Word for correcting a mistake

 
Everyday English Speaking Course

Hello, students. It’s Shayna from espressoenglish.net. Today, I want to answer a question from a student who asked about English phrases we can use for talking about making mistakes and then promising to resolve or fix those mistakes.

First, I want to remind you that with the word mistake, we use the verb, make, not do. Always say, “I made a mistake.” Don’t say, “I did a mistake.” Okay? Simple. You can remember it because it’s an M for make and an M for mistake. I made a mistake. Got it?

Before we jump into the lesson, I also wanted to invite you to join my Everyday English Speaking Courses so that you can learn phrases for lots of different situations in everyday life. And if you’d like to focus on correcting mistakes you might be making in English, then a good choice is my 200 Common Errors in English Course. I’ll put links to both these courses in the video description.

All right, now let’s learn some of these phrases that native English speakers use for admitting and resolving mistakes.

I messed up

One informal phrase is this one. I messed up. This is informal and so we use it usually when talking with friends or family members.

For example, if you’re inviting everybody to a party and the party is on Saturday but you sent out 50 emails saying the party was on Sunday by mistake, then you could say, “I messed up. I told everyone the party is on Sunday but it should be on Saturday.” Okay?

If you want to emphasize that you made a really big mistake then you can add the word, really in here. You can say, “I really messed up.” Another way is, “I messed up really bad or really badly.”

If I’m washing the clothes for my entire family and I make the mistake of adding bleach, bleach is a chemical that makes things white. If I accidentally add bleach when washing the clothes and I ruin everybody’s clothes, so all the colors are gone. All the clothes now have white spots, then I could say, “Oh, man. I messed up really bad when I added bleach to the laundry.”

Okay? Mess up is an informal way to talk about making mistakes.

I dropped the ball

We also have this expression, I dropped the ball. This comes from baseball where the players need to catch the ball and if they drop the ball, then it’s a mistake. It’s an error.

We usually use I dropped the ball when there’s some task or responsibility that you were supposed to do and you didn’t do it. For example, if you’re at work and you need to call an important client by the end of the day and you don’t do it, then your boss asks you, “How was the phone call?” Then you could say, “I’m so sorry. I dropped the ball and I didn’t call that client.” Okay?

If there’s a group project at school and you need to write a one page for the project and all of the other group members are asking you, “Hey. Where is your text?” And you didn’t write it, then you could say, “Ah, I dropped the ball.” Meaning, I didn’t do the text I was responsible for.

It was my fault

We also have, it was my fault. This phrase is used when you take responsibility that you were the one who made the mistake or caused the problem. Let’s say you’re at work and you try to use the office printer to print a really big document and the paper gets jammed in the printer. Everyone’s trying to figure out who did this, you could say, “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

This is just a general phrase that can be used at work or outside of work for taking responsibility when there are many people involved but you are saying, “It was my fault. I’m the one who made the mistake or caused the problem.” All right?

It won’t happen again

Now let’s learn some phrases after you have admitted your mistake, what can you say after that? You can say, “I’m sorry,” or “Sorry about that,” but there are some other phrases you can use as well.

A good one to use at work is this. “It won’t happen again.” If your boss finds out you made a mistake, you dropped the ball and you want to promise your boss that you’re going to be more careful in the future, then you can say this. “It won’t happen again.”

This just shows that you are very determined to improve your work, improve your behavior and you are promising that you will do better in the future. Saying the mistake or the problem won’t happen again.

I’ll… (action to resolve the problem)

Another very common phrase we use is, “I’ll,” and we say what we’re going to do to fix the problem right away. You can say, “I’ll fix it right away or I’ll resolve this right away.” In the example I gave earlier, when there was an important client that you didn’t call, you could say, “I’ll call the client right away.” Right away means immediately or very soon in the future. This phrase shows that you are going to take action to resolve the problem immediately.

This can make other people feel better because you admitted you made a mistake but now, you’re taking action to resolve the problem. If you really want to show that you are going to invest a lot of effort in fixing this problem, you can use this expression. “I’ll do everything in my power to resolve the problem. I’ll do everything in my power to make the client happy.” This is just a way to give extra emphasis to the fact that you are going to do everything, make many efforts to fix this problem to make things right and to make up for or compensate for your mistake. Okay?

How can I make it up to you?

Another expression you can use, let’s say that you have a problem between you and your friend. For example, you promised to give your friend a ride somewhere and you forgot, you didn’t do it.

You’re not sure what you can do to fix it, the relationship between you and your friend, you can ask the question, “How can I make it up to you? What can I do to make it up to you?” This is asking what can I do to compensate for this problem or to repair the damage I’ve caused to our relationship?

That’s a good one to use between friends when you’ve made a mistake, you’ve caused a problem but you want to make things better. You can ask the person, “What can I do to make it up to you?” That means compensate you for this problem I have caused.

I hope this gives you a better idea of some phrases you can use for making mistakes and then making up for the mistakes or promising that the mistakes will be fixed or compensated for. I’d like to help you improve your English even further so that you don’t make many mistakes when you talk.

Inside my Everyday English Speaking Courses, not only will you learn practical phrases, but you can also get feedback on your speaking – there are speaking tasks where you can record yourself responding, and then a teacher on our team will listen to you and send comments on things you’re doing well, things you can improve, and correction of any mistakes. It’s a really valuable part of the course – make sure to check it out if you’d like to improve your speaking fast!

One typically corrects mistakes in publications by issuing errata (s. erratum). From Lexico:

erratum: An error in printing or writing.

Example sentence: ‘The publisher has inserted an erratum slip noting three errors in dates and explaining that a contrite Hoban ‘writes at all hours of the day and night, sometimes when a little the worse for wear’.’

errata: A list of corrected errors appended to a book or published in a subsequent issue of a journal.

Example sentence: ‘Periodicals would use errata sections to correct some of the errors, and letters to the editor could be used to debate a previous article’s contentions and possibly set the record straight.’

A less common term is corrigendum (pl. corrigenda). From Lexico:

corrigendum: A thing to be corrected, typically an error in a printed book.

Example sentence: ‘the 1980-84 cumulation contains corrigenda which are not included in the annual volumes’

If you’re interested in a less formal context, you could use the simple word correction.

Example sentence: ‘Correction: Please replace dictionray with dictionary.’

Totally professional.

CORRECTING SYNONYMS: 56 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS FOR …

110 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF MISTAKES — MERRIAM WEBSTER

WHAT IS ANOTHER WORD FOR CORRECTING — WORDHIPPO

116 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF MISTAKE — MERRIAM WEBSTER

FIXING SYNONYMS: 7 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS FOR FIXING

CORRECT MISTAKES SYNONYMS — 33 WORDS AND PHRASES FOR …

68 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF CORRECTION — MERRIAM …

CORRECTION SYNONYMS AND ANTONYMS — YOURDICTIONARY

FIX THE MISTAKES SYNONYMS — 19 WORDS AND PHRASES FOR …

FIX ERRORS SYNONYMS — 22 WORDS AND PHRASES FOR FIX ERRORS

42 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF RECTIFY — MERRIAM WEBSTER

CORRECTING ERRORS SYNONYMS — 37 WORDS AND PHRASES FOR …

CORRECTING MISTAKES SYNONYMS — 19 WORDS AND PHRASES …

436 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF FIXING — MERRIAM WEBSTER

224 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF CORRECT — MERRIAM WEBSTER

WHAT IS ANOTHER WORD FOR CORRECTION — WORDHIPPO

CORRECTION SYNONYMS: 52 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS FOR …

WHAT IS ANOTHER WORD FOR CORRECTED — WORDHIPPO

MISTAKE SYNONYMS: 111 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS FOR MISTAKE

SYNONYMS FOR CORRECTING MISTAKES — CLASSIC THESAURUS

119 SYNONYMS & ANTONYMS OF CORRECTING — MERRIAM …

1. Collect the errors for later
You can then correct them later in the same class (with a game like a grammar auction or just eliciting corrections from the class) or in a future class (for example writing error dictation pairwork worksheets or using the same techniques as can be used in the same class). Make sure you give positive reinforcement as well, e.g. “Someone said this sentence, and that is really good.”
Useful language:
“Here are some things that people said in the last activity”
“I heard several people say this one”
“Can anyone correct this sentence? It has one missing word/ one word missing/ You need to add one word”
“The words are in the wrong order/ You need to change the words around/ change the word order/ mix the words up”
“This is a typical mistake for students from…”
“Don’t worry, even native speakers make this mistake sometimes/ every nationality makes this mistake”
“This mistake is something we studied last week”

2. Facial expression
For example, raise an eyebrow, tilt your head to one side or give a slight frown. Most people will do this naturally, but there is a slight chance a teacher’s expression will be too critical or too subtle for your students to pick up on, and you can (amusingly) practice facial expressions in a teaching workshop by participants communicating certain typical classroom messages (“move over there to work with this person”, “work in pairs” etc.) using just their heads and faces, including feedback on spoken errors in that list.

3. Body language
The problems with using body language to show errors could also be that it is taken as very serious criticism or that it is too vague. Possibilities include using your hands (rolling a hand from side to side to mean “so-so attempt”; making a circle by moving your index finger to mean “one more time”; or a cross with fingers, open palms or even forearms to show a very clear “no” or “wrong”- probably only suitable for a team game etc where the responsibility is shared), head (tilted to one side to mean “I’m not sure that sounds correct”), or shoulders (hunched to reinforce “I don’t understand what you are saying”). Again, practising this in a teaching workshop can be useful, as can eliciting other body language teachers could have used after an observation.

4. Point at the correct language
If you have something on the correct form easily accessible on the whiteboard, in the textbook or on a poster, just pointing at it can be a subtle but clear way of prompting students to use the correct language. What you point at could be the name of the tense or word form they are supposed to be using, a verb forms table or the actual correct verb form, a grammatical explanation, or another grammatical hint such as “future”, “prediction” or “polite”.
Useful language:
“Have a look at your books/ the board”
“The correct version is somewhere in this chart/ poster/ table”
“You copied this down earlier. Have a look in your notebooks”

5. Repeat what they said
This can mean repeating the whole sentence, one section of it including the wrong part, the sentence up to the wrong part, the sentence with the wrong part missed out (with maybe a humming noise to show the gap that should be filled) or just the wrong part. You can illustrate that you are showing them an error and give some hint as to which bit is wrong by using a questioning tone (for everything you say or just for the wrong part). This method is overused by some teachers and can sound patronising if used too often or with the wrong tone of voice, so try to mix up the different versions of it described here and to alternate with methods described in the other tips.
Useful language:
“The man GOED to the shops?”
“The man GOED?”
“GOED?”

6. Just say the right version
The students can then repeat the correct version or tell you what the difference between the two sentences was and why their version was wrong. Because the students don’t do much of the work in this way of being corrected, it might not be as good a way of remembering the correction as methods where you give more subtle clues. Its advantages are that it is quick and suits cultures, classes and students that think of elicitation as shirking by the teacher. It can also be more face-saving than asking them for self-correction, as trying to correct themselves risks making even more mistakes. The “right version” could mean the whole sentence or just the correction of the part that was wrong. In the latter case, you can then ask them to put it into the sentence in the right place and repeat the whole thing.
Useful language:
“I understand what you are saying, but you need to say…”
“We studied this last week. “Hardly” has a different meaning to “hard”, so you need to say…?”
“The past of say is pronounced /sed/. So your sentence should be…?”

7. Tell them how many mistakes
This method is only really suitable for controlled speaking practice, but can be a very simple way of giving feedback in that situation. Examples include “Most of the comparatives were right, but you made two mistakes” and “Three words are in the wrong position in the sentence/ are mixed up”. Make sure you only use this method when students can remember what you are referring to without too much prompting.
Other useful language:
“Very good, but you made just one mistake with the passive”
(For a tongue twister) “Good attempt/ Getting better, but in two places you said /sh/ where it should have been /s/. Can you guess which words?”

8. Use grammatical terminology to identify the mistake
For example, “(You used) the wrong tense”, “Not the Present Perfect”, “You need an adverb, not an adjective” or “Can change that into the passive/ indirect speech?” This method is perhaps overused, and you need to be sure that the grammatical terminology isn’t just going to confuse them more.
Other useful language:
“Because that is the present simple, you need to add the auxiliary (verb) ‘do’”
“Say the same sentence, but with the comparative form”

9. Give the rule
For example, “‘Since’ usually takes the Present Perfect” or “One syllable adjectives make the comparative with –er, not more + adjective” This works best if they already know the rule, and you at least need to make sure that they will quickly understand what you are saying, for example by only using grammatical terminology you have used with them several times before.

10. Give a number of points
This is probably best saved for part of a game, especially one where students work together, but you can give each response a number of points out of 10. The same or other teams can then make another attempt at saying the same thing to see if they can get more points. If you don’t want students to focus on accuracy too much, tell them that the points will also give them credit for good pronunciation, fluency, politeness, persuasiveness and/ or originality of ideas.
Useful language:
“Very good fluency and very interesting, but a few basic mistakes, so I’ll give your team a score of (IELTS) 5.5. Practice your script in your team again for 5 minutes and we’ll try it one more time”
“You got all the articles right this time, so I’ll give you 9 out of 10”

11. Just tell them they are wrong (but nicely)
Positive ways of being negative include “nearly there”, “getting closer”, “just one mistake”, “much better”, “good idea, but…”,”I understand what you mean but…”, “you have made a mistake that almost everyone does/ that’s a very common mistake”, “we haven’t studied this yet, but…” and “much better pronunciation, but…” With lower level and new classes, you might have to balance the need to be nice with the need to be clear and not confuse them with feedback language that they don’t understand, perhaps by sticking to one or two phrases to give feedback for the first couple of months. It can also be useful to give them translations of this and other classroom language you will use, for example on a worksheet or a poster.

12. Tell them what part they should change
For example, “You need to change the introduction to your presentation” or “Try replacing the third word with something else”

13. Ask partners to spot errors
This is a fairly well-known way of giving feedback in speaking tasks, but it can be a minefield if the person giving feedback has no confidence in their ability to do so or in how well the feedback (i.e. criticism) will be taken, and even more so if the person receiving the feedback will in fact react badly. This method is easier to do and easier to take when they have been told specifically which language to use while speaking and so to look out for when listening, usually meaning controlled speaking practice tasks. The feedback can be made even simpler to give and collect and more neutral with some careful planning, e.g. asking them count how many times their partner uses the target form as well as or instead of looking for when it used incorrectly.

14. Try again!
Sometimes, students don’t need much help at all but just a chance to do it again. This is likely to be true if you have trained them well in spotting their own errors, if there was some other kind of mental load such as a puzzle to solve that was distracting them from the language, or if they have had a chance to hear someone else doing the same speaking task in the class or on a recording.
Useful language:
“One more time (but think about the grammar more this time/ but concentrating on making less mistakes instead of speaking quickly)”
“Give it another go”
“Do you want one more chance before you get the final score”

15. Remind them when you studied that point
For example, “Nearly right, but you’ve forgotten the grammar that we studied last week” or “You’ve made the same mistake as everyone made in the last test”.

And finally, a tip that isn’t included in the count of fifteen points as it is the opposite of what the article is supposed to be about:

16. Don’t
Sometimes students won’t benefit from any feedback on spoken errors. I could write another whole article on how to choose when to correct and when not to, and I may well do so…
Useful language:
“We’re concentrating on fluency today, so we’ll leave the error correction until next week”
“There is practice of this in your homework, so we’ll just try and use the language for communication today, and concentrate more on getting the grammar right next week