Making the Most out of Making Mistakes

02/05/21 • 44 min

Les Bons Mots: A Podcast about Language Learning

Whenever we learn something new like a language, making mistakes is part of the process. What is the difference between a mistake and an error in language learning? How do language teachers help learners correct their mistakes? Why don’t the people around us correct us when we make a mistake? Join Britta and Kelsey as they discuss these questions, and offer advice and suggestions to help us make the most out of our mistakes. Language teachers may also be interested to learn more about the effectiveness of different types of feedback in the language classroom.

This week, our guest host is Kelsey Ulrich-Verslycken. Kelsey fell in love with teaching English in 2013 when she moved to South Korea to teach English as a Foreign Language. Since then, she has worked as a teacher, a curriculum developer, an editor for EFL textbooks, and an assistant professor of English at a university in Seoul, completed her MA in Applied Linguistics, and is currently working with ACA and pursuing her PhD in Applied Language and Discourse Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.

In our weekly recommendations,

Kelsey recommends forgiving yourself for making mistakes in the language you are learning. Try not to listen to your inner critic.
Britta recommends setting your digital assistant to communicate in the language you are learning. This will help you check your comprehensibility and pronunciation. Hola Siri! Bonjour Alexa!

Come check out our website, at lesbonsmots.ca. You can see our language learning videos, and read our blog posts on news, culture and language learning. We will also have our episode transcript available there. We’d love to hear from you at [email protected].

Here is some of the research we used in preparing the episode, if you want to read more about the research behind error correction:

Li, Shaofeng. (2010). The Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback in SLA: A Meta‐Analysis. Language Learning. 60. 309 - 365.

Lyster, R. and Saito, K. (2010) Interactional feedback as instructional input: A synthesis of classroom SLA research. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 1(2), 276 - 297

Mai, Zhou. (2009). Cooperative Principle in Oral English Teaching. International Education Studies. 2.

Nassaji, H. Anniversary article Interactional feedback in second language teaching and learning: A synthesis and analysis of current research. Language Teaching Research 20(4)

Sheen, Y. (2006). Exploring the relationship between characteristics of recasts and

learner uptake. Language Teaching Research 10, 361–392.

In our weekly recommendations,

Kelsey recommends forgiving yourself for making mistakes in the language you are learning. Try not to listen to your inner critic.
Britta recommends setting your digital assistant to communicate in the language you are learning. This will help you check your comprehensibility and pronunciation. Hola Siri! Bonjour Alexa!

Here is some of the research we used in preparing the episode, if you want to read more about the research behind error correction:

Li, Shaofeng. (2010). The Effectiveness of Corrective Feedback in SLA: A Meta‐Analysis. Language Learning. 60. 309 - 365.

Lyster, R. and Saito, K. (2010) Interactional feedback as instructional input: A synthesis of classroom SLA research. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 1(2), 276 - 297

Mai, Zhou. (2009). Cooperative Principle in Oral English Teaching. International Education Studies. 2.

Nassaji, H. Anniversary article Interactional feedback in second language teaching and learning: A synthesis and analysis of current research. Language Teaching Research 20(4)

Sheen, Y. (2006). Exploring the relationship between characteristics of recasts and

learner uptake. Language Teaching Research 10, 361–392.

Previous Episode

True Friends, False Friends

English and French have thousands of words in common - how can you tell which words have the same meaning in both languages, and which ones are false friends, words which look or sound the same, but have different meanings? Join Britta and Kimberly as they explore some of the similarities, and deceptive differences, between English and French. This week’s episode tackles verb tenses, parts of speech, and some essential business vocabulary!

This week’s guest host is Kimberly Lamontagne. Kimberly studied psychology at Bishop’s University, and is originally from Baie-Comeau. She’s been part of the ACA team for the past three years. Her bilingual background has made her passionate about the topic of false friends.

You can find visuals for this episode on Facebook, linked here.

In this episode:

Kimberly recommends the Great British Baking Show (also called the Great British Bake Off) in order to learn some of the cooking terms which come into English from French.

Britta recommends using the long winter nights to pursue your language learning, either with an evening class, or by pursuing one of your hobbies in the language you’re learning. If you’re interested in taking evening classes with ACA, you can find out more here.

Next Episode

The Evolution of Language: New Year, New Words

Sharent, deepfake, slow-walk... are any of these words new to you? One of the most enjoyable parts of learning a language is learning new vocabulary we can use in our daily lives, at work and at home. Every year, more new words are added to English language dictionaries as well! Join Britta and Johnson as they discuss these new words, which reflect world events, social movements, and what people are saying on social media or in the business world.

This week, our guest host is Johnson Bresnick. Johnson is the Director of Learning & Development at ACA, and has worked at ACA since 2011. He has also taught ESL and had extensive experience in curriculum development. He has a background in Linguistics and is researching acquisition of grammar in second language learners.

In this episode:

We discuss new words added to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The BBC has an article on some of the additions to the OED as well. Some of the new additions the the Merriam Webster Dictionary can be found here. Reader’s Digest magazine also covered some of the funnier words of the year.

When we talk about deepfakes, Johnson mentions a deepfake produced by Channel 4 in the UK to raise awareness of this phenomenon, and starring... the Queen?

Johnson recommends the Collins Cobuild Dictionary, a great dictionary for English language learners. Britta recommends exploring social media in the language you are learning so that you can stay up to day with new words in the language you are learning.

Les Bons Mots: A Podcast about Language Learning - Making the Most out of Making Mistakes

Transcript

Britta00:00:13.679

Hi, and welcome to Les Bons Mots, a podcast about language learning by ACA, a language training school based in Quebec, Canada. This podcast is designed for people who are learning languages, and each week we'll cover a different topic connected to language learning. Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host Britta Poschenrieder. I've been teaching English as a second language for over 10 years and I'm learning French and Spanish language is my pas