4 Managing the correction of your students’ written work
When students write independently, they will make more mistakes than when they are copying or reproducing memorised texts. You may feel that this means that your students are not performing so well. However, making mistakes is a natural part of the language learning process and is a sign that your students are learning and internalising the language. You can use these mistakes as an opportunity to support your students’ language learning.
Giving students positive and encouraging feedback on their writing can help them to learn and improve. You may think that it is difficult to correct all of your students’ written work, especially if you have a large class. You may feel that there is just not enough time to look at each student’s work or there are just too many different mistakes to deal with. These are common problems that teachers face, whatever level of students they teach. There are, however, ways in which you can make correcting students’ work easier:
- Remember that you don’t have to check each student’s work every time they write. You can choose to correct and review some students some of the time. Over a period of time, you will have the chance to correct and review each student’s work. Keep records of your students’ work for assessment purposes.
- If the writing exercises are simple (for example, short answers to comprehension questions or grammar exercises), you can write the correct answers on the blackboard or read them out and students can correct their own work or their neighbour’s. This gives them a better sense of their own writing and where they might need to improve.
- Get your students to do writing activities in pairs of groups sometimes. This means students can share their ideas, and help each other. They can write a text together, which means that there is less for you to correct.
- While each student is different and may need more or less support, there may be mistakes that are common to your group of students – you can focus on these to help them progress. As students are writing, walk around the room and note common, general mistakes. Write some sentences containing mistakes on the blackboard (without mentioning names) and ask your students to spot the mistakes and correct them.
- Concentrate on just some mistakes – perhaps one time focusing on tenses and another time on punctuation or grammar. You can decide based on what you think is a priority. Tell your students what you are focusing on – if they spot other mistakes to correct, that is fine. Make sure they realise that you are not ignoring mistakes.
- Get your students to keep a list of the mistakes that they make repeatedly in their notebooks. They can then refer to this list whenever they write. This helps students become more independent and have a better sense of what they need to improve. It can also act as a quick ‘checklist’ of things that they need to focus more on to improve their writing.
- Have a positive attitude towards mistakes and foster this among your students. Don’t chastise students for making mistakes. Remember that it is normal for students to make mistakes as they write in a new language, and mistakes show that they are learning. Remind your students that everyone makes mistakes sometimes – you included!
- Encourage your students to write independently as much as possible – and help them to enjoy it. They may enjoy writing more if they see that it can help them in life beyond school, and if they are encouraged to express their own ideas. If they can see the value of writing in English, it will motivate them to practise more and to learn more in the process.
Activity 3: Correcting your students’ written work
You can use a variety of techniques to manage how you correct your students’ written work. Use a form like Table 1 below to plan how you are going to do it over the next month. Remember to think about strategies for how to take the feedback forward so that it focuses on how the students can improve.
| Class and chapter: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week | Written work to be corrected | How will I correct it? | Whose work will I correct? | How to take it forward |
| 1 | ||||
| 2 | ||||
| 3 | ||||
| 4 | ||||
Table 2 shows an example of a completed form.
| Class and chapter: | Class X, Beehive Chapter 5, ‘The Snake and the Mirror’ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week | Written work to be corrected | How will I correct it? | Whose work will I correct? | How to take it forward |
| 1 | Answering questions about the lesson Students write answers in pairs |
Move around the room as students write and correct as many as possible Review correct answers with the whole class |
I haven’t seen students at the back of the room for a while – I will look at their work | Give extra support to students who seem to be struggling |
| 2 | Grammar exercise on reported speech | Write the correct answers on the blackboard Students correct their own work |
Students get a sense of whether they need more work in this area Suggest further practice for those who need it |
|
| 3 | Pair dictation | Students use the textbook to correct each other’s work | Students take note of spelling errors to work on | |
| 4 | Writing a story based on a picture Students write stories in pairs |
Take stories from ten pairs and correct them |
Names: Raju, Nimisha, Abdul, Aliya, Neelam, Brajesh, Suman, Ashraf, Ravinder, Rina |
Students had problems with past tense Review in next class |
 Pause for thought After you have followed your plan for a month, answer these questions:
|
It is useful to make plans like these so that you know when your students are going to do written work, and that you are able to review the work of different students. Over the months, you will review the work of all your students and track their progress. In this way both you and they will get a better sense of their strengths and areas for improvement, and you will be able to see where you need to focus your teaching. See the unit Supporting language learning through formative assessment for information about correcting written work, giving feedback and using it for assessment purposes.
If your plan hasn’t worked out the way you had hoped it would, make another one and try some different techniques – see what works best for you and your class. The important thing is to keep trying to give your students as much positive and encouraging feedback as you can so that they can continue to improve.
3 Helping students to write independently by modelling language