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Before I began taking this course I had some views on popular ideas that I didn’t agree with about language acquisition. One of which is that learners' errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits in the target language. If one of my colleagues were to tell me that learners' errors should be corrected as soon as they are made in order to prevent the formation of bad habits, my response would be that I agree with the fact that errors should be corrected, but I strongly believe that how the error correction is done is more important than when it is done, and that we need to be careful with our timing. Making errors is a part of the learning process; it means that the learners are exploring the language. When a person is trying to acquire a new skill, in this case, language, telling that person straight up that they are wrong can affect their self-esteem and motivation in a negative way. Learners’ vulnerability should be taken into account when correcting errors. I believe in using more constructive ways of error correction. The first one is recasting, which is reformulating the error the learner has made by giving the correct form. The second one is by giving a metalinguistic clue which happens by posing a question like 'Is that how we say it?'. The third one is asking for clarification from the learner also known as a clarification request, for example using phrases like 'Excuse me? Sorry? I didn't quite get that.’. The fourth one is elicitation; this can be done by asking the student to repeat the sentence or word, by reformulating it or by saying ‘How do we say that word in English?'. All learners characteristics are different, so getting to know your learners is just as important as knowing how to correct errors. Knowing what motivates your learners, their ability, how confident they are and most importantly their personalities will make it easier for both the teacher and the learners. Each learner is unique; naturally their types of intelligences are different from one another too, such as bodily-kinaesthetic, musical, linguistic etc. Though Intelligence Quotient or IQ Tests can be a good tool to measure mathematical-logical and verbal intelligences, but the same can't be said for the other types, especially when learning a language as it isn't merely about passing tests, it includes a lot of different skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar). It is important to find various ways to include all of the different types of learners who have different types of intelligences into the learning circle and encourage them to participate as much as possible. All in all, language learning isn't linear, it depends highly on the situation and the learner, as all learners are different, so one size doesn't fit all. People learn from their mistakes and intelligence cannot be measured by automatic judgements, one has to delve further. It's up to the teacher to guide the learners in the right way in a supportive environment which will contribute to their learning process.
