Over halfway through

It's just after the Easter holidays and the writing students have now, on top of the earlier tasks, also posted on the blog, and written a TOEFL-type exam essay, a fictional biography, a poem or two, and an essay comparing an aspect of Australia with Mexico. Next Tuesday they'll also be handing in a book report and an article analysis. That's pretty much it until the research paper is handed in at the end of May, although there will be some more smaller creative writing tasks.

The only difference I've made in my correction/feedback process is to colour-code the corrections and use a few abbreviations (SP, SVA, PL). Punctuation problems are marked in purple; transfer errors in green; and non-existent words in blue. The rest is in pink. I think this is helping them identify their own errors more, but also see what type of error they're making more frequently. Today, I handed back their biographies with feedback, and having read through them, they then had the chance to re-read their comparison essays and making any corrections (based on the things they especially need to work on) before handing them in to me.

About a week before the Easter holidays we did some work on transfer errors, which I've also referred to since. I used a lot of material that M used last year, although I changed a number of the examples to make them more relevant to this group of students, and removed some that were a little ambiguous. I began with giving them a list of sentences that all appeared to come directly from thinking in Spanish, and asking them to identify what they all had in common. Unfortunately a number thought I wanted them to correct each one, so rather than read them all through quickly (it was meant to be a fast activity) they started at the top and worked their way down the list. I must make sure to make the instructions very clear here.

The next activity was to try to translate sentences written in Spanish, into English. This was quite difficult but worked well to give them familiarity with the differences between the two languages.

In a separate class, they had to choose (a or b) which sentence was correctly written in English, from the Spanish sentence. They had problems with the following:

• Mr. Fuentes is an English teacher, like me. (They chose "as me")
• In January 1990 they came to visit us. (They chose "On January")
• What's the longest river in the world? (They chose "of the world")
• This is the first time he's driven an automatic car. (They chose "he drives")
• Ever since he was a child he enjoyed riding horses. (They chose "Since he was a child")
• They thought he had died in a car accident. (They chose "on a car accident")

Finally, in small groups, they had to identify the correct of two sentences and then draw what the incorrect sentence actually means - especially what a native speaker might understand by what they said. Some of these were easier than others. The ones that were difficult were "Which are his ideas?" and "Her work was translated into 25 idioms". Most just couldn't really draw anything concrete from these two, unfortunately. I also had five other options down the bottom for them to choose one and act out - this being because some students had asked for more kinesthetic type activities in class. Unfortunately, two things happened: first, there was little time to really devote what each group needed to act it out; and second, I don't think those "kinesthetic" students attended that day, as no-one actually wanted to do it. However, they were able to explain the problem in each one verbally rather than acting it out. Still, I think it might be a useful activity if each group had more time and more inclination to do so.

The main question is: Have these activities been helpful to stop/prevent the students from making the same errors in the future? I'll be able to see a little with the comparison essays they've handed in today; and also with the book reports next week. I'm hopeful that the feedback I've given them is getting through to them.