Making Mistakes (Part Two): Why English Learners Get It Wrong - S01E06

Why do English learners make the mistakes they do – and why are some mistakes so difficult to get rid of?In Part Two of Making Mistakes, Gav and Em continue their conversation about mistakes in the English classroom, this time focusing mainly on the learner. They look at where common errors come from, why perfectly understandable English doesn’t always sound natural, and what teachers can do when a student seems to be making mistakes with almost everything!In this episode, Gav and Em discuss:Contractions and connected speech – why learners may prefer will not to won’t, avoid forms like gonna, and struggle to understand natural spoken English.Sounding too formal – why advanced vocabulary and complicated language aren’t always the best choice, and why simpler English can often sound much more natural.Choosing which mistakes to correct – when a learner has lots of problems, where should a teacher even begin? Sometimes you have to pick your battles.First-language (L1) interference – how translating directly from another language can affect sentence structure, auxiliary verbs, articles, tenses and prepositions.False friends – those dangerous words that look familiar across languages but mean something completely different in English. Gav and Em share some particularly memorable classroom examples!Pronunciation problems – from difficult individual sounds such as R and L to the wonderfully inconsistent pronunciation of OUGH.English rules…and all their exceptions – irregular plurals, countable and uncountable nouns, much and many, articles and all those rules learners thought they understood until English decided otherwise.The B1/B2 barrier – why English can feel relatively easy at first before suddenly becoming much more complicated at intermediate and upper-intermediate levels.Learning vocabulary you don’t like – you might hate mushrooms, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to know the word mushroom. Especially when you’re ordering dinner!There are also crying students, confusing coffees and waters, embarrassing pronunciation mistakes, and the important reminder that teachers don’t actually make the rules – English just likes to keep changing them.Whether you’re an English teacher who recognises these mistakes from your own classroom or a learner wondering why English sometimes makes absolutely no sense, this episode is full of examples, observations and practical tips from real teaching experience.And after two episodes discussing mistakes, there’s one obvious question left: how should we correct them?That might just be a topic for next time…🎧 How to English with Gav & Em – a podcast about teaching and learning English as a foreign language.TIMESTAMPS00:00 – Welcome back & Making Mistakes Part Two02:15 – Common mistakes English learners make04:40 – Contractions and connected speech08:25 – Why learners sometimes sound too formal11:45 – Using complicated English vs keeping it simple14:30 – Which mistakes should teachers correct first?17:10 – How your first language influences your English20:20 – Articles, tenses and translating directly23:10 – False friends and some unfortunate misunderstandings!28:05 – Prepositions and sentence structure31:20 – When students cry in class 😢34:15 – Pronunciation mistakes teachers never forget37:10 – R vs L and difficult English sounds40:05 – English rules…and all those exceptions43:00 – The B1/B2 barrier: why English suddenly gets harder45:15 – Much, many, water, coffee and uncountable nouns48:10 – Why English rules keep changing50:20 – Why you should learn words you DON'T like 🍄52:40 – Articles: “This is pen!”54:15 – What should we talk about next? Correcting mistakes!55:00 – Goodbye & outro