Unit 11 

The role of error 

Are mistakes good or bad?

Let me say something obvious first: mistakes are bad. If one had a choice between saying a sentence correctly and saying it with a mistake, nobody in their right mind would choose saying it with a mistake and no teacher would recommend that. However there are some reasons that teachers sometimes say that mistakes shouldn’t be avoided is that they believe one of two things (or both):

1. Those mistakes are an inseparable part of the learning process; therefore, the only way to avoid language mistakes would be to avoid speaking and writing in a foreign language, and that would be bad. (the “Mistakes are inevitable” group)
2. That making mistakes, and having them corrected, is a good way to learn a language. (The “Mistakes are good” group.)

In addition, making mistakes plays a significant part in language because it allows learners to experiment with language and measure their strengths and weakness in communicating.

On the other hand, teachers need to know that mistakes are divided into errors and slips. To have a clear idea of what refer each of them let’s gives a definition; error occurs when a learner uses language unconsciously in order to understand and learn it but they cannot correct errors themselves because they do not understand what is wrong. Meanwhile, slips occur as result of tiredness, worry or everything can disturb students’ concentration which makes them to commit slips it could be when they are speaking or writhing.

Another important point why learners make errors is the influence of learner’s first language (mother tongue L1) on the second language L2 this is called interference or transfer. In this part teachers should be aware that learners sometimes use the second language in the same way that they use their mother tongue it includes lexis or grammatical structures.

As a final relevant aspect from this unit and it is fossilation of errors may be the result of lack exposure to the L2, the result of a learner’s conscious or unconscious lack of motivation to improve their accuracy.

In conclusion, making mistakes is a good way to learn a language since it can helps learners to improve or realize what they are doing well or wrong with language but of course teachers take a significant role in this due to they should correct those mistakes in a positive way. 

Here you have an interesting video about the role of error 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cipFuDxiF2Y

This is a good power presentation about this topic:

http://es.slideshare.net/MelissaFerrer/learner-errors-and-error-analysisppt-rev