Why Spoken Grammar Errors Deserve Correction - and How to Do It Right

Alan David Pritchard
Jul 3
5 min read

Updated: Jul 24

ESL-Wise: Blog 4

Why Spoken Grammar Errors Deserve Correction - and How to Do It Right

By Alan David Pritchard

It’s a scene every ESL teacher faces on a daily basis:

A student is chatting away, sounding confident, and then comes the slip:

“Yesterday I go to the market.”

You pause. Do you jump in and correct it? Let it slide? Or find a middle ground?

Every ESL teacher knows that moment. And it raises the bigger question: when and how should we correct spoken grammar?

The answer isn’t simple. Timing matters. So do tone and technique.

Research says correction helps, but only if we do it well. I was reminded of this just last term when a student came to see me for advice on improving her English.

She said, “Teacher, I want to speak better, but I always make mistakes.” Then, mid-conversation, she added, “If I will study every day, I can be fluent.”

There it was. A textbook conditional mistake. But she was speaking freely, sharing her thoughts, taking risks.

That's when I realised: Spoken errors aren’t failure. They’re learning in motion.

Those slips in speech are not evidence of laziness. They show what happens when students take the biggest leap of all: thinking and speaking at the same time. Mistakes appear because learners are stretching their knowledge in real time.

A student can write “went” without blinking on paper, yet still say “go” mid-conversation.

That’s not regression. It’s cognitive load and the reality of language under pressure.

So, should we correct it?

SLA researchers like Rod Ellis and Patsy Lightbown agree: language accuracy develops gradually — often unevenly.

Why correct at all?

I believe we should (but not all the time, and only for recognised repeated patterns) because, if left unaddressed, spoken errors can become fossilised.

Many students write how they speak so those errors can often become entrenched in their writing too.

Noticing the gap between “what I said” and “what I meant” is a vital step in language development.

But that doesn’t mean we pounce on every mistake. It means we choose our moments.

And we correct in ways that help students hear, understand, and re-use the correct form without breaking their flow.

Gentle correction that keeps fluency intact

One of the most effective, and respectful, strategies is verbal reformulation with supported re-use.

Here’s how it works:

1. You hear an error.

“He don’t like fish.”

2. You reformulate, without fanfare.

“Right — he doesn’t like fish.”

3. You immediately offer a continuation prompt.

“Tell me what he does like. Start with ‘He doesn’t like fish, but he does like …’”

Other examples:

Student: “She can to drive.”Teacher: “She can drive. Tell me how she learned. Start with, ‘She can drive because…’”

Student: “I am go to school every day.”Teacher: “You go to school every day. Tell me when — start with, ‘I go to school at…’”

This method:

Models the correct form
Gives the student a safe, immediate chance to re-use it
Keeps the communication going
Builds confidence instead of breaking it

There’s no embarrassment. No spotlight. Just progress: quietly, naturally, respectfully. And for me the trick is to not make a big deal about it. I try not to sound like I am forcing a correction, but rather sound like it is a natural thing to help recast with scaffolds. Like it is no big deal.

Whiteboard with a student sentence about sharks, annotated with teacher prompts like “Why did you say ‘eats’ and not ‘eat’?” and “Replace ‘sharks’ with a pronoun. ‘It’ or ‘They’?” to encourage grammatical reflection. — Here is an example of the type of questions I asked when a student wrote questions about sharks on the whiteboard. Grammar error correction can be done with written as well as spoken expressions. In fact, it is also a good idea to get other students to ask error correction guiding questions, too.

What about more direct correction?

There’s a place for that too.Sometimes you’ll need to be more explicit, especially when a pattern keeps repeating, or when a student is ready to reflect on the rule.

SLA research identifies several types of oral feedback:

Recasts: Teacher reformulates the correct form (as above)

Prompts: Teacher encourages the learner to self-correct

Explicit correction: Teacher clearly identifies the error and gives the rule.

No one approach is always right.The key is responsiveness by which I mean knowing when your learner needs support, and when they’re ready for a challenge.

Three rules of thumb for spoken correction

1. Don’t interrupt fluency unless you have to. Let students finish. Then loop back with a reformulation and prompt.

2. Focus on patterns, not perfection. Correct what matters, especially errors tied to your current teaching goals.

3. Give learners a chance to speak again, but better. Correction without re-use is a missed opportunity. Always invite them to say it again, with your support.

What not to do

Don’t correct every slip.
Don’t break the student’s flow just to fix a minor issue.
Don’t over-explain grammar mid-conversation.

And most importantly: Don’t make correction feel like failure.

We’re not grammar police. We’re guides, helping learners see the path more clearly.

Here is another example of the sorts of questions you can ask to guide students to correct written and spoken grammatical structures.

The bigger picture: correction as culture

When students know you’ll help (not humiliate) they take more risks. When they realise that feedback is part of learning, not a judgement, they engage more deeply.

Over time, you build a classroom where:

Mistakes are seen as normal
Correction is expected and welcomed
Students notice their own language
Growth feels shared, not imposed.

That’s not just good pedagogy. That’s good teaching.

Final Thought: Correct out loud, but with care

So, should ESL teachers correct grammar errors in speech? Yes. But with care, clarity, and above all, compassion.

Correct the mistake, not the person. Model the right form and then give it back to them. Don’t make it about accuracy or fluency. Make it about building control, confidence, and ownership of language.

Because in the end, every correction carries a message.

Let yours say:

“It's okay to get it wrong, because then you will get it right."

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.

I’d love to hear from you.

Further Reading