Mistakes Board

A permanent wall space where typical class errors are posted as they arise. Groups rotate through the board each week, repairing and explaining the errors. Builds long-term awareness of recurrent problems.

Setting It Up

1. Reserve a section of the classroom wall (or a shared digital doc) labelled Mistakes Board.
2. Each week, add 4–8 anonymised errors you noticed, one per card: "I have been to Japan last year", "He said me that...", "informations".
3. Leave space beside each card for corrections and notes.

Weekly Routine

1. Groups of 3 take 8 minutes at the board. They:
   • Identify what's wrong with each item.
   • Write the corrected version on the card.
   • Add a one-sentence rule or hint.
2. Groups rotate; the next group checks, adds, or corrects the previous group's notes.
3. Whole-class feedback: teacher resolves disputes, drills tricky items.
4. Every month, retire items that no one misses anymore.

Why It Works

• Distributed noticing: errors are seen repeatedly, across weeks, not just once.
• Group teaching: students teaching students consolidates both sides.
• Long-term pattern recognition: as the board grows, cross-error patterns become visible (all "time expression + perfect" errors cluster together).

Variations

• Named categories: sort cards into columns (Tense, Preposition, Word form, Articles).
• "Retired" section: once a class solves an error reliably, move the card to a celebrated "Solved" wall.
• Digital: Google Doc, Padlet, or a pinned Slack/Zalo thread for online or hybrid classes.

Tips

• Always anonymise. If students can trace an error to a specific classmate, it dies.
• Include your own teacher "errors" occasionally (fake ones) to remove stigma.
• Use the board as a mini-diagnostic before review lessons: what three items do most students still miss?