A short informal talk by Ming (Agents of Speech) about how to correct children’s speech. Ming argues that forcing a child to repeat corrected phrases (e.g., 'repeat after me') can damage trust and make children reluctant to speak; instead, adults should provide feedback that preserves rapport. The content contrasts language learning correction styles and emphasizes maintaining a positive interaction.
If you are learning a new language and you're learning a bunch of vocab, and then whenever you say something that is incorrect in terms of grammar and then someone just likes to tell you to repeat after them until you're correct, you would be annoyed because you want to go ahead with your work on your day. So it's the same with children. And if you going down and tell them, okay, that's not what you say. You say, give me whatever. Can you say it now? You say give me something and it's going to drag on and everyone's not going to have a good experience. So I see a lot of parents and teachers doing this and it feels like you're teaching the kid. You are teaching the child, but at what, at the expense of the trust? That's what I'm trying to say. The children will get scared of you whenever you try to approach them and tell them to repeat something after that. So we don't want to do that. Instead, we should provide feedback.
