A good correction in an English lesson makes the mistake clear, gets the pupil to find the right answer themselves where possible, and aims at the word rather than the child. When a class goes quiet after a wrong answer, the cause is usually how the correction was made.

Lyster and Ranta (1997) recorded French lessons for children in Canada and studied how teachers responded to mistakes. The move teachers used most was repeating the pupil's sentence back in its correct form, known as a recast. Recasts are quick and keep the lesson flowing, but in the study they were also the move least likely to lead a pupil to notice and fix the mistake. A pupil can hear the teacher's sentence as agreement rather than correction. Moves that pushed the pupil to work out the right form themselves produced far more self-correction.

The seven techniques below build on that finding, and none of them needs any preparation.

Give the pupil a chance first

Instead of saying the answer straight away, give half of it: "Mutfak... in English it's kit...?" Or ask the question again a different way. Making the pupil guess helps even when the guess is wrong. In experiments by Kornell, Hays and Bjork (2009), people who tried to answer before seeing the answer, got it wrong and were then shown the right one remembered it better than people who simply studied the right answer from the start. Trying to remember, even unsuccessfully, makes room for the answer that follows.

Point to the mistake, not the answer

If a pupil says "In our chicken there is a fridge", don't correct the whole sentence. Just echo the one word back: "Chicken?" The pupil looks at their own sentence again and usually finds it. If they don't, add a small clue: "Not an animal. A room."

Don't let a confident mistake slide

The mistakes people are most sure of turn out to be the ones they remember best once corrected. In a 2001 study by Butterfield and Metcalfe, the wrong answers participants had been most confident about were the ones they corrected most easily after seeing the feedback. This is called the hypercorrection effect.

In the classroom, that means letting a confident pupil's mistake pass to spare their feelings wastes the best moment to correct it. The surprise is when the correction lands. Say it calmly and clearly: "Good guess, but not this one. Kitchen is mutfak, chicken is tavuk."

Correct the word, not the child

According to Hattie and Timperley's 2007 review, the least effective feedback is aimed at the person rather than the task. "Well done, you're so clever" and "You always mix these up" both tell a child nothing about the learning, only a judgement about themselves. "In kitchen and chicken the same sounds swap places, listen again" is information they can use.

Don't correct everything

Stopping at every mistake during a speaking activity will silence a class within minutes. Choose a focus at the start of the lesson, for example only this unit's words today. Note the other mistakes and go over them together at the end, without names. Mistakes that change the meaning come first. "He go to school" is still understood. A kitchen mistaken for a chicken changes the whole sentence.

Never leave it unclear

We learned this from our own product. While testing our Classroom Mode demo, a wrong answer turned only the correct option green, with "Doğru cevap: mutfak" underneath. The player who answered wrong did not realise they had: the only colour on screen was green, and "doğru" on its own means "correct" in Turkish. Now the wrongly chosen option turns red and gives a short shake, and the screen says "Good try! The answer: mutfak".

A child who does not realise they were wrong does not learn the right answer either. Being kind does not mean being vague.

Write down repeat mistakes

When the same mistake comes up a third time, it is no longer a slip of attention. A pupil who keeps saying "thirty" for "thirsty" has the two words filed in the same place. Note pairs like this and ask them again a few days later, side by side this time. We collected the most commonly confused pairs here, and what spelling mistakes actually tell you here.

In a crowded classroom, nobody can keep track of which words thirty pupils confuse with which. GetSpeakin records every answer, so it does that tracking for you and brings the confused words back in front of each pupil at the right time.

Try one thing in class tomorrow: when a wrong answer comes, wait three seconds before giving the right one, then offer only the first syllable. Count how many pupils find the answer themselves.

Try it with your class. GetSpeakin reads every answer and puts the words a child actually needs in front of them. Book a demo for your school.