Protocol
Leave room for the learner to repair the sentence
Hearing the right sentence is not the same as producing the repair.
When it fits
- Corrections are understood politely but the same error keeps returning.
When to avoid it
- Do not interrupt high-pressure communication or keep withholding help. Prompting is not universally better than modelling.
Why it matters
With a willing practice partner, choose one recurring error and use a brief prompt before supplying the answer. Give a model when the learner is stuck, then let them try again. Immediate repair is useful feedback, not proof that the lesson has lasted.
Steps
- Agree on one feature to notice, such as past-time verbs.
- At a suitable pause, cue the problem without correcting every sentence.
- After a model if needed, ask for a new sentence with the same feature.
An example
During practice, I go there yesterday receives the cue Yesterday? The learner repairs the time reference and later describes a different past event.
Check your result
Does the learner use the form in a later unprompted sentence?
Keep this limit in mind
- Do not interrupt high-pressure communication or keep withholding help. Prompting is not universally better than modelling.
Connected ideas
Useful withGive each speaker information the other needs
Evidence and sources
Supports
The classroom study distinguishes feedback types by the immediate learner repair they elicit.
Immediate repair is not evidence of durable mastery.
Corrective Feedback and Learner Uptake: Negotiation of Form in Communicative Classrooms · Abstract, feedback and uptake analysis.