It’s a good idea to let the students check their
answers together before feeding back to the the teacher because it gives them
the chance to erase any glaring errors before the teacher sees and thus avoid
looking stupid in front of the class.
If a student hasn’t a clue about some of the answers
it’s reassuring to find out that their partner hasn’t the foggiest either. The
students realize they are not alone. They can also copy their partners answers
(if their partner has some that they don’t) but their partner might not be
right!
Peer teaching is considered a good thing in the world
of ESL. Peers are equals. So in this case a students peers are a student’s
fellow classmates. Working together and checking work together is a form of
peer teaching. This means that instead of the know-it-all (and/or) mother
tongue teacher always teaching them, the students can teach each other (by
explaining grammar points, correcting pronunciation, explaining new words and
phrases etc). The beauty of it is that the students are all equal to each other
and are in the same boat, linguistically speaking.
Method:
1. When the students have finished doing an activity
on their own, put them in pairs or small groups and tell them to check their
answers together.
2. Tell the students that if the answers are the
same, they are probably correct but if they are different they need to
explain/justify their choice of answer to their partner - in English! They can change
their answers if they like.
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