Basic principles:

Some basic principles of correcting spoken language are also true for correcting written language. Especially these two:

- Correction should mean helping people to become more accurate, not insisting on completely standard English.

- Involving learners in judgements about correctness helps them become more accurate in their use of the language.


TYPES OF MISTAKES

SLIPS or careless mistakes - students are able to correct them if they are given a signal.

ERRORS - if a students cannot self-correct a mistake in their English, but the teacher believes that the class can, the mistake is called error.

ATTEMPTS - when the teacher knows that the students have not yet learned the language necessary to express what they want to say, we call that mistakes attempts.

CORRECTING SLIPS
- can be done by "signaling" - above the mistake or on the margin rather than by direct correction of the mistake - thus we teach and promote self-correction.
Example of signals:

S - incorrect spelling
T - tense
A - incorrect or missing article
W - wrong word
WO - incorrect word order etc.

CORRECTING ERRORS
TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE.
WE CAN SEE OTHER´S MISTAKES BETTER THAN OUR OWN.

Possible ways of correcting:
- correcting groups/teams
- whole class correction
- correction competitions


CORRECTING ATTEMPS IN FREE WRITING
To correct or not?
It is advisable to show somehow that attempts are not mistakes as such. We can show it by correcting them in pencil only or by some other way which students are familiar with.

In free writing do not concentrate on accuracy only - meaning is the key thing here - SHOW INTEREST IN MEANING!