1. Errors Errors are products of the learner’s stage of language development, or inadequate teaching or learning. Errors need to be dealt with by teaching or reteaching. Systematic errors are indicative of a students’ lack of language knowledge. When the same error is made by a number of learners, something has gone wrong in earlier stages of the teaching/learning process.

2. Mistakes (slips) Mistakes are products of the learner’s efforts to produce language despite prior knowledge. Mistakes or slips occur in language that students know. Due to a variety of factors: - lack of concentration or tiredness, -over-enthusiasm, -over-generalization of rules, -interference from the mother tongue, and -once the cause has been established, can be dealt with by a number of correction techniques.

3. Reasons why learners make errors 1.Influence from the learner’s first language (interference). Learners may use sound patterns, lexis or grammatical structures from their own language in English. 2. Learners are unconsciously working out and organizing language (developmental error). Similar to those made by a young first language speaker as part of their normal language development. Learners wrongly apply a rule for one item of the language to another item (overgeneralization).

4. Techniques to correct spoken errors Body language - Rolling a hand from side to side to mean “so-so attempt”. - Making a circle by moving your index finger to mean “one more time”. - A cross with fingers to show a very clear “no” or “wrong” - Head (tilted to one side) to mean “I’m not sure that sounds correct” - Shoulders (hunched) to reinforce “I don’t understand what you are saying”

5. Correction symbols Students need to learn correction symbols, it may take time, it brings humor into the sometimes serious task of correction and avoids the need for words. Once the students have learnt the symbols, they can be used for peer correction. -‘T’ with fingers -Pull ear to show irregular past tense. -Cross hands over to show wrong word order. -Draw -2 (minus t(w)o) in the air. -Buzz like a bee to show missing verb ‘be’. -Make a scissors motion with fingers to cut out unnecessary words.