Techniques of correcting mistakes of spoken language in the classroom

Have a positive attitude. Your attitude toward mistakes can interest the students in speaking. There shouldn’t be the tone which makes them afraid of. Don’t shout at students who make mistakes. They feel embarrassed and try not to participate once again in activities. Correct them in a gentle way. Try not to embarrass them before other students for not just using articles or prepositions correctly.

Self-Correction (oral). The best way to correct mistakes is to have students correct themselves. Ideally a student will realize a mistake has been made and fix it automatically but that is not always the case. If a student answers a question incorrectly you can gently prompt them to revisit their answer. One of the ways to do this is to repeat what the student said placing emphasis on the incorrect portion, for instance “I have play baseball.” and saying it in a questioning way. At this point the student has an opportunity to think about and revise his initial response. You may have your own method of prompting students with a facial expression or phrase which they associate with being incorrect but avoid saying words such as wrong, incorrect, or no in response to mistakes. They are negative and will have ill effects on your students’ confidence in the classroom. It is probably more effective for students to correct their own mistakes. In order to do this, students and the teacher should have common shorthand for correcting mistakes. Self-correction should take place quickly, hardly affecting the flow of the conversation. If students correct themselves too much, it can have the opposite effect. It hinders fluency. You also can't always rely on students to catch their own mistakes. These may go uncorrected.