4 pairs of sentences per player. Hand out 3 mistake slips and one
correct slip to each player and scatter the rest of the papers face down in the centre of the table.
Learners choose an opponent and ask for a corrected version of a mistake they have in their hand. If
that opponent has the sentence that has been asked for, he must give it to the person who has asked
for it. After winning a pair, the player puts it on the table. If the player doesn’t have the sentence
asked for, he says, “Go fishing” and the player takes a slip from the centre of the table. If he
happens to get a pair, he puts it down. If not, he adds the new card to his hand.
The next player plays. The game ends when a player has no cards left. The player with the most
pairs wins.
The group then looks at the pairs of sentences and notes the errors.
Pexaso: The same preparation procedure as above, but learners pair their slips in a game of pexaso.
Spot the differences: Use 10 to 20 sentences containing errors from homework, etc. List half of
them in a column and the other half in a second column. Insert corrected sentences opposite each
sentence with a mistake so that each column contains sentences with mistakes and correct sentences
that are randomly listed, but so that the corrections are opposite their mistakes.
Put learners in groups and give a sheet to each group. Have them correct the errors.
Who wrote that?: Prepare 1 to 5 questions and hand out a corresponding number of slips of paper
depending on the size of the group and the time you have. Ask learners to write one answer each
paper in complete sentences. Read out the questions. Collect the papers after all the questions have
been asked. Dictate the answers the learners have written back to the learners correcting their
mistakes as you read (i.e. dictate correct versions of their sentences). When all of the sentences have
been dictated and written down, ask learners to write the name of the person they think wrote each
sentence. The go round the circle having learners ask other students if they wrote specific sentences.
(e.g. “Jana, did you write that your favourite colour was blue?” (in the case of an indirect reported
speech lesson), or simply, “Jana, is your favourite colour blue?”). The game ends when everybody
knows what the others have written.
Speaking:
The remote control: Use you eraser as a remote control to stop students, turn up the volume or
rewind.
Silent way: Play sentence-making games with students where they ask questions to solve a problem.
Before you answer a question, give them a ‘thumbs-up’ if the grammar is good or a ‘thumbs-down’
if there is a mistake. Gesture that the learner should re-ask the question until he gets it right. When
there is a ‘thumbs-up’ nod your head if the answer is ‘yes’ or shake your head if the answer is ‘no’.
Tic-tac-toe: Draw a noughts and crosses grid (3x3). Put a word of vocabulary that you would like to
revise in each square. Divide the group into two teams and designate one as X's and the other as O's.
To put their symbol in a square, they must choose a square (word) and make up a sentence that
illustrates its meaning in context. The other group act as judges to decide if the sentence is correct
or not. If they decide it isn’t correct, they must correct it and they steal the square. If they can’t
correct it, nobody gets the square. If they decide it is correct, they first team gets the square. The
first team to have a row of three squares (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) wins.
Be my scribe: Have students dictate letters to each other. The scribe writes everything the ‘dictator’
says, but questions sentences or structures that are not correct. Together they create a letter. When
finished, they deliver the letter to the addressee (someone in another pair). Whenever a letter is
delivered, it must be answered with the addressee dictating and the partner as the scribe.
Talking to the board: during group or pair work, go round the room eavesdropping on
conversations. Write down sentences you hear as the students speak on slips of paper. These
sentences must represent mistakes and good sentences you hear. After you have collected 10-20
sentences, return them to the students. Divide the board into 2 halves with the following headings:
‘Correct’, and ‘Incorrect’.
Ask students to come up and stick the sentences in the column they think the sentence belongs.
Have students gather round near the board and begin ‘thinking out loud’ while looking at the board.
E.g. “Hmm, that’s an interesting sentence. It’s in the ‘Correct’ column, but is it really? Maybe
there’s a mistake, I don’t know…yes, I think there is a mistake, but what is it?”
Students should join in also talking to the board. Take the sentence down and repost it where it
belongs. Continue talking until the mistake is found and then put it in the correct column. When all
the sentences are in the ‘Correct’ column and are, in fact, right, finish the activity.