Mistakes Are Normal

Imagine a child who is learning to walk. She falls, stands up, falls again and finally walks. Nobody tells her, "You are a bad walker." Everyone understands that falling is part of walking. Learning a language is the same, but adults often forget this and become afraid of mistakes.

In 1967, the British linguist S. Pit Corder wrote an important article about the errors of language learners. His main idea was surprising for that time. Errors are not only bad things to remove. They show how the learner thinks and what the learner is trying to do. A mistake is a window into the learning process. When a child says "I goed", she is not repeating a wrong sentence she heard. She is using the rule "add -ed for the past", which is a clever idea.

Fear of mistakes has a heavy price. Learners who are afraid stay silent. They do not ask, they do not answer, and they do not practise. Silence is much worse than a wrong word, because without speaking there is no feedback, and without feedback there is little progress.

How can you use mistakes in a smart way? Keep a mistakes notebook. When someone corrects you, write the wrong sentence on the left and the right sentence on the right. Read it once a week. Notice patterns: maybe you often forget the letter -s with he and she, or you confuse "is" and "are". Then give those points extra practice.

Also change the way you speak to yourself. Instead of "I am bad at English", say "I am learning, and this mistake teaches me something."

Perfect English is not the goal for a beginner. Understandable English is. If people understand you and you keep improving, you are on the right road.