ELT World » error correction

The Curry Chicken Picks the Rice

david — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:23:00 +0000

…in Chinese restaurants, which comes as quite a surprise, I can tell you. Thanks again to Jimmy Ng who is sending me some classic stuff via email. Click here to take a look at more examples from the bizarre world of Chinglish!

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English language mistakes you love to hate

david — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:56:00 +0000

‘There’s no such thing as a mistake’ as too bloody many teacher trainers have tried to tell me. ‘Bugger off’ is a common unspoken rebuttle. There are mistakes, common ones and really damned annoying they are, too.

As for my pet hates, the effect Australian soap operas have had on intonation patterns of the younger generations is right up there. How about the rest of you?

Since this topic was introduced on the forum, it has received many passionate replies. Here are a selection of the best, see if you agree:

JimDunlop: Improper use of apostrophes.

Justme: White people who adopt Black accents or mannerisms they learned from TV, like ‘You go, girl’ and ‘Talk to the hand,’ especially if these phrases involve any kind of shimmy or side-to-side head movement. The worst is when middle-aged White women do it.

Shonai Ben: ‘definite’…..why can’t people spell this word?

Golightly: The use of ‘innit’ as an utterly pointless question tag, e.g. ‘I is going to the shops, innit?‘

Emma: Using adjectives instead of adverbs annoys me, especially when I catch myself doing it.

Furiousmilksheikali: People who use “less” for countable nouns. It probably isn’t “wrong” but it grates anyway when I hear teachers say, “I have less lessons than yesterday“.

Markle: I have a co-worker who generally uses ‘done’ in place of ‘did’ e.g “I done that yesterday”, drives me batty.

Please add your pet hates to the list!

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British Council can’t Spell ‘Language’

david — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:41:00 +0000

What hope is there for the rest of us if neither the BBC nor the British Council can spell the word ‘language‘?

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Error Correction with Madrid Teacher

david — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:22:00 +0000

Another great video from the maddridteacher.com website, this time focusing on error correction techniques.

He gets through quite a list of alternatives here, and if you’re new to this game, some of what he says might not make too much sense. Definitely something for new teachers to think about, though.

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