7 Accept that there will be many mistakes in early drafts. This is
particularly the case for less proficient learners, of course. Help learners to
see texts with lots of mistakes as a natural stage. Try to build up an
atmosphere where peer as well as teacher feedback is seen as useful on the
way to a final product.
8 Emphasize quality in the final product. In the world outside the classroom,
demands on written products are high: we expect an appropriate range of
vocabulary and sentence patterns, as well as accuracy. Learners need
experience of getting to this final, polished stage where work is considered
ready for formal public scrutiny.
9 Give feedback on content as well as on form. When learners engage with
a task, their main motivation for writing is to convey a message—they may
have put a lot of thought into the content of their writing. Respond to their
writing as communication first, and language practice second.
10 Be selective when correcting mistakes. Learners like to be corrected, but
will be demotivated by seeing a page of their work covered in red. Neither will
they be able to learn from such extensive feedback. Concentrate on the most
basic errors, those that impede communication and those that you think
learners are most ready to learn about.
11 Agree a key for correction. Especially with more advanced learners, you
can use codes like t (tense), w.o. (word order), or v (vocabulary) to indicate
the place and nature of an error, while still giving learners the chance to
correct the word themselves. When learners get the work back they can
attempt to make their own corrections. Sometimes they will do this easily, at
other times they may need to ask you and/or a classmate what the problem
actually is. In either case, the process of self-correction draws attention to
the error and helps to make the correction memorable. All of this helps
learning.
12 Look back during the course. At appropriate moments, encourage learners
to look critically at earlier writing tasks, and perhaps work on something
similar again. They will be motivated by seeing how much they have
improved, and may be reminded of important bits of learning.19 Teaching grammar
There has been much debate about explicit grammar teaching—arguments about
whether it does any good, or about what approach might be most effective. Yet it
remains a valuable mainstay of many language courses, and institutional context
is a major influence on the policies adopted by individual teachers. Learners also
usually expect to concentrate on grammar at some point during a course. The
following tips are options for you to consider and adapt where necessary.
36 LANGUAGE WORK IN THE CLASSROOM