Category Archives: Teaching Blog

Error Correction - Bingo Board #1

Error Correction – Bingo Board #1

This introduction is a little longer than usual, so if you want to skip to the free worksheets below, feel free! If you want to learn more about this activity and how it evolved, please read on…

  • This is an activity that I devised to help my students recognise, learn, and eventually (hopefully) avoid their most common errors in English classes.
  • The students were all adults working individually or in small groups; they are professional business people working for a large corporation. They need to write and speak English every day to communicate with colleagues from around the world.
  • During each class I made notes of their errors in use of English and pronunciation. I also noted new words. After about a month I was able to compile the first Bingo Board, featuring 20 errors that they were making the most often. It wasn’t a scientific process, but they seemed to have a problem with these points. I gave a copy to each student and we went through each error, with them making notes. I tried to elicit the correction, e.g. not ‘Why you…?’ but ‘Why do you…?’ for example. Where I couldn’t elicit the correction I told them what was wrong. They had their notes and were supposed to learn the board at home in readiness for the next class.
  • We met twice a week and we started with the Bingo Board for about 15-20 mins each lesson (90 mins). It became a routine and something they were expecting. I asked random students to give me the correction of, say, number 10. In this way, we focused on their specific errors at the beginning of each lesson for around a month – until I created the next board (there are more in the series). After a few lessons the students had to correct the errors without looking at their board. In this way they had to regularly focus on and  memorise their most common errors and the typical corrections.
  • They were called bingo boards because the original intention was to cross off errors as I heard them during each class. If I got a vertical or horizontal line I would shout ‘Bingo!’ It did not become that prescriptive in the end, but often when students recognised an error from the board – whether they or a colleague had made the error – they would shout “Bingo!” The aim was to often and systematically present students with their errors so that when they made them ‘in the wild’ – in real spoken or written English – they would recognise them and immediately correct them.
  • Over time students reported informally and unprompted that they had learned many of the errors and were able to use the structures correctly in spoken and written English. Other errors proved more difficult to eradicate and continued to pop up from time to time. We are working on them!
  • While these boards were developed specifically to deal with the spoken errors of Polish students, there is plenty of universality to the errors made – e.g. problems with question forms – and I hope that other students will be able to use and benefit from these boards. There is also a blank bingo board where you can insert your or your students’ errors to personalise it.
  • After three boards with tips I decided to make it harder for them and therefore stopped providing tips. I wanted them to learn the errors – cause and correction – without permanent tips. This also had the advantage of leaving more free space for them to write notes, which they had needed with the previous boards.

Below you can find each error along with a suggested correction in bold (answers may vary in some cases), the original tip, and a little commentary, where necessary. You can also download Bingo Board #1 and a blank bingo board. I hope you find this material helpful. If you do, why not get in touch and let me know. You can also leave a comment or review below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Error Correction – Bingo Board #1:

Direct download: https://purlandtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/error-correction-bingo-board-1.pdf


Error Correction – Bingo Board (Blank):

Direct download: https://purlandtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/error-correction-bingo-board-blank.pdf


Error Correction – Bingo Board #1

1. why you … ?    wh + aux + subject + verb

Why do you …?

2. I need go …    need + noun / need to + infinitive

I need to go

3. my friend are …    singular / plural confusion

my friend is  or  my friends are

4. all people    sounds like ‘old people’; we have a single word for this

everybody  or  everyone

5. I must to go …    modal verb + infinitive; must / have to

I must go    after modal verb: bare infinitive

6. people  /i/    wrong vowel sound

Pee pl – people has a long  ee  sound on the first (stressed) syllable, not a short  i  sound

7. how to say … ?    wh + aux + subject + verb

how can I say …?  or  how should I say …?  (various answers are possible)

8. if I will go …    1st conditional: present simple + future simple

if I go …    we never use will in the if-clause

9. he told that …    tell + object pronoun

he told me / her that …    we need an object pronoun after tell

10. he want …    present simple: s form for third person

he wants …

11. she said me …    no object pronoun after say

she said …  or  she said x to me    see also #9 above

12. we have much time    much in negative + question forms

we have a lot of / plenty of time

13. I think yes    direct translation from L1

I think so

14. two persons    wrong word – too formal

two people

15. she goes also …    mid-position adverbs go before the main verb (after BE)

she also goes …  or  she goes … as well / too

16. how it look like?    how + aux + subject + look? / what + aux + subj + look like?

how does it look?  or  what does it look like?

17. hospital  /a/    schwa sound (unstressed) in suffix

Ho spi tl – the letter ‘a’ in hospital is pronounced with a schwa sound, not  /a/ 

18. go to home    in this sentence ‘home’ is an adverb, not a place with ‘to’

go home

19. she didn’t saw …    use infinitive in past simple negative

she didn’t see

20. it’s somebody here    there’s + noun = existence / place; it’s + adj = describe sth

there’s somebody here

– – – –

With thanks to the students involved, who consented to the publication of this Bingo Board.


This material is completely free to use, so please feel free to share it widely!

If you have any feedback about these free resources, we’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment or review below or on Facebook or Twitter.

Teaching Blog: Discussion Practice - Who Gives Way?

Teaching Blog: Discussion Practice – Who Gives Way?

Teaching Blog: Discussion Practice - Who Gives Way?
Picture the scene. You are walking on the pavement when you notice there is somebody coming towards you. If one of you does not move, you will bump into each other. There is room on your left (and their right) for somebody to move to (see picture above). But who moves?

  1. Do you move for the other person? Why?
  2. Do you keep going and when they also refuse to move you stop and wait for them to walk around you – if, in fact, they do?
  3. Do you keep your course and try to force them to move?

This is a fairly light-hearted discussion-based lesson about status, empathy for people we don’t know, etiquette, and personal prejudices.

You will need a set of cards for each group or pair. You can download these worksheets (PDF) below:

Picture the scene. You are walking on the pavement when you notice there is somebody coming towards you. If one of you does not move, you will bump into each other. There is room on your left (and their right) for somebody to move to (see picture above). But who moves? 1. Do you move for the other person? Why? 2. Do you keep going and when they also refuse to move you stop and wait for them to walk around you – if, in fact, they do? 3. Do you keep your course and try to force them to move? This is a fairly light-hearted discussion-based lesson about status, empathy for people we don’t know, etiquette, and personal prejudices. You will need a set of cards for each group or pair:

  • ‘People’ cards (pink)
  • ‘Appearance’ cards (blue)
  • ‘Activity’ cards – two different sets (yellow)
  • ‘Path’ cards (green)
  • Blank cards (white)

(Note: using card is not essential – you could also print the worksheets on normal paper. Card would be better if possible, and the different colours make them easily distinguishable!)

Activities:

  1. SS (students) could begin with discussion questions in pairs or small groups. Establish the proposition:
  • How often do you walk around your town?
  • Are you a confident walker or a nervous walker?
  • How often do you face the situation mentioned above during a normal walk?
  • What do you tend to do? Do you keep walking, stop, or give way? Why?
  • What factors influence your decision? For example: type of person, their appearance, their activity (what they are doing), and the kind of path you are on?
  • Have you ever been involved in an awkward ‘dance’ with somebody walking towards you, because both of you try to move out of the way in the same direction at the same time – and you keep doing it until one person finally stops?
  • Have you ever had an argument with somebody who bumped into you, or who wouldn’t get out of your way? What happened? How did you resolve it?

2. SS work in pairs or small groups. One person selects a random card from each of the four piles (blank cards are optional) and put them in a row. For example:

Teaching Blog: Discussion Practice - Who Gives Way?

They ask the other person: ‘What would you do in this situation – move, stop, or keep going?’ Discussion ensues. The student should state the main factor that influenced their decision (e.g. they give way because the person was elderly) and the next factor too (e.g. the person was carrying something large). Then the next student picks the cards for the next person and the discussion continues. Here are some more sample scenarios:
Teaching Blog: Discussion Practice - Who Gives Way?

SS can combine more than one person, appearance and/or activity. For example, there could be more than one person doing more than one activity. SS could add their own factors on the blank cards. Of course some of the scenarios may be absurd, e.g. you might select:

boy        heavily pregnant        throwing snowballs        beach

In that kind of situation SS could pick other cards to replace the absurd element(s). SS could talk about what happens if you swap around factors, e.g. swap the places in scenario one and three. SS could add ‘conditions’ (e.g. weather: too hot, too cold; raining, etc.) and ‘time’ (e.g. early morning, 11pm, etc.) to each scenario using the blank cards.

3. When SS have discussed 4, 6, or 8 different people and situations, they pick two of them and decide what would happen if those two people met on a path. SS discuss which factors are stronger and weaker. Which person trumps the other person in terms of not having to move out of the way? Why?

4. SS look at a number of different factors in an imaginary person coming towards you and rank them from strongest (you definitely have to move) to weakest (the other person definitely has to move.) SS should justify their reasons. Which factors are dead certs meaning you would have to move, e.g. young people may feel they have to move when faced with an elderly person coming towards them, while somebody else may decide they will not move when a cyclist is coming towards them, since the onus is on the person who is moving fastest to exercise move care. A man may decide that he must always move for a woman, and so on. Which single factor is the strongest? This could lead into a whole group discussion. As a twist, SS could discuss different scenarios when walking behind one or more person and trying to get past them – e.g. trying to pass a family group with a pushchair, dog, etc.

5. SS create and write a dialogue based on one or more of the scenarios and act it out for the rest of the group. Some of the combinations may well suggest dramatic scenes, for example: ‘an ugly boy pushing an empty shopping trolley down a hospital corridor…’ could suggest a heart-breaking situation.

6. SS practise writing and saying questions and answers with 2nd conditional, for example:

A: ‘What would you do if…?’
B: ‘I would…’

7. SS go out into the street in pairs or small groups with their notebooks and write down what happens when they get into different situations with different kinds of people walking towards them. What are their natural inclinations? Who do they give way (defer) to? Who do they expect to move? What happens if they change their normal walking behaviour? SS could interview members of the public or other students/staff members at about what they usually do. (Of course, I’m not in any way suggesting that SS should walk into other members of the public on purpose and write down what occurs! Care may need to be exercised.)

8. SS write an essay about the little-discussed ethics of walking around in public without bumping into each other. How has this lesson related to their lives and touched on their habits and prejudices? What will they take away from it? What will they do differently as a result of studying this discussion topic? Why? If nothing, why not?

9. SS stand in a group in the middle of the classroom; T (teacher) says a factor; SS move to one or other side of the class to vote for either ‘move’ or ‘keep going’. T has the definitive answer for each factor. SS who are wrong go out and sit down and the game continues until one person wins.

I hope you will enjoy using this original lesson plan from PurlandTraining.com! If you do use it, please let me know how it goes by contacting me (Matt Purland) here, or leave a comment below!


Teaching Blog: Discussion Practice - Who Gives Way?

Printable Worksheets (PDF):

‘People’ cards:


‘Appearance’ cards:


‘Activity’ cards – Page 1:


‘Activity’ cards – Page 2:


‘Path’ cards:


Blank cards:


Title image: https://pixabay.com/