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remedial teaching is are grounded on the basis of reteaching the concepts. This was further evident when they discussed the strategies used to engage with learners’ errors. All of the participants emphasised doing corrections on the board and re-explaining the procedures to learners as the main strategy to engage with learners’ errors. Secondly, the emphasis was on peer teaching by using the more knowledgeable to assist the less knowledgeable. Furthermore, they consider one’s common content knowledge to be the key factor in the ability to attend to learners’ errors, rather than SCK or KCS.
6.3 Why do teachers engage with learners’ errors when teaching or
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remedial teaching. In a nutshell, these reasons are grounded in the quest to improve teaching and learning. Table 6.1 illustrates the reasons for engaging with learners’ errors.
6.3.1 Correcting learners’ mistakes or errors
Driven by the urge to correct learners’ mistakes, the participants articulated in different ways how this is the driving force for them to engage with learners’ errors:
Kwaku: When I have given an assessment, I do the corrections on the chalk board then I do analyse those errors and tell them that you have made these errors and next time when you write the same paper or when you get to the exam you mustn’t do this errors. I do this so that they know what they did wrong.
Zafira: Yeah, I do engage with learners’ errors in the form of corrections, you can put it like that, because doing corrections will help learners see where they went wrong.
Anele: I engage with errors or mistakes because learners need to know what they did wrong.
One of the ways I do engage with learners’ errors is just marking and providing corrections to that activity on the board and going through each question step by step and trying to clarify.
Based on the above extracts, it was evident that Zafira, Kwaku and Anele are more concerned with letting learners know what they did wrong rather than why they are wrong and how they can improve in the future. Engaging with learners’ errors is used as a corrective measure;
however, the emphasis seems to be on developing procedural knowledge.
6.3.2 Providing feedback to promote learning
Another reason highlighted by the participants was based on the quest to give feedback on learning:
Zafira: I get to tell them that as I was marking, I noted some of you did this error and that error and make sure that when you write in an examination you don’t repeat the same errors. So that is how I encourage them not to repeat the same errors they’ve done in the assessment, to give feedback to learners.
Kwaku: Precisely, yes, it’s a way to give feedback to learners because I am of the view that my learners need to know as to how they did and where are their strong points and their weak points and what to improve and what to do to ensure that they pass eventually. I revise the paper and try to use the board. I use the board so that I can explain so everyone can have the chance
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of looking at what is happening and, we do it step by step or we do it bit by bit up until we end up finishing. And then after seeing that am done with a particular portion, I also give them another activity to check if there are those who are still struggling so that I can try to assist them Anele: I do it in order to provide feedback to my learners on the assessment they do, for them to know their mistakes so that they do not do the same mistake repeatedly. Usually, as a mathematics teacher who gives informal tasks now and again, it is oral feedback where I just talk to the learner or the class as to what was expected of them, where they went wrong, and how they can improve. But for moderation purposes, if it is a formal task, we call analysis of learner’s errors to check as to how the learners answered the questions and to pick up some errors they have done in the task.
While all agreed that they are engaging with learners’ errors to give feedback to learners, Anele added a new dimension of doing it for the purpose of informing the authorities about the performance of learners. As they mention, the basic drive is to give feedback to learners about their understanding of the concept taught or to report to authorities.
6.3.3 To reteach concepts
One of the reasons teachers engage with learners’ errors is to provide remediation. In the interviews the participants mentioned remediation as reteaching of concepts:
Kwaku: I mark and provide corrections; I apply my peer teaching so if after those two and I don’t get the desired outcome then I reteach. I start to teach as if I never taught the lesson…
Anele: I give feedback to learners after assessment by revising the paper in order to speak to learners’ mistakes and I try to use the board. I use the board so that I can explain so everyone can have the chance of looking at what is happing and also, I do it step by step or we do it bit by bit up until we end up finishing. And then after seeing that am done with a particular portion, I also give them another activity to check if some are still struggling so that I can try to assist them. And just because of the time, it can happen that sometimes I ask other learners to do peer teaching.
Despite the above reasons why teachers engage with learners’ errors, some of the participants also indicated challenges as to why they do not engage with learners' errors, for example, time constraints:
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Kwaku: To be honest, time is a challenge for me to engage with my learners’ errors properly, because the subject advisors and head of the department are all concerned with curriculum coverage. They don’t want to hear anytime so I am so trying to finish the curriculum at the expense of learners.
Anele: … And just because of the time, it can happen that sometimes I don’t do it, so I ask other learners who understand the concept to do peer teaching.
Based on the participants’ responses it was evident that the quest to improve teaching and learning is the main reason they engage with learners’ errors. In conclusion, the finding is clear that the reasons why Grade 9 mathematics teachers engage with learners' errors include but are not limited to providing feedback, correcting learners' mistakes, and remediation.
In the next section researcher presents findings from observing the participant practices. While it was necessary to hear the extent to which they engage with learners’ errors the researcher deemed it equally important to explore if the said practices are indeed implemented in practice