… or at least avoiding ending each and every stage or lesson by writing a list of mistakes up on the board. Whatever your attitude to that CELTA-tastic activity, having alternatives has got to be a good thing, I reckon. My latest article is therefore:
Spoken error correction – other options – LINK FIXED
No comment function there, so comments gratefully received here (including your general thoughts on the topic if you don’t find time to read the whole thing).
TEFLtastic 
Hi Alex,
Your article is so timely! I have also been thinking about the best way to do spoken error correction, lately, and looking for information about new and more effective methods. It’s a tricky point.
I find that I naturally lean towards one of the methods you mentioned as strange – repeating the utterance back with more accurately and more complexly. You’re right though: if you do it wrong, it can definitely come across as patronizing. In my classes, it has been important to give validation to the students for the meaning of the sentence, repeat it as a summary, and ask a following question (what happened next, why, etc.). Since my classes take on a conversation mode, and since summarizing and repeating the message is a good communication skill for listeners in conversation, it seems to work out well.
That said, I’m still left wondering how effective it is as far as noticing goes. Maybe I will try some of the other activities you mentioned. Thanks for the ideas!
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Thanks for the comment Bekah.
Although like everything there is a time and place for it and it can be done well and badly, as a language learner I find the person I am speaking to rephrasing what I say even more disheartening than error correction. That could be because of how much it slows communication down, but is more likely to be because outside the classroom it only tends to happen when:
– What I’ve said is so difficult to understand they have to try and rephrase it to be able to work out what it is that I was trying to say
– With a certain class of people who basically believe it is impossible for foreigners to successfully communicate in their language
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