Error-sprinkled ESL textbooks

I am using a textbook made in-house. Production was rushed a bit and the book has a few errors. Looking back over the past five years at my university, I suddenly noticed how many error-sprinkled books ('sprinkled' implies a smaller number than 'riddled' or 'filled' right?) we have used. The books made domestically appear to have more errors. I like the English Countdown textbook (but I am going to list some errors so I won’t name the publisher) for the way it relentlessly repeated verb/subject agreement conversation substitutions. I liked it even though the students had two different editions (one with more errors) with the edition change unmarked or un-noted.

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I want to discuss 'good' errors and 'bad' errors. Good errors, whether deliberately or not, encourage some thought and consideration of content. Bad errors might do the same but are typically spelling and grammatical errors and my students have limited English skills so spelling errors are more likely to be accepted than noticed.

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Here are two errors, one from my current first year book, that appear to be useful.

In the first conversation, a shirt is being purchased for $40.00. After a 20% discount, the shirt is bought for $30.00. Wait a minute, $10/$40 isn't 20%! Here, after filling in the blanks, I ask the students if the salesperson is a good one. If need be, I ask them to check his/her math skills and occasionally used the Korean term "Su-hak", which I think means math. I like the idea of students critically thinking about their lessons - it doesn't have to be listen-and-repeat.

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In the second conversation fragment, we can see that Christmas is apparently on December 31! Some students will complete the conversation without seeming to notice anything amiss but most can pick up on this error.

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In this second photo, we can see many errors I categorize as 'bad'. I apologize for the occasional blurry areas.... I just looked again at the photo - I apologize for the nearly total blurry area! (I describe the picture in detail below but you can also click to enlarge.)

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Many of these mistakes are spelling errors. In the upper left conversation, restaurant is missing the final 't'. I consider this one especially bad as the Korean spelling of the word is something like "restaurang" so the error may not be noticed.

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I hope this post does not have any spelling errors nor examples of my frequent habit of dropping the occasional word. I will run this through spell-check before I post it. Perhaps some of these words, phrases and sentences were prepared with photo or object manipulation software to best set them on the page: that may be why no spell-check was used.

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Let's hop around the photo a little. In the middle, second from the top, we can see "...for you for that that day." Maybe this isn't a terrible error. Its clearly a sign of poor editing but few students will read "that that" without noticing that something is wrong. "High hills" next to it, is funny, at least.

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In the middle is the word "were't". No further comment necessary.

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To the left of that and below it are two fragments worth mentioning. "to Mt. Sorak / to the amusement partk in Youngin / to the Kyungpo beach" includes several errors. Park is misspelled and Kyungpo being a proper name doesn't need 'the' and beach should be capitalized. Students really didn't notice any of those errors until they were pointed out.

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To the right and below, we read about Ken. Apparently, someone took "her" umbrella. I changed "in" to "from" but maybe both are fine. Ken and Mary are on the same page. I guess the sky is brightening (or lightening) at dawn. I am not sure why Mary is frightened by it.

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For completeness sake, I think the man should hike "up" a mountain rather than simply "hike a mountain."

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In conclusion, I have badmouthed books written by management at my university (among others) so if you can send in some job opening information, I might be very grateful.

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More seriously, I like the idea of deliberately-written errors that students can be encouraged to find, discuss and correct on their own or in class. Spelling errors are not appropriate (for beginner classes) but grammar errors could be. So long as students are aware that errors have been added, I like verb-tense disagreement or content errors (such as the math error that literally did not add up.) Other examples for future texts could be placing November in the Spring or lunch at night. Perhaps there could be a conversation about badminton balls, using three chopsticks or riding a bus to Jejudo.

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Here’s to celebrating errors.