Videotaping Helps ESL Students Recognize Their Good Mistakes – and Learn from Them!

How do you help your ESL students recognize their errors in speaking English? What techniques do you use to make their mistakes “psychologically real” to them?

One technique I’ve found effective may seem rather counter-intuitive: encourage them!

This unorthodox teaching idea has recently attracted some welcome attention.. Larry Ferlazzo, the award-winning ESL blogger and author of Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Approaches to Classroom Challenges,  wrote an illuminating post on how he is experimenting with “celebrating mistakes” in his high school ESL class.

While I have never consciously “celebrated” mistakes, I do consistently encourage students to make “good mistakes”, defined as natural errors that we can learn from, so we can continue to improve and new, different, and better mistakes. Creating a classroom atmosphere of tolerance, understanding, and constructive criticism remains a constant challenge.

Yet modern technologies, such as video cameras and smart phones, make video recordings of English language learners an accessible, affordable option. As 21st century English teachers, we can deploy some practical tools in our ESL and EFL classrooms. Videotaping English students certainly helps here since they can watch their own presentations or discussions. Sometimes having students transcribe their own speech yields surprises, but often you don’t even need to resort to such rigorous examination. Students can often see where they have made verb tense errors, searched for vocabulary, or used the wrong word form on their own. Uploading videos to a class website encourages self-awareness and reflection. Seeing, in this case, is often believing.

Further, videotaping student presentations makes our classrooms more democratic since our students can speak – and share their words with friends and relatives beyond the classroom if they choose. Sometimes English language learners, recognizing that they can share their work outside the classroom and reach core peer audiences, will practice more than usual. As ESL students step up their game and perform for the camera, they sometimes make fewer mistakes – and excel!

And if students, as usual, do make mistakes? Let’s call that a learning opportunity. “Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, ” advised legendary  Sony Chairman Akio Morita. “But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.” While learning English requires us to be more understanding and patient of “good mistakes”, this quote emphasizes the value of making mistakes – outside and inside our English classrooms.

How many good mistakes must English students make on the road to English fluency? I have no idea, but students will get to their linguistic destination sooner if they start more making good mistakes in our English classes today. Staying silent out of fear of making mistakes almost guarantees students will never become fluent English speakers.

The videotape allows our students to see – and learn – from that bad mistake too.

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3 comments

  1. I fully agree with you on “celebrating mistakes”. I teach English in Japan and it is always my first goal in class to get students relaxed about making mistakes. I try to make them aware that everyone in the class are not professional English speakers. Everyone will make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn. I often attempt to speak Japanese where a slew of horrific mistakes come flying out of my mouth and let the students have a few laughs. I ask them to correct me when I am wrong so I can learn.

    I also have experence with video taping. I once taught a presentation and debate class at a high school in Japan. I video taped thier presentations and debates and required them watch their videos and critique them. They previously received feedback from their peers on what they did well and what they need to improve on. Soon after they watched their videos with their peers’ comments in mind.

    All of the students could find their mistakes clearly and improved tremendously on their next presentation and debate. One problem that I had, but made sure not to do again, was to let them see their video too late. I once waited one month before the student could see their video and the impact was less meaningful. I realized that it is very important that I provide feedback and their videos in a timely manner while it is fresh in their memory.

    Great post and I am looking forward to reading more on this blog.

    J.Huskey

  2. J – Thank you for sharing your teaching experiences in Japan and the value of making mistakes. You also zoomed in a critical factor with video: the sooner students can watch themselves, the more valuable the experience.I’ve also sometimes delayed longer than ideal. I made the mistake, for instance, of directly posting (unlisted) to YouTube only to discover that the videotapes were deleted due to excessive length. Finding the original took too long. If we can post within 72 hours, however, I feel we’re doing a fine job.

    By the way, many of my university students have told me that they have seldom, if ever, watched themselves speaking in English. While the novelty may add power to their first reactions, this powerful education should retain its potency as videotaping becomes a more mainstream educational tool.

    Thank you for your post, and I apologize for the tardy reply.

  3. Dear Peter – Thank you for visiting my microblog and sharing those network architect interview questions.

    Shalom

    Eric

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Using video to help your students learn from their mistakes | efl-resource.com - [...] students learn from their mistakes Posted on 18 February, 2012 by Simon Thomas Eric Roth explains how celebrating mistakes…
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  3. Around The Web In ESL/EFL/ELL | teacherstech.net - [...] Videotaping Helps ESL Students Recognize Their Good Mistakes – and Learn from Them! is from Eric Roth. I’m adding…
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