allowed to goof o" or misbehave just because they’re
doing something “fun.” Make your expectations stick.- During the activity, walk around the room and monitor
students’ work. Nip problems in the bud. Keep students
on task. - Don’t overdo the “fun stu",” or students will get bored.
Use games or gadgets as the dessert, not the whole meal.
Correcting pronunciation errors
When and how should we correct students’ pronunciation
errors? Students need feedback so they’ll know what they’re
doing wrong and they can try to do it di"erently and begin to
improve, but we don’t want them to feel too discouraged by
focusing too much on what they can’t do. Adult students
sometimes ask the teacher to correct all their pronunciation
mistakes, but this really isn’t practical or even very helpful.
To a student who is having trouble, constant corrections
might feel like nagging or scolding and have a negative
impact on his/her motivation. So we have to be selective
about which errors we choose to correct and how we do it.
Goodwin (2001) makes this suggestion:
“Which errors should we correct? Rather than overwhelming
the student with feedback on every possible error, follow the
guidelines below:
- Errors which cause a breakdown in communication
- Errors which occur as a pattern, not as isolated mistakes
- Errors which relate to the pronunciation points we are
teaching”
When we do make a correction, there are many ways to do it.
Choose the way that works best for you, your students, and
your teaching style. Here are a few possibilities:
- Model the correct pronunciation and have the student
imitate it. Make sure the student realizes that what you’re
modeling is di"erent from what was originally said. - Explain the di"erence between the correct way and the
student’s mistake, giving instructions for the correct
pronunciation. Then have the student repeat. - Demonstrate the student’s way and then the correct way
so the student can hear the di"erence. Then have the
student repeat. - During pair or group work, take notes of errors that many
students are producing and practice those points with the
whole group afterwards. This has the advantage of not
calling attention to the student who has made the
mistake. On the other hand, it has the disadvantage that
the students who made the mistakes might still not
realize that they were doing something wrong.
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