Hello again guys, it was such a fun task to do. We took turns reading sentences with errors. The most useful techniques, the ones I often use in my classes are : scratching your head, although, as we mentioned during the discussion, can be interpreted as deep thinking or confusion, at least in French culture; crossing your hands/arms to indicate a word placement error; and raising your intonation to emphasize what could be corrected. What I retain from this task is that correcting errors almost always requires writing the correct answer on the board, and that teaching in a classroom setting is better suited for body language and these techniques.

It was great as always and I learned how to use the different methods to use in correcting the errors of students effectively like the finger correction, repeating the sentence up to the error looking puzzled and scratching head to show the students something is not right. When teaching , I would make sure I use the outstretched hand only when I am dealing with difficult students and correct only what’s relevant for the day’s lesson. I also realized I prefer the peer correction method more than the self correction one. Lastly, I learned from Paul and Louise that scratching the head connotes confusion or deep thinking in the French culture so teachers in France need to be cautious when using this method to correct the errors of their students.

That was a very interesting task to do, once again! It was super good to learn about the different techniques during the lesson, and I realised that all of them were making sense to me so it was easy to understand them. What I’ve learned by doing it in real time with you two was that the challenge here wasn’t so much to choose which method was the most appropriate but first to spot the error + having the correction ready, and then to actually find the words to explain it in a clear and simple way. Yes, some techniques allow to quickly and easily have the student correct themselves which is great, but others do require a further explanation. As we saw during the video, some of us had “prepared” their answers anticipating that the wrong sentences said out loud would come from the handout materials, but when they weren’t it was more difficult. It’s about finding a natural balance between “spotting the error”, “knowing the right answer”, “get the student to correct the error on his own/with the help of his peers”, and having the knowledge in the end to be able to explain why if it’s needed. Not as simple as learning the different techniques by watching your video Jonathan that’s for sure!