When i studied German in Germany I found myself always correcting ELL's mistakes. Now looking back I see myself as a little insensitive to their efforts to speak English. However some mistakes warranted correction. Now with a grasp of what i am talking about. I will dive into this topic with some reflections about the reading.
After reading L&S and reflecting on my past experiences. I learned that always correcting a students mistakes is not the correct thing to do. I think it needs to be on a student to student basis, longevity of the error or if it drastically changes the meaning of what the student is trying to say. I think correcting mistakes has to be a systematic thoughtout process not just immediately giving feedback. The teacher should reinforce with explanations, examples and exercises to reinforce the correction, so as to better perfect the students proficiency.
Another area where the teacher needs to tread lightly is to make sure not to dampen the students motivation to learn which would ultimately be even worse then a few communication errors. One good tip i took away from the reading is that rephrasing is a way to deflect some negativity that might be associated with mistakes and ultimately keep the flow of communication at a peak and allow the student to respond with questions if need be.
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It also depends on where a particular student is at developmentally (developmental sequences of English language learning) as to whether error correction of a particular structure is profitable.
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