Common English Language Errors for English Learners

Learning a language is a challenge, and for each learner the journey is different. However, everyone’s journey shares a some of the same challenges. With this material, help your students overcome some of the most common problems and misunderstandings that arise when learning English!

These materials group 16 different areas of problematic language into 5 separate lessons or activities. Use the Powerpoint presentation (also provided in PDF format) to present the areas of language you will be looking at, then give students the reading tasks to complete to practise and demonstrate understanding!

Each reading task is divided into 4 parts:

a 2-part story using and eliciting the target language where learners have to choose the correct form,

…and…

a 2-part review of the story where they no longer select answers from provided choices, but produce the correct form from their own language knowledge.

Pictures and visual aids enhance comprehension, and examples of language forms are provided for each problem area. Easily adaptable and extendable, these materials should be invaluable in improving your student’s English language ability!

The language addressed in these materials are as follows:

Section A

Borrow and lend
Look and Watch
Listen and Hear
By and until
Let and make

Section B

Notice and realize
Farthest and Furthest
Either and neither

Section C

Superlatives: More and –er
Fewer and less

Section D

Conditional forms of “If”

Section E

Many and much
Many and a lot of
Any and every

The included files are: Reading Tasks (PDF format, 10 pages), Powerpoint (22 slides, editable), PDF version of Powerpoint