Maija Kozlova has published an article ‘Mistakes help you learn – freedom to fail in games and language learning’ on the Cambridge English blog.
She says, “It is not uncommon for English language lessons to favour communication over accuracy: real life is nothing like a classroom! In real-life situations, when you make a mistake in the language you are learning, context provides ample information as to what the intended message is. In fact, most of the time, impeccable accuracy is not needed at all! ‘Don’t worry about making mistakes,’ I used to tell my English language students, ‘communicating is the most important thing!’
What does the research say?
While making mistakes when trying to master a language might seem counter-intuitive, letting learners freely communicate and negotiate meaning is key to success. A learner who communicates a lot while making a few mistakes is much more likely to develop confidence for dealing with real-life situations than a learner who communicates very little because they’re afraid of making any. In communicative language teaching, for example, the teacher is tasked with both encouraging the learner to express themselves and with providing corrective feedback in a way that is not obstructive to communication (e.g. Brandl 2008)”.
Mistakes help you learn – freedom to fail in games and language learning