Report on Practical Training. Teacher Training and Corrective Feedback

Table of Contents

1. Before the Practical Training
1.1 Prior educational experiences
1.2 Personal expectations and goals of the teacher training

2. The Teacher Training at RKS
2.1 Introduction of RKS
2.2 Comments on two lessons observed
2.3 Comments on lessons taught

3. Mini-action Research: Corrective Feedback in the EFL classroom at RKS
3.1 Abstract
3.2 Introduction
3.3 Definition and Types of Error Correction
3.4 Research Design
3.5 Corrective feedback at RKS
3.5.1 Teacher’s Usage of Corrective Feedback and Considerations of Error Correction
3.5.2 Concrete Error Treatment in the EFL classroom at RKS
3.5.3 Evaluation of the Tally Sheets and Notes
5.3.4 Interviews with the teachers
3.6 Conclusion of the Mini-action Research

4. Conclusion of the Teacher Training

5. References

6. Appendix

1. Before the Practical Training

1.1 Prior educational experiences

My prior educational experiences consist of two practical trainings, private tutoring and child care at a primary school. I have always liked working with children, even since I was a child myself. I did many babysitting-jobs during my teenage-years and I was eager to give private tutoring at my own school.

Before I decided to study Lehramt (L3) at the Goethe University, I completed an “Orientierungspraktikum” at a primary school in Offenbach. This internship was a great opportunity to observe school from a different perspective. Working with children at school evolved to a life changing experience, as I immediately knew I want to become a teacher. After the five week period, the teachers recommended me to the after-school child care where I am currently still working. My main job consists of assisting on homework, to manage a sports club as well as a playgroup (a couple times a week). During the vacation, we offer extra programs for children with fulltime working parents, for instance excursions, swimming trips, sports or other creative activities etc. A challenging responsibility for me, however, is the private tutoring, because I have to focus on one or two students, currently trying to depict their difficulties. Therefore, a lot of preparation is required, because I dedicate myself to the students individually.

The first time I had to teach and organize a class independently was during SPS I. Although I experienced how much effort one has to put into one whole lesson, I earned great positive feedback, even from the students. I learned so many details one has to take into consideration and I am very thankful for that. At this time I knew that teaching children and adolescent persons is exactly what I want to do in the future. Especially when it comes to learning a foreign language, it is a pleasure to see how they learn to express themselves.

1.2 Personal expectations and goals of the teacher training

First of all I hope to be well received at the new school. I expect of this practical training to be as informative as my first one, and I hope that my mentor supports me and provides advice concerning my lesson planning. My goals for the practical training with regards to my personal development as a professional teacher are to learn clearly formulated and structured instructions in English, so that the students (almost immediately) know what they have to do. Another important issue for me is the organization and time-management of lessons: I want to know how to structure and organize a lesson in a diversified way and still be able to reach the required competencies and push the whole class forward, not only the good ones. A very personal goal would be to hold myself back during my teaching time, because I know I tend to exaggerate, comment and talk too much. Of course these are some character traits that also belong to my teacher personality, but I have to train myself in patience, for example when I have to wait for the students’ participation. In other words, from time to time I want to yield my leading role to the students.

2. The Teacher Training at RKS

2.1 Introduction of RKS

The RKS is a Gymnasium in the town center of Offenbach with ca. 853 students (data as per: September 2014). The class level begins with grade 5 and ends up with Q4. The school offers a variety of subjects that allow every student to learn and grow to an individual. From the beginning on the students are encouraged to make their own choices according to their own interests and preferences. In fifth grade the students can choose freely between English and French as the first foreign language. In grade seven they would learn either English or French as their second foreign language. The range of foreign languages goes on, as they have the option to choose Spanish from eighth grade on; even in case they decide to learn a new language during their advanced school years, they will be able to choose between French and Latin. With this, the school makes sure that one can learn and progress without any pressure or too many restrictions concerning their subjects. The RKS is a multicultural school that supports a tolerant and peaceful atmosphere between different ethnicities and cultures. Multiculturalism is seen as a privilege and, therefore, an opportunity to learn with and from each other. The principle how to live and to accept different cultures is embedded in every subject and each lesson. That is why the RKS is on its way to being considered as a “Kulturschule”. It is called a “School without racism – School with courage”. While the students are characterized by their curious spirit and open-minded view, the teachers are very engaged and committed to create a diverse, a stimulating and a professional learning space.

Additionally there is to mention that the school has been completely modernized in terms of a fundamental reconstruction.

2.2 Comments on two lessons observed

First observation:

The first double lesson I want to comment on was a seventh grade with 14 students. This lesson was actually the first lesson I observed at RKS and it left a lasting impression on me.

This lesson was opened with a short warm-up phase with music. The students had to shake their legs, hands and other parts of the body. In my opinion this warm-up was a great opportunity to revise vocabulary about the human body and also to activate the children in the early morning hours. Since this lesson opening was more creative than I was used to, I had high expectations for the rest of the lesson and I was eager to see the students in action. After the warm-up phase, the topic “Problems of disabled persons” was introduced and the students were asked to share their thoughts. I must admit that I was disappointed by the students’ responses, because they answered to the questions in German. I expected the teacher to intervene and to remind them to stay in the English language. Instead, he also switched to the German language, which shocked me, because my opinion is that English lessons should be taught in English only. The next step was a 15-minutes partner work. The task was to find solutions to the problems of disabled people with the help of dictionaries. I thought this would be a great opportunity for the students to communicate in English, but my expectations were not fulfilled once again and the teacher did not interfere, but continued to answer the students’ questions in German. He did not do anything about the constant mean comments about disabled people either, he only said it would not be appropriate to say “Behinderte” (of course in German). Then I was pleasantly surprised that the collection of results on the board took place in English. Even the evaluation and expression of the students’ opinions (“Do you think RKS is disabled-friendly?”) were in English. So I could see that the students were able to answer in complete English sentences, if they wanted to, but I did not understand, why the teacher did not animated them to stay in the English language during the whole lessons. Unfortunately I had to realize that in the second part of the lesson, especially the boys were not concentrated any more. While the girls kept on doing their partner work, some of the boys were distracting them by walking around and asking stupid questions. The teacher called their names, but it left no impression on them.

All in all, it seemed to be common practice to use the German language in the English classroom, and I observed this phenomenon in other classes as well. I did not like the switching of languages, of course I am aware of the fact that sometimes German has to be spoken, but then I would make a clear announcement that the following part would take place in German and mark it as an exception. Furthermore, I would try to ignore the German statements by “not understanding” and keep on talking in English.

Second observation:

The following double lesson I want to comment on was a sixth grade with 24 students. There is to add that this class learns English as their second foreign language.

The opening of the lesson was already great to observe: The whole class sang a “Good Morning Song” together and everyone, even the teacher, was very passionate about it. This ritual strengthens the social cohesion of the class and I believe that it makes them look forward to the rest of the lesson. After that, we trainees were warmly welcomed by the class. They started do ask us personal questions, such as “Do you like chocolate?” and “What is your favorite color?” This introduction led to a short repetition of forming questions and helped the students to get to know the trainees. As the new topic was “Party, Party!”, the students had to write down ten things they like to eat, and afterwards guess what was on the partner’s list. It was organized like a short game and they had fun. The teacher acted as advisor the whole time and was constantly helping the students. The next step was to look at the pictures in the book and to talk about it in plenary. This is when I observed an alternative to “common” corrective feedback: A student mispronounced the word “sausage”. To help the whole class to pronounce the word correctly, the teacher made them repeat the word step by step. She said the word syllable after syllable and the class repeated. In my opinion this was the best way to correct a student during my practical training. I immediately wrote it down and internalized this method.

The lesson was continued with the organization of food categories, which I consider to be very important, since few children know what dairy products and vegetables are and what kind of food belongs to which category. With this activity, she established a basis for the children. The teacher continued with a short dialogue and the students should listen carefully, afterwards they structured what they had heard together on the board. She made sure everyone was able to follow. After everyone was ready, the students read the dialogue out loud and I noticed that the teacher gave no corrective feedback while reading, but afterwards. There were problems with some words and she let the class repeat them in plenary. In my opinion it was clever to do that, because these children are still young learners and she did not want to interrupt their fluency of speech. But it is still important to correct the wrong words and this happened in plenary. The end of the lesson includes a workbook exercise they did in partner work and if they finished that, they were free to do some vocabulary work. In my opinion this lesson consisted of a variety of different methods and many required competencies, such as reading, writing, listening and speaking.

In contrast to the first observed lesson, this lesson showed me that it is possible to conduct a whole lesson in English only, although the learners are in their first year of English-learning. The English teacher used different forms of working styles and made the lesson as creative as possible. Her style of teaching corresponded to my expectations and goals of my practical training, because I wanted to see how to structure a lesson in a diversified way and reach as many competencies as possible. The teacher gave the students enough freedom in terms of self-development, and still she was the one instructing the class.

2.3 Comments on lessons taught

The double lesson I want to reflect on was on 11 March 2015 in the last two periods. After my observations, I would describe this sixth grade to be a communicative, active, and at times a very loud class.

I opened the lesson with a short revision on the topic “Weekend trip”. This was conducted by throwing a small ball from one student to another. This activation was quite quickly done by the students what showed me that the prior vocabulary is stabilized. The whole section about “Travel” served as an extension of the linguistic devices. The students were arranged in pairs, so that the maximum level of communication could be reached. I also wanted them to secure the new words by writing them down. For me, it was important to mention that they should feel free to add other words, to prevent the simple copying without thinking about it. In my feedback the next step was considered to be a good transition from “Weekend trip” to “Friday Dinner” (see Appendix p. 47ff.). The questions were asked in a way so that the teacher could reassure that everything has been understood. This was the basis for the following topics. Then, I wanted the students to open their books at page 62 (see Appendix p. 54) and have a look at the text “Friday Dinner” to make sure if there are any words they do not understand. Meanwhile I was writing down the new vocabulary on the board. Afterwards, I introduced the new text through the listening comprehension. I chose to do it in this order, because I did not want to introduce a new text without clarifying the new vocabulary. But the other way around would have been more productive, the teacher told me in the feedback, because the students are used to first listen to a new text and discuss unknown words afterwards. Another problem with the listening comprehension was that I forgot to give a task while listening. After the first listening, I should have done something productive with the students, but I wanted them to concentrate on the listening only. After the listening the students read the text out loud. Although they have listened to the text twice, they still made many mistakes, but I decided to correct them after the reading in plenary. The teacher was of the opinion that I should have done the correction immediately. The next step was to find out the correct word order by asking “Where will Dan and Joe be when?” Unfortunately this did not lead to full sentences, the answers were, for example “at the Brecon Beacons” and nothing else. It was quite challenging for me to lead the students to the correct sentences. Sometimes I was even a bit distracted by the fact that they were so quiet, because I have experienced them to be very loud. I wondered what the reason behind that could be. But in the end we have managed to find out the correct word order together, the first two sentences where the exact answer to the question “Where will Dan and Joe be when?” and the last sentence should have been found by the students. When I did the grammar rule together with them, I wanted to focus on the new topic “Word order: Place before time”, but I should have done a short revision on S-V-O. I thought, the time would not suffice, but this lesson showed me that my time management was completely wrong. All in all, the originally long planned phases were shorter than expected. I had to think of an alternative at the end and did some workbook work, but we were still finished five minutes earlier. I have to admit that I expected the class to be as turbulent as in the lessons before, but this was not the case and they were really fast. I was unsatisfied, because of a few things I should have thought about more intensely, for instance the task while listening and my instructions. It happened that I asked “What do these sentences have in common” and silence surrounded the whole class. I still have to learn to adapt my English language to the level of the grade.

The second reflection is about a lesson in another sixth grade which took place on 18 March 2015 in the fifth and sixth period. In the second part of the double lesson the students were confronted with the difference between the simple present and the present progressive. Therefore a small revision was planned, and the results were written down on the board. The following task was to find out, what Felonious Gru usually does in the morning and what is happening today. I told them a story beforehand that Felonious Gru is very grumpy today, because his morning is not as he expected it to be. To explain the vocabulary, such as “grumpy”, I showed the students a picture of “Grumpy Felonious Gru” and wrote the new words down. For the task, an overhead transparency is provided (see Appendix p. 68). The grid was filled out together with the students, while giving certain impulses (e.g. gestures, facial expressions etc.). The students were eager to participate, because they liked the topic about Felonious Gru and were already fascinated by previous story. After the transparency was filled out, I asked, if there were any signal words that show the students immediately when to use simple present and when to use present progressive. These signal words were underlined, but it would have been better, if I used different colors. Afterwards the students were asked to copy the grid and to make it happen faster, a grid was already provided. While the students were copying the grid, I wrote down the most important signal words on the board. Theoretically, it was planned that the students copy the comparison between simple present and present progressive, but due to the short time, it was provided on a hand-out in the next lesson (see Appendix p. 75). I wanted the students to have concrete examples concerning the comparison between simple present and present progressive that is why the grid was copied. Because it took the students a long time to copy the grid, I believe now that it would have been better to only copy the comparison which was written down on the board. The next step was to use both tenses on the basis of the first work sheet (see Appendix p. 70). It was important to underline the signal words in different colors, so that the students immediately know which signal word belongs to which tense. The results were compared in plenary. In this lesson, my time management was not as planned, but in contrary to the first reflected lesson, the time was not sufficient. This is why I focused on the vocabulary at the end of the lesson, because many new words were introduced during the double lesson. We revised the vocabulary in plenary and afterwards the words were copied in their vocabulary books. The last minutes were used to explain the homework (see Appendix p. 72). All in all, this lesson was a lot of fun and not as calm as in the other sixth grade. In my feedback it was said that only few things could be done in a different way (e.g. the copying of the grid). The students were eager to participate which speaks for itself. Furthermore the children were able to differentiate between the simple present and the present progressive at the end of the lesson. I wished I had more time to continue on this progress.

3. Mini-action Research: Corrective Feedback in the EFL classroom at RKS

3.1 Abstract

The role of corrective feedback in language acquisition has been highly discussed. Researchers use various different terms to define corrective feedback and they argue whether it is important to use error correction in the EFL classroom or avoid it completely. Due to this controversial matter, a lot of studies were made concerning the role of corrective feedback, in terms of whether and how to correct errors. This paper reviews research findings which were made during the five-week observation of the practical training and focuses mainly on oral corrective feedback and its impact on language learners.

3.2 Introduction

Over the last few years many discussions about error correction in second language acquisition have been made. Questions arose, if learners should be provided with positive evidence or with negative evidence as well. The opinions differ: Brown (2007), for instance considers errors to be immediately corrected by the teacher. Others (Krashen, 1981) believe that error correction is not necessary and even harmful to language learners. I believe error correction to be efficient and that it ensures the learner’s language learning development. The following research project’s aim is to prove on the basis of the five-week observation at RKS that the effectiveness of corrective feedback is the result from the teacher’s actions. Students need clear instructions and the help of their English teacher to improve their language. Especially when it comes to oral correction: How are the students supposed to learn a language without being corrected, for instance the pronunciation. At least, corrective feedback is an interaction between teacher and learner and at times between the learners among themselves.

Corrective feedback has been observed and evaluated with regards to how, when and why it has taken place. Additionally the reactions of the students of different grades have been observed, as well as the teachers’ reactions to different kinds or errors. Therefore the teachers have been interviewed about their corrective feedback scheme. In the end the results are discussed whether corrective feedback given by teachers is the most productive type of error correction in the EFL classroom.

3.3 Definition and Types of Error Correction

The term corrective feedback is defined in many different ways, because it is highly discussed. According to Schachter (1991) the terms corrective feedback, negative evidence and negative feedback are the most common. This feedback may be implicit or explicit. First of all, Chaudron (1988) regards error treatment as “any teacher behavior following an error that minimally attempts to inform the learner of the fact of error” (Chaudron 1988:150).

Furthermore there is a distinction between teacher-learner and learner-learner feedback. A definition by Lynch which would not support my thesis makes clear that after him, self-repair is more common than corrective feedback by a teacher. “The teacher’s role as corrector is relatively unusual, even if it is an accepted and even expected part of what we do in the classroom.” (Lynch 1996:117).

To differentiate the different types of corrective feedback, Lyster and Ranta (1997) have identified six types of error correction in the EFL classroom:

1. Explicit Correction: The learner is corrected explicitly by the teacher. This error treatment is characterized to be a clear indication about what was incorrect. The teacher supplies both negative and positive evidence
2. Clarification Requests: With questions like “Pardon?” or “What do you mean?” it is indicated that the sentence has to be repeated or reformulated, because it has not been understood.
3. Recast: The learner is corrected implicitly, the correct form of the learner’s mistake is provided by the teacher. After the sentence “she maked a contact with me” the teacher would answer “Yes, she made contact with me, too!”
4. Metalinguistic feedback: The focus lies on rules or features of the target language, because the teacher comments or questions the nature of the error, without explicitly saying the correct form, for instance “Can you find your mistake?”
5. Repetition: The term refers to the teacher’s repetition of a student’s incorrect sentence to highlight the error.
6. Elicitation: Teachers elicit the correct form from the student by strategically pausing in the middle of their sentence or use questions like “What does … mean in English?” or “Peter is … around Europe.”

3.4 Research Design

The mini-research project is based on the observations of four different grades (5th, 6th,7th, 9th grade) during their English lessons at RKS in Offenbach. Six different classes with five different teachers have been precisely examined. Therefore notes on corrective feedback were taken during the lessons, tally sheets were made to count the errors, as well as the teacher’s reaction to them. Interviews were conducted in the last two weeks of the internship to point out the reason behind their actions and reactions. The topic of the research project was not told beforehand, in order to avoid that the English teachers get influenced by it in their lesson planning. During the observation time many errors occurred, some were corrected directly and some were not. Questions arose, if the teachers were aware of that or not. Further questions about why they chose to use different types of corrective feedback, such as correction during reading, correction through the students, correction through the teacher (mid-sentenced or after sentence) or no correction at all, will be explained in the following paper. For this, the interviews were very helpful, the teachers were open and honest about error correction in their classroom and revealed further information about what is necessary about corrective feedback. The following data used in this research paper is conducted by Merle Meyer and me.

3.5 Corrective feedback at RKS

3.5.1 Teacher’s Usage of Corrective Feedback and Considerations of Error Correction

As already mentioned, error correction is a controversial topic. According to many researchers, recasts, prompts and explicit correction are the most common methods to correct errors during a lesson (Cf. Oliver & Philp 2014:109). All these methods have also been observed at RKS. In general, the teachers believed that corrective feedback is very important and is not counterproductive for the smooth flow of communication. Every teacher used different methods of correcting errors and all in all, there were no problems during the working process between teacher and student. These opinions do not agree on Truscott’s thesis that “Oral correction poses overwhelming problems for teachers... The natural conclusion is that oral grammar correction should be abandoned” (Truscott 1999: Conclusion, paragraph 1). On the contrary there is Shaffer (2005):

“It can be concluded that error correction is feasible because it is structured in such a way as to not divert attention away from the communicative task. Error correction does not produce negative feelings, but is rather expected by students. It need not be consistent to be feasible and useful, and it need not be ambiguous. Error correction is not too much of a burden for the L2 teacher, and though students may superficially appear to not take corrections seriously, they do notice error correction. Evidence from recent studies has shown that error correction is effective and can be used in both its explicit and implicit forms to aid in second-language learning.” (Conclusion)

The teacher’s usage of corrective feedback is considered to be urgently necessary and unavoidable. Against Truscott’s opinion, the teachers believe that no harm is done to the children, the sensitive and friendly way of correcting is accepted from both sides. Of course, every teacher wants a fluent and smooth communication in English in their classroom, but errors have to be corrected to ensure the correct language development and to push the students forwards. Otherwise they would not change in terms of their language development, for instance pronunciation. There is to add that the teachers at RKSmainly used oral corrective feedback in many different forms. Furthermore one has to admit that the German language was very often used to clarify unknown vocabulary and grammar issues.

All of this will be explained and analyzed in the next chapter on the basis of concrete examples from the English lessons.

3.5.2 Concrete Error Treatment in the EFL classroom at RKS

In this chapter concrete examples of corrective feedback from English lessons are presented and analyzed with regards to the impact on the students. It has to be mentioned that the error correction took place in a smooth way, almost not recognizable, because it was taken for granted. The first example shows the opposite of that and serves as the exception of the rule:

S.: He like his friend.

T.: Nein, das ist falsch. Mensch, Leute, das haben wir aber schontausendmal geübt. Wie ist das nochmal mit dem he, she, it ?

S.: Achso, ja… he likes his friend.

T.: Ok, also merkt euch bitte nochmal das mit dem he, she, it – das ‚s‘

muss mit!

This happened in a fifth grade and it is obvious that the teacher interrupted the flow of the lesson. Of course, the third person singular mistake is the most common and one has to pay attention to that, but it is not necessary to switch to German and complain about it. It was obvious that the students felt uncomfortable and embarrassed. The teacher’s corrective feedback was not sensitive enough, but it is also understandable to be frustrated at times.

The next example is actually the only time that written corrective feedback was observed. Although this paper focuses on oral corrective feedback, this example shows how the teacher linked oral and written error correction. The students of a ninth grade were presenting their results on the boards and spelling mistakes, such as “adress”, “informel”, “expresion” and “abreviation” were made. The teacher let them write the words incorrectly and then asked the whole class explicitly, if there were any mistakes on the board, after the group had presented their results. The words were corrected together on the board and on this occasion she practiced the pronunciation in plenary. Furthermore, a student had to read out a formal letter and the teacher corrected him while reading in two ways: First, the error on pronunciation was corrected immediately, and then she wrote down the difficult and important words on the board. In the end the whole class repeated the words in plenary.

The following example in a sixth grade has already been mentioned in this paper, because it was a creative and amusing way of correcting a student. One student mispronounced the word sausages. Although the teacher corrected him, he still had problems to repeat sausages in the correct way. The teacher’s immediate reaction to this was to practice the word step by step through syllable division:

T.: Say sau-.

S.: Sau-.

T.: Say sau-sa-.

S.: Sau-sa-.

T.: Say sau-sa-ges.

S.: Sau-sa-ges.

T.: And now all together! Sau-sa-ges.

Class: Sau-sa-ges.

This kind of corrective feedback was really impressive, because her direct approach to the students was professional. Her reaction was immediate, she also eliminated this error, before it could happen to the rest of the class. Certainly, the word will remain in their memories. It is to mention that she did not write the word on the board, because the focus was on pronunciation and the word was already visualized in the book. She managed to leave a permanent impression on the trainees through her ability to give corrective feedback in a sensitive, but also creative way.

Two cases of correction during reading in sixth grade occurred that stand in direct comparison to each other: In the first case, the teacher did not correct during reading, because she did not want to interrupt their fluency of speech. Afterwards, she collected the words and repeated them in plenary. In the second case the opposite occurred. The teacher corrected the students while reading several times and told the class afterwards (in German) that their reading was very good and fluent. But she interrupted their fluency of speech and pulled them out of the English language. In this case, the first example is more effective than the second one.

Additionally to the concrete examples, there is to mention that facial expressions, gestures and sounds are very important while doing corrective feedback. This has also been observed several times during the practical training. For instance, lowering or raising the voice to point out a mistake, hissing at the third person singular mistake or making a special facial expression. Sometimes errors were corrected mid-sentenced and the learner repeated the word automatically, maybe without even being aware of it and sometimes the correction took place afterwards by explicit questions, such as “Is this correct?” etc.

In general, one can say that the error treatment at the RKSwas mainly initiated by the teacher, but the corrective feedback itself happened through several methods and the students were involved in this process, as well.

3.5.3 Evaluation of the Tally Sheets and Notes

The following collection of data is based on tally sheets and notes that were made during the practical training. The tally sheets consist of four columns, and the observer was able to tick when error correction took place:

- Correction through teacher
- Correction through students
- Correction while reading
- Correction not indicated

The “Correction through teacher” column was subdivided into:

- Mid-sentence correction
- After sentence correction

The observer counted every heard mistake in the classroom and the following reaction to it. Everything that was corrected by the teacher, including mispronunciation, grammar, vocabulary or content-based errors, referred to the column “Correction through teacher”. Only a distinction between mid-sentence and after sentence corrections was made, because these were the most common corrections that occurred. Thereby it is important to mention that the main type of correction was explicit correction, but the correction also took place a few times through repetition (after sentence) or elicitation (after sentence).

The column “Correction through students” contained errors that have been corrected by students. Although the teacher was the one to give the impulse, the correct form was still provided by a student.

A category about corrective feedback “while reading” has been designed, because many teachers corrected the students in the middle of their sentence, although they were concentrating on reading properly.

The last category simply includes errors that were made, but not corrected by the teacher. Either the teacher did not notice or he or she did not want to correct the mistake, because the student was too shy.

The following chart contains all the counted errors, subdivided into the mentioned categories:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Fig. 1: Total count of corrective feedback; Correction through teacher: 43%; Correction through students: 24%; Correction during reading: 29%; No correction: 4%

In total, in 16 lessons, 125 mistakes were counted. As already mentioned before, the teacher’s role on corrective feedback is predominant (43%). Only 4% of errors were not corrected at all. The next chart shows the correction through the teacher more detailed, subdivided into mid-sentence correction and after sentence correction.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Fig. 2: Position of the teacher correction in different grades: mid-sentence or after sentence

In this diagram one can see that the mid-sentenced correction by the teachers is clearly predominant in all grades with over 50%. The most mistakes were corrected immediately in grade five, because of the most common errors, (e.g. third person singular errors), as already described in the examples before.

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