Techniques of correcting mistakes of spoken language in the classroom

Encouraging. And of course, praise them for their ability to admit their mistakes.

To my mind, one of the best ways to deal with mistakes is to prevent them. Leading students to speak step by step will minimize mistakes and make students more comfortable speaking. The first stage of your lesson is presentation. Explain the new grammar structure and vocabulary. Next begin to practice with simple oral drills. Make sure students can repeat the vocabulary or manipulate the grammar. Next do a focused activity. Before you do the activity, model the task for them. Show them what they will do during the activity. Give them example sentences. Write down sample sentences on the board to help them. Make sure they know what to do, how to do it, and how much time they have. Conduct the activity. While they are doing the activity move around the room and check them. Do they understand? Are they doing the activity correctly? After they finish, ask some students to show the class their work. Go over the answers to the task. If they are ready, do a fluency activity. Review the material in the next lesson, the next week, and in future lessons.
Go from easy activity to difficult activities, from controlled to guide to free activities, and from focused speaking activities to fluency activities. Take baby steps. Don’t expect students to speak fluently without a lot of practice.
In addition to considering the seriousness of an error, the instructor should consider the frequency of the error. If the student has a concern with almost always omitting articles (“a,” “an,” and “the”), this is a problem that should be addressed because omitted articles are distracting from the overall message and can affect overall comprehensibility of the writing.
Correcting student error is a sensitive issue that most instructors would probably rather not do. However, through considering such issues as overall comprehensibility and goals of correction, the instructor can turn the potentially negative exercise of giving corrective feedback into a positive learning experience.
Learning a language is a long process during which a learner will inevitably make many, many mistakes. In other words we take a myriad of tiny steps going from not speaking a language to being fluent in the language. In the opinion of many teachers, students who are continually corrected become inhibited and cease to participate. This results in the exact opposite of what the teacher is trying to produce - the use of English to communicate.
In conclusion I can say that, whichever way you go about correcting your students, try to keep the experience positive for the learner. Being corrected constantly can be a really de-motivating, as every language learner knows. As you are listening out for your students’ errors, make sure you also listen out for really good uses of language and highlight these to the group too. In the case of language learning I really do believe the classic saying, ‘you learn from your mistakes’.

Literatures:

1. Allen, Virginia French. Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary. Oxford University Press, 1983
2. Doff, Adrian. Teach English: Trainers’ Handbook. Cambridge University Press, 1988
3. Russo G.M. Expanding Communication. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
4. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/error-correction-1